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Arabized version of the guard named Lynndie.
In April 2004, photos showing abuse of prisoners at the prison emerged. The images showed US personnel intimidating and threatening prisoners with dogs, with Iraqis hooded, naked, and forced into strange formations. Allegations in later lawsuits filed by Iraqis also alleged physical and sexual abuse, electric shocks, and the conducting of mock executions.
Maleji stumbles in shame when asked what happened to him there.
"I was one of those Linda forced to be naked," he finally says. "There were sniffer dogs and sound bombs. They would take off our clothes and splash cold water in the cells in winter on our blankets and clothes so we couldn't sleep or sit."
After he was released, one of the other former inmates showed him a newspaper photo with the pyramid they were forced into participate in and a smiling Lynndie England, one of the US military police imprisoned for the absuses.
"It's hard for me to say this," he exclaims, biting his lip as he describes another incident. "We were totally naked and they were beating us with sticks on our genitals."
No justice for all
Eleven soldiers of a military police battalion were eventually charged with assault and dereliction of duty. Army Specialist England was sentenced to three years in prison. Her then-fiance Charles Granger, also in many of the photos, received 10.
Several dozen former inmates settled out of court with a US military contractor accused of being involved in the abuse. A US district court in June ruled it had no jurisdiction to hear a lawsuit by former Abu Ghraib inmates against another US military contractor, since the abuses were committed outside the United States.
Maleji was one of those who simply faded away, returning to Sadr City after he was released, too sick to work.
He returned a broken man, to a broken family. His wife left him and their four young children after he was imprisoned, leaving Maleji's elderly mother to care for them.
"I didn't recognize my father when he came back. He was different - he was so weak," says Hawra'a, his eldest daughter, now 17.
Hawra'a and his eldest son Karrar dropped out of school when he was jailed.
"I could see that my grandmother was getting old so I started cleaning and washing the younger children's clothes, just like my mom and grandma used to do," says Hawra'a.
"I swear I was going crazy - there wasn't enough time to go to school or take exams."
When her teachers asked to see her parents or offered to tutor her at home to improve her grades she would make up excuses. "I can't tell them my mother left, I would say'she's sick' and then they would say 'what about your dad?'"
It became easier to stay at home. For the past few years, she has stayed in the house, cleaning and waiting for her younger brother and sister to come home and tell her about their day. She says she would have loved to have finished school and go on to college, but feels like her life is over.
"I don't go out or visit friends because my friends talk about studying and then what can I say to them?" she says.
Maleji's youngest daughter, Ethar, 14, says she dreams of being an artist and travelling the world. Pretty in a pink headscarf and black cloak, she sits at a plastic table in front of a poster of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohamed, in their makeshift house and draws cartoon characters with pencil crayons.
More than anything, she wants a normal home.
"I want to be happy like other families who have fun," she says peevishly. "We even spend feast days at home."
They all agree the father they knew came back a changed man.
"He wakes up anxious and screaming," says Ethar, speaking about her father as if he weren't there. "He wants quiet, he doesn't want anybody to talk. Its not like in the past when he was laughing and talking - now he keeps thinking quietly and doing that stuff with his hands."
No government assistance
The Iraqi government says it has no programmes to assist former prisoners such as Maleji, but its human rights ministry is registering people in the event Iraq is ever compensated for abuses by the US military and its contractors. Asked if he has seen a doctor to help him stop biting himself, he retrieves tubes of skin cream from a dermatologist.
In the old days before so many Iraqi families fell apart, neighbours took care of each other - not so now. The family's home is at the construction site of a doctor building her house. Maleji struggles to pay her $250 a month in rent.
The two rooms of unfinished brick are covered with giant posters of Imam Hussein surrounded by children. Mattresses are stacked under the concrete steps to try to keep them dry when the unfinished roof lets in the rain.
His family is used to not having much. Although he is able to work in construction only a few hours a day when he can find work, it doesn't seem to have occurred to Maleji to ask anyone for help.
His mother, in her 70s, has tattoos on her wrists in the shape of bracelets. "We couldn't afford gold when I was married," she says.
Maleji bends down and kisses her on the head. Then he sits down and quietly lights another cigarette.Rebecca Mader
It's finally time for Evil vs. Wicked!
Now that the beleaguered residents of Storybrooke have discovered the Wicked Witch's identity, Sunday's episode of Once Upon a Time (8/7c, ABC) will find Zelena (Rebecca Mader) bringing the fight straight into town. Very clearly making her motivations known, Zelena challenges her little sister Regina (Lana Parrilla) to a fight at dusk.
Lightning Round 12: Once Upon a Time bosses answer your burning questions
"It's pretty epic," Mader tells TVGuide.com. "It's definitely the showdown of all showdowns. I couldn't believe it. They basically shot it like a cowboy western. The promo is so fitting. It was a really big night and a big shoot. It's all built to this moment of who's going to win: Wicked vs. Evil. It's a pretty exciting moment in Sunday night's episode."
With Zelena's identity out in the open, you would think she'd now have to change tactics. However, with the Dark One (Robert Carlyle) on her side, the Wicked Witch of the West fears nothing. "She's very set on her end game," Mader says. "She feels very in control of her mission. If you control the dagger, you have nothing to fear."
Well, there is one thing to fear. After a photo of Zelena kissing Rumplestiltskin was released, the fans went crazy online. "That was just in between takes, just hanging out," Mader jokes. "I didn't know that photo was coming out. I saw everyone screaming at me on Twitter. Any fans of Belle [Emilie de Ravin] and Rumple are like, 'What are you doing?!' I'm just not responding because there's nothing I can say other than you'll have to tune in to [the April 20 episode] for that one."
Fans may be even more upset when they soon discover why Zelena is so intrigued by Snow's (Ginnifer Goodwin) baby. The increasing interest has turned the Wicked Witch into something of an enigma. How is Snow's baby connected to Zelena's hate for her sister? A trip to Oz may provide answers. "You're going to get Zelena's backstory," Mader says of Sunday's episode, which features a trip to the Emerald City. "You're going to see when she wasn't wicked and when she wasn't green. It's more of a case of feeling wronged: Why she's so pissed off and why she's become so wicked and what she really wants and how she wants it to go down. There's going to be a lot of stuff revealed, including a lot of different aspects of her personality and her heart."
Once Upon a Time bosses on shocking death and what's next
This Oz, however, might not be what fans of L. Frank Baum's original novel imagined. "It's got nods to the original, but the writers have put their own wicked flavor to it," Mader says. "It's not a carbon copy. It's a new Once Upon a Time version, which is fun."
Regardless of who comes out on top on Sunday, Mader just feels extremely lucky to have been cast in the role — even if it means hours of makeup to get that shiny green look. "We've got it down now to about an hour, which isn't too painful," she says. "It's pretty intense to get off. We use an oil-based makeup remover, and usually have two people and me scrubbing off until like 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning when you wrap, and you're like, 'Get it off!' Then sometimes I'll get back and the next day I've got like green down the back of my neck. It gets everywhere. I've got it in my hands and my fingernails. Sometimes my fingers are still green when I'm lying in bed at night."
Well, as this Sunday's episode title fittingly puts it, "It's Not Easy Being Green."
Once Upon a Time airs Sundays at 8/7c on ABC.Well its not the full game for now, but Forge mode is coming to windows 10. Halo 5: Guardians’ Forge mode will be available on Windows 10 as a free download later this year, Microsoft announced. Players will be able to create and play original levels on PC, as well as share them to the Xbox One version of the game.
What features does forge mode grant you?
Keyboard & Mouse Support – For the first time ever, Forgers will have the option of using a keyboard & mouse allowing for more precision and control than ever before.
Increased Resolution – Support for multiple resolutions including 4k.
Test and Play with Friends – Enlist the help of Friends to help build, test, and play your Forge creations on Windows 10.
Build on Windows 10 and Publish to Xbox One – Experiences built on Windows 10 can be published to and played on Xbox One, opening the doors for countless new experiences to be enjoyed by players all over the world.
Halo 5 can’t be to far from heading to PC. I’m predicting around fall time when we hear something about it.Already known as one of Michigan's worst air polluters, you could could argue that Severstal Inc. is the last company that needs a permit to emit more toxins.
But Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) did just that in May, which prompted the Sierra Club and three other petitioners to file a lawsuit Monday in Wayne County Circuit Court. The groups want the court to strike down the Dearborn steel company's permit, citing federal Clean Air Act provisions and actions allowing a state business-promoting agency to intervene with environmental regulators involved in a permit decision.
The permit allows Severstal to release more than 725 times more lead into the air from one portion of the company’s plant, compared to the original permit from 2006, the Detroit Free Press reported prior to the approval. The new permit lets the company pollute at levels already cited more than 30 times in clean air enforcement actions by the DEQ, according to the Sierra Club.
The Sierra Club and three other groups filed suit against the State of Michigan for letting this plant in Dearborn emit even more pollution into the air. Photo credit: Michiganradio.org
“The decision to grant this permit to pollute violates the Clean Air Act and means families living in Dearborn and Detroit will be breathing more toxic air for years to come,” Rhonda Anderson, the Sierra Club’s senior Detroit organizer, said in a statement.
The South Dearborn Environmental Improvement Association, Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice and the Original United Citizens of Southwest Detroit also field the suit. Coincidentally, the groups filed the suit the same day that West Chester, OH-based AK Steel bought Severstal for $700 million. That didn't take any eyes off the permit, though.
“It’s outrageous and just wrong to put a corporate polluter's interest ahead of public health,” Tyrone Carter, president of the Original United Citizens of Southwest Detroit, said. “There are kids growing up and going to school within sight of this plant who deserve and have a right to be protected from harmful pollution by a company that makes millions of dollars in profits but won’t be required to comply with clean air laws.”
A 90-day review of emissions from a Severstal smokestack two years ago revealed 1,660 violations of state and federal regulations for smoke opacity, which is a measure of particle levels in the smoke. Still, the company received the permit shortly after a visit from Gov. Rick Snyder, in which some alleged the governor received a Russian vase and a $1,000 contribution from Severstal’s top North American official. The chair of the state's Democratic party deemed the permit "backdoor politics at its worst," while Rhonda Anderson of the Sierra Club said it was "an embarrassment" for the state.
“We are doing this for our kids and our grandkids,” said South Dearborn Environmental Improvement Association board member Abdo Bapacker. “Many families in the South End are sick from breathing polluted air.”All weekend long, I have been watching conservative rock star Senator Ben Sasse engage with Trump supporters on Twitter. He has been making it clear, without saying as much, that Trump is a completely unacceptable option. Tonight, Sasse became the first elected Republican to explicitly join the #NeverTrump movement:
In a lengthy Facebook post, Senator Sasse futher explained his position:
AN OPEN LETTER TO TRUMP SUPPORTERS
To my friends supporting Donald Trump:
The Trump coalition is broad and complicated, but I believe many Trump fans are well-meaning. I have spoken at length with many of you, both inside and outside Nebraska. You are rightly worried about our national direction. You ache about a crony-capitalist leadership class that is not urgent about tackling our crises. You are right to be angry.
I’m as frustrated and saddened as you are about what’s happening to our country. But I cannot support Donald Trump.
Please understand: I’m not an establishment Republican, and I will never support Hillary Clinton. I’m a movement conservative who was elected over the objections of the GOP establishment. My current answer for who I would support in a hypothetical matchup between Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton is: Neither of them. I sincerely hope we select one of the other GOP candidates, but if Donald Trump ends up as the GOP nominee, conservatives will need to find a third option.
Mr. Trump’s relentless focus is on dividing Americans, and on tearing down rather than building back up this glorious nation. Much like President Obama, he displays essentially no understanding of the fact that, in the American system, we have a constitutional system of checks and balances, with three separate but co-equal branches of government. And the task of public officials is to be public “servants.” The law is king, and the people are boss. But have you noticed how Mr. Trump uses the word “Reign” – like he thinks he’s running for King? It’s creepy, actually. Nebraskans are not looking for a king. We yearn instead for the recovery of a Constitutional Republic.Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
March 12, 2015, 4:00 PM GMT / Updated March 12, 2015, 4:45 PM GMT
Four different African nations now want to kill Abubakar Shekau, the leader of Boko Haram, because they think that without its charismatic chief the terror group that controls a huge chunk of Nigeria could wither and die.
But Shekau’s enemies have “killed” him before, and each time Shekau has resurfaced with a mocking video disproving the claim. And even though the U.S. is now using drones to aid the multinational African task force tracking Shekau, U.S. officials say finding and killing him remains a challenge.
Last week, Chadian president Idriss Deby, whose country has joined Nigeria, Cameroon and Niger in pursuit of Shekau, called on him to surrender or die in the clearest indication of how important Shekau is to the task force.
"Abubakar Shekau must surrender. … If he doesn't give himself up he will suffer the same fate as his compatriots," said Deby at a news conference.
Deby also said the task force has been tracking Shekau and knows where he is.
"He was in Dikwa two days ago," said Deby, naming a Nigerian town near the Chad and Cameroon border where the nation’s combined forces fought a pitched battle with Boko Haram last week. "He managed to get away but we know where he is. It's in his interests to surrender."
U.S. officials understand and support the emphasis on killing Shekau. One senior intelligence official said Shekau was “integral” to Boko Haram’s battlefield success and noted that “there doesn’t seem to be a charismatic leader below him.”
"Senior Nigerian security officials with whom I have spoken make no secret of their desire and that of their allies to target Boko Haram's Abubakar Shekau,” said J. Peter Pham, director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center.
Although operating mostly in Nigeria, Shekau has moved across the area's porous borders into Chad, Niger and Cameroon, on occasion. One U.S. official said he's known to visit Chad where two of his favorite wives live. The multinational task force stalking him is primarily made up of forces from Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger, with Benin also playing a role. The Chadian army is the largest and best trained of the four main participants, say U.S. officials.
The U.S. has offered intelligence help to the task force. One Pentagon official said the U.S. has a drone base in Niger that could be engaged in the hunt for Shekau. In the past, Nigeria has resisted such help, but said the official, "that's changed now."
Rear Admiral Gabriel Okoi, the head of Nigerian intelligence, seemed to reference the drones in an Atlantic Council event in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, saying “the Americans … are helping us with air assets … that are outside Nigeria.”
But African officials have complained both publicly and privately that the information arrives too late. As Okoi said Wednesday, “It is a day after that, 24 hours after that, that we get information, 'Oh, this is what we saw.' Twenty four hours is too late for us."**********************************************************************************
PROJECT FUNDING UPDATE:
We did it!
Thank you so much to our 1953 backers. In the final day we surpassed our goal of pre-selling 2,000 copies (in the end it was 2029 hard cover books).
You can still check out the project here, but if you missed the Kickstarter campaign and want information about ordering a copy of What Makes a Baby when it’s published, head over to www.what-makes-a-baby.com. And thanks!
**********************************************************************************
About This Project:
What Makes a Baby is my response to the fact that books about where babies come from leave many of us out. They tell a nice story (mommy + daddy + intercourse = you!) but the truth is that more and more of us are acknowledging the help we get to bring children into our lives. That help might be a doctor, fertility clinic, adoption or foster agency; it might be a turkey baster and a friend; it might be a sperm donor or a surrogate. What Makes a Baby helps parents tell children a story about where they came from that isn’t just true for them, but true for everyone.
Crafted for children roughly from pre-school to 8-years-old, What Makes a Baby is written and illustrated to include all kinds of kids, all kinds of adults, and all kinds of families - regardless of how many people were involved, what the orientation, gender identity, or other make up of the family is, or how it came to be that way. It's a social justice approach to sex education. Like all picture books, it's meant to be read to a child and gives the adult reader the opportunity to fill in as much detail as they would like.
Written by a certified sexuality educator, Cory Silverberg, and illustrated by award-winning Canadian artist Fiona Smyth, What Makes a Baby is being designed and produced with the help of Zab Design & Typography and will be an exquisitely made hardcover picture book. 32 pages and full color, it will be as fun to look at as it is useful to read.
SAMPLE OF 'POP PORTRAIT' $500 REWARD
Why We Want to Make This Book:
Cory: I was raised by a sex therapist and a librarian, and I’ve spent most of my life thinking, writing, teaching, and talking about sex. For most of my childhood, I was left out and felt different from other kids, even though I secretly suspected I wasn't – and I don’t believe I am alone in that! Now that I’m a sex educator and writer, the way I do my work is to teach and tell stories that both acknowledge our differences and connect all of us to each other. I also have lots of experience in media production and marketing, some experience in publishing – AND energy to spare! When you back this project, I will make it flourish in a way that will make you proud to say “I helped make this happen!”
Fiona: I’ve loved drawing and books ever since I was a kid, so helping create a picture book is a dream come true. When I was young, children’s books revealed to me other worlds and possibilities, and helped me discover my vocation. I grew up to become an artist, illustrator, graphic novelist, and OCAD U instructor. In my art, I try to create accessible work that speaks truthfully of human experience. The work is often about identity and empowerment. I have experience in self-publishing zines, cartooning, illustrating books, creating art shows, and art education. With this collaboration, you will be taking part in making a very special book – beautiful, engaging, and impactful.
What We Already Have:
We have the story: Cory Silverberg, respected in communities across Canada and the US for his writing and teaching on sexuality/sexual health, sexuality and disability, and sexuality and technology, has worked lovingly on the narrative and picked the choicest words. It has been written and worked over through dozens of test readings with families of all kinds. (Check out a recent article on Cory!)
We have an illustrator: The amazing Fiona Smyth will bring her wondrous and radical eye to the project, creating rich illustrations that draw children and adults in, without shutting anyone out.
We have the community: You! Which brings us to…
What We Need from You:
Our initial goal was to raise the funds to:
· Pay for the time and labor to create the phenomenal illustrations
· Pay our amazing designer
· Cover the costs of the first print run of 3,000 books (including shipping it out to all of you)
We reached that goal on our first day!! So we know the book is going to be published.
Now it's about getting it out there. This book is so needed in so many communities, and the more copies people pre-order the more we'll be able to get the book out in the world in a way that works for many and not just a few.
This is a project that has elements that traditional publishers would balk at. The way we want to create the illustrations, the collaborative process from start to finish, and the local printing are all things that even supportive publishers aren't set up to do. This isn't a diss to publishers at all, they make great books. But this is a different kind of project and we need to prove to ourselves, to publishers, and to the general public, that it can work. Your support let's us do it ethically and do it right. It's also a way of making a statement about the value of inclusive stories. Which is why our different reward levels are tagged with various acts of resistance.
All children deserve stories that teach them not only about how they are unique, but also about what connects them to all other humans. What Makes a Baby tells that story without leaving some people out because of their gender, orientation, or family make up. Please back this project and bring more stories of love and all of our fabulous family creation stories into the world.
Questions?
If you’re not sure how this whole Kickstarter thing works, check out their FAQ page. If you have any questions at all about the project, about where your money will go, or if you have ideas or suggestions of ways to collaborate please get in touch. You can email Cory at cory@corysilverberg.com
International backers (outside the U.S. or Canada) please add $20 to help us with the cost of shipping.ROAD TO PERDITION is entirely too self-serious and poorly written than it deserves to be. Director Sam Mendes follows up the vastly superior AMERICAN BEAUTY (1999) with a dreadfully boring but pretty-looking waste of Tom Hanks and Paul Newman with this film. Stanley Tucci and Jude Law are also underused, but the missed potential of a Hanks-Newman tour de force haunts the movie at every turn. Strangely enough, the actor given the most to do is Daniel Craig, although his character is still uninteresting and Craig -- mostly unknown at this point -- is still wet behind the ears.
I don't like to hate on movies, and so usually I'll be nicer than the bad ones probably deserve, (Will's review of a garbage fire: "Warmed me up! A+") but ROAD TO PERDITION is just so disappointing. I loved AMERICAN BEAUTY and SKYFALL (2012), and obviously Paul Newman and Tom Hanks are my dream dads, so I was really looking forward to watching it. It's tough to see why someone thought the screenplay was worth producing, honestly. The idea of a period crime drama with a powerhouse lineup is obviously enticing, but not like this. Not like this at all. The only times the story isn't predictable is when it's even lamer than you'd expect. I should have realized what I was getting into when Tom Hanks appeared with a nightmare mustache (which appears to have been removed from the poster above, interestingly enough) or when he sat down at the piano to play cinema's weirdest duet with Paul Newman. Think about that: instead of spending time preparing a legendarily emotional and compelling scene to give to Paul GD Newman and Tom GD Hanks, the filmmakers/studio/the sweet Lord above decided to have two American heroes practice performing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star while gazing into each other's eyes.If you need to develop any websites then in your entire mind first issue will be create that which language will be preferable for me? Each and every language and platform have their best salient features which allow users to make an innovative application. Nowadays the times of free open source customization which allow you to make web application with free open source. You can create any application with free open source.
PHP is a free open source which is the easiest way and very fast and also reliable and flexile open source which is the best for ecommerce solutions. PHP has many of features which are the best for small business owners who can custom their web application in small budget with PHP programming.
One the biggest issue to choose best PHP Development Company, which offer you latest technology of PHP application development, PHP programming, custom php development. India is the best place for outsource PHP development India. Choose the company which helps you to make beneficial application which exact needs of your online business. Choose the right company which publishes you different on the internet from other business. Professional websites and SEO friendly website and user friendly websites make you better in online business. So it’s a required to make a website also attractive and its help you better online.
If you are online business owners and you need to develop dynamic website then you should go for PHP development because it helps you to grab more you in online business. Choose the company which has largest portfolio and strong knowledge of PHP programming services.
Some basic ideas to Choose PHP Development Company:
Ø Professional web development company
Ø Have largest portfolio
Ø Have developers whom have good command on English
Ø Expert PHP developer
Ø Expertise in latest technology
Ø Understand clients requirements
Complete project within time limit Complete project within time limit
Ø Give a best support and services
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So Above All Feature Company helps you to develop your web application in PHP with satisfaction. If you are finding outsourcing company then India is the IT hub for IT outsourcing and many company are outsourcing PHP application development. Also several companies offer you to hire PHP developer, PHP programmers, Hire web developers which can reduce 30 to 40 % cost from your budgetRelease News
Joomla! 3.6.5 Released
Joomla! 3.6.5 is now available. This is a security release for the 3.x series of Joomla! which addresses three security vulnerabilities, miscellaneous security hardening and three bug fixes; no further changes have been made compared to the Joomla! 3.6.4 release. We strongly recommend that you update your sites.
What's in 3.6.5
Version 3.6.5 is released to address three security issues, miscellaneous security hardening and three bugs.
Security Issues Fixed
Bug Fixes
[#12817] Fix Joomla Updater for Windows Users
[#12984] Fix installation language for sr-YU
[#12589] and [#13127] Fix default values for user creation on installation
Please see the documentation wiki for FAQ’s regarding the 3.6.5 release.
Download
Upgrade Packages: Upgrade Packages
Joomla! 3 upgrade packages Note: Please read the update instructions before updating. Please remember to clear your browser's cache and any webhost or CDN caching after updating.
A Huge Thank You!
Thank you to the Joomla! Security Strike Team for their swift resolution of this issue.
Joomla! Security Strike Team
A big thanks to the Joomla! Security Strike Team for their ongoing work to keep Joomla! secure.
Members include: Beat B., Brian Teeman, Mark Boos, Luca Marzo, Marco Dings, Thomas Hunziker, David Jardin, Alan Langford, Jean-Marie Simonet, Phil Taylor, Viktor Vogel, George Wilson, Davide Tampellini, André Pereira da Silva, Peter Martin, Claire Mandville and Yves Hoppe.
Security Team Leadership: Michael Babker, Coordinator
Joomla! CMS Release Team
A big thanks to the CMS Release Team for their ongoing work testing the pre-releases.
Members include: Alessandro Rossi, Leo Lammerink, Marc Antoine Thevenet, Philip Walton, Roland Dalmulder, Ilagnayeru Manickam and Tobias Zulauf.
CMS Release Team Leadership: Robert Deutz, CoordinatorDawn Braid was barely out of her teens the first time she coached hockey players. It was 1984 when her late father, then owner of the Vaughan Raiders, reached out in hope of improving the skating skills of players on his Junior B team.
His daughter had not only competed in three Canadian national figure-skating championships, but had just begun working as a novice coach at a Toronto-area club.
"My dad felt skating was important," says Braid, who grew up as one of 11 kids in the Toronto suburbs. "He was looking at it, and he thought [coaching] was something I could pursue beyond figure skating."
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The gig with the long-defunct Raiders was the first in a series of appointments that led to her being hired this summer as the first female full-time coach in the National Hockey League. Beginning this week, Braid will serve as the skating instructor for the Arizona Coyotes. She previously worked as a part-time consultant for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Buffalo Sabres, Anaheim Ducks and Calgary Flames.
"It is quite an honour," Braid, 52, says. "To become the first female coach in the NHL is not something I ever pursued, but I am proud of that. It is something that should be exciting to all women.
"I guess over the years I imagined it, but did I foresee it ever happening? No I didn't."
With the exception of the few years she took off to raise her two now-grown sons, Braid has been teaching hockey players the fine art of skating for three decades. The fact that she never played hockey has not proven a hindrance as she has mentored players from peewees to pro.
She has worked as John Tavares' offseason training instructor since the New York Islanders captain approached her at age 17. Dallas centre Jason Spezza and New Jersey left wing Mike Cammalleri are among her other disciples, along with dozens of players in the Ontario Hockey League, including Ryan Merkley, the first pick in April's priority selection draft.
Dawn Braid, a member of the coaching staff with NHL’s Arizona Coyotes is photographed following a training session with a hockey player in Toronto on Tuesday August 30 2016. Chris Young/Chris Young for The Globe and Mail
"We feel that Dawn can provide a real competitive advantage to our team," says John Chayka, the Arizona general manager. "She is at the top of her field, so we thought it was imperative to hire her. Players work hard for her and respect her knowledge. The bottom line is that she gets results. That's the key thing."
Braid has worked with NHL players since 2005, when the Leafs brought her in to oversee the skating portion at a development camp. She joins Kathryn Smith, hired last year by the Buffalo Bills, among the few full-time female assistant coaches in men's pro sports. The NBA broke the gender coaching barrier in 2014, when Becky Hammon was introduced as an assistant with the San Antonio Spurs.
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Braid was director of skating development at the elite Athlete Training Centre in Mississauga when Tavares came to her in the months before he was the chosen in the 2009 NHL draft. A prodigy along the lines of Sidney Crosby, Tavares had worked out at the facility since he was 13 and already played three seasons in the OHL, but knew he needed help.
"The way I skated was always kind of the knock against me," Tavares says. "After I went to Dawn, it opened my eyes to what a benefit it could be. It's funny. She still has videos of me from that first summer, and now they make me cringe. I can't even watch."
Tavares, who turns 26 on Sept. 20, says Braid corrected deficiencies in his forward stride so that he can now generate much greater speed. She has also corrected his posture to enable him to skate more effortlessly, and has helped him learn how to pivot more effectively and to be more deceptive.
"It started off very simply, and from the point there has been constant growth," Tavares says. "Now, for me, it's about putting a lot of little things together. My skating has really come a long way."
Tavares says his biggest worry when Braid was appointed to her full-time position in Arizona was securing off-season practice time with her. He already has her booked for next summer.
"When I heard she had been hired as a full-time coach, I couldn't have been happier for her," Tavares says. "It couldn't happen to a better person. It was more than overdue."
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In the hours immediately after her hiring, Braid received a long, congratulatory note from Tavares. Winnipeg coach Paul Maurice and Ryan Strome, a forward with the Islanders, also sent her messages.
"The response has been overwhelming," Braid says. "I am confident in what I do, but I am quiet as a person. I stay a little bit under the radar.
"I have never advertised my business, or even one of my skating schools. Everything has happened by word of mouth. I am proud of that. I didn't ask for this recognition."
Married for 27 years, Braid runs schools with help from her oldest son, Mackenzie. He played in the OHL for three seasons for the Barrie Colts, Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds and Sudbury Wolves.
She has spent most of this summer doing individual training sessions with pro players.
"My opening statement to them is that I know they are elite hockey players, and have a ton of respect for that," she says. "But then I also point out that they have come to me by choice because they want to get better.
"We spend our time tweaking habits and movement patterns that have developed over years. To me, it can be quite boring, but the players never seem to feel that way. They tell me, 'When we are getting better, we can see it coming out in our game. That's why we are here.'
"That is the part that is exciting to me. Players follow my lead and go with it."
Her mastery of skating, and her relationship with players has secured for her a place in history. Other women have been hired by NHL teams as skating instructors, but she is the first to do it full time.
Chayka called hiring her "a no-brainer." Tavares, who has gone from a No. 1 pick to one of the NHL's top players in a few short years, is celebrating her arrival. So, too, doubtlessly, are innumerable women who are trying break through ceilings elsewhere.
"I am just thrilled about the opportunity and very excited to work with Dave Tippett and his coaching staff and the great players in Arizona," she says. "I just can't wait to get started."
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Edmonton Oilers unveil their brand new Rogers Place rink The team began moving boxes into Rogers Place recently, and the cavernous building with soaring ceilings and escalators that climb as far as the eye can see still.Editor's note: This story was initially published Thursday at 8:40 p.m. EST. It has been updated to reflect Watkins' response on social media.
Official military records contradict several claims made by an Air Force veteran whose story of surviving the 9/11 terror attacks and battling severe combat injuries gained her access to prestigious events and captivated celebrities, most recently Republican presidential front runner Donald Trump.
Alicia Watkins, who retired from the Air Force in 2008 for undisclosed medical reasons, has since appeared on multiple mainstream news and TV programs, including "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and the TLC reality series "Say Yes to the Dress," to discuss her struggles after sustaining a career-ending back injury from an improvised explosive attack in Afghanistan.
However, there is nothing in the list of awards and decorations contained in Watkins' military personnel file indicating she was ever involved in an enemy attack. A spokesman for the Air Force Personnel Center in San Antonio, Texas, Mike Dickerson, provided Air Force |
oping for symmetry, we want to find one mhyp chunk for each playlist, as there was one mhit chunk for each song. Looking around, we know this iPod has three playlists yet there are four mhyp chunks. When we run our validation program on a variety of iTunesDB files, we learn there is always one more mhyp chunk than the number of playlists.
We will use our validation program to display information about the children of the mhyp chunks. It shows us that every mhyp chunk has a first child that is an empty string mhod chunk (type 100) with a mysterious extra 604 null bytes. Then it has an mhod chunk with a string in it. For the first mhyp chunk, this is the name of the iPod; for every other mhyp chunk it is the name of a playlist.
After the name mhod chunk comes a series of mhip and mhod pairs, until the next mhyp chunk. The mhod portion of the pair is an empty string. The number of these pairs is equal to the number of songs in the playlist. As far as the first playlist is concerned, it has the same number of mhip/mhod pairs as there are songs on the iPod. Thus, we can theorize that this first playlist is a master playlist containing one entry for every song on the iPod.
We know that a playlist is a named list of songs with a title. We found the name already, but we need to figure out how the list of songs is stored. We start by looking at the mhip chunk in Figure 18. n5 is the same order of magnitude as the date we found earlier. We saw n4 (2626) in the mhit data at n2. Thus, we can guess that n4 is a song identification number and that the mhip chunks use song identification numbers to specify which songs are in the playlist. We can add a test to the validation program to match n4 in the mhip chunks, with n2 in the mhit chunks to confirm our theory.
Figure 18. The mhip Chunk
The remaining mhip mystery is that the n3 number is similar in magnitude to the song key, n4. If we change our test program to look for songs whose key is the number following the key we already found, we won't find any songs with these identification numbers in any iTunesDB file. We can deduce, then, that it is a unique identification number for these chunks. Adding a test to our validation program confirms they are indeed unique. Figure 19 contains a diagram of the mhip data chunk.
Figure 19. The mhip Data Chunk
The mhyp chunk (see Figure 20) is the final chunk we need to evaluate. n1 is always 2. n2 is the number of songs in the playlist. The master playlist has n3 set to 1; all other playlists have it set to 0. n4 is a date, probably the date the playlist was created. n5 and n6 are the same for every mhyp chunk, and 72 null bytes always follow them.
Figure 20. The mhyp Chunk
Using the three reverse engineering strategies of hypothesis, pattern recognition and validation, we deciphered the iTunesDB file format. Hopefully the ideas presented here will help Linux users reverse engineer more devices and file formats to make them compatible with Linux.The idea that a foreign power might try to impact an American election sounds like a chapter ripped from a dystopian novel. It’s not. Serious questions emerged this week—in the aftermath of WikiLeaks publishing DNC emails that appear to have been stolen by Russian hackers trying to help Donald Trump—about whether Vladimir Putin is tampering with our domestic politics.
The Founding Fathers saw this coming.
It’s why President Washington and his speechwriter Alexander Hamilton devoted much of our first president’s Farewell Address to warning “against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.”
Here’s the story: Two hundred and twenty years ago, the sweltering streets of Philadelphia were buzzing with rumors that a foreign power was trying to destabilize the American government and determine the outcome of the next election.
At the executive mansion on Market Street, George Washington was preparing to kick off the first truly contested election in American history. His vice president, John Adams, represented the Federalist Party, while Washington’s former Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson was the leader of the Democratic-Republicans. While the parties broadly represented North versus South, urban versus rural interests—one might say blue states versus red states—the underlying animosities were rooted in associations with England versus France. Each faction saw the other as a quasi-treasonous proxy for foreign nations, and each saw the other as a threat to the republican covenant created by the Constitution.
This was not without reason. The English were abusing Washington’s policy of neutrality between Britain and France and they fully expected that the lost colonies would return to their rule. The new revolutionary government in France saw Washington’s neutrality as treason to the larger cause of international liberty and they dispatched an agent named Citizen Genet to destabilize the government through popular uprising. As historian Harlow Giles Unger explains, “If Washington’s government refused to cooperate, [Genet] was to exploit the Jeffersonian pro-French ferment in America to foment revolution, topple the American government, and convert the United States into a French puppet state. Once under French control, the United States would become part of a French-dominated American federation of Canada, Florida, Louisiana, and the French West Indies.” Jefferson’s partisans were seen as useful idiots in this effort.
So “history and experience” were anything but casu ally invoked in Washington’s parting words to his country.
Nor were they new concerns, even then. The dangers of foreign influence destabilizing democracy had been top of mind to the Founding Fathers since the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia during the summer of 1787.
In preparation, James Madison set about studying the mistakes previous republics had made so that America might avoid the same fate. He found history was littered with examples of republics losing their sovereignty through destabilization by foreign powers who wormed their way into domestic politics through pretend friendships and partisan alliances.
One prominent case was the ancient Greek city-states that banded together to beat back a foreign invasion from Persia. But the Greeks then continued to place their loyalties in their cities, not in Greece as a whole. Athens and Sparta, Madison noted in Federalist #18, “became first rivals and then enemies; and did each other infinitely more mischief than they had suffered from Xerxes,” the Persian king. The final blow to their freedom occurred when King Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, infiltrated select cities with bribes dressed up as foreign aid and splintered the alliance in order to ultimately conquer it. As Hamilton later explained, “ambitious Philip, under the mask of an ally to one, invaded the liberties of each, and finally subverted the whole.”
This lesson was reinforced during Washington’s presidency, when Poland ratified the first written constitution in Europe, attempting to press past the polarization and paralysis of its parliamentary monarchy. But squeezed between Russia and Prussia, Poland found its sovereignty systematically undermined by senate candidates who secretly served those neighboring states. With a weakened military, a series of forced partitions reduced Poland to a skeletal state.
So Russia’s got experience in this kind of thing, even before Stalin and his admirer Putin.
This fear of “the enemy within”—which has resurfaced throughout our history, often as a feature of the paranoid style in American politics—has its roots in real scars sustained in the early years of the republic. For more than a century, the fact that America was separated by the Atlantic from the contagious intrigues of Europe could mitigate those dangers. But the distance afforded by oceans was bridged long ago and now cyberspace makes a mockery of physical defenses.
Putin has shown a willingness to meddle in foreign elections to pursue his interests—chief among them is a destabilization of international alliances that check his own expansionist ambitions. The idea that Russia is seeking to influence America’s presidential election and propel a more admiring and compliant candidate into the White House may sound far-fetched on the surface, but a passing glance of history shows this play has been invoked to destabilize democracy for centuries.
Putin is well aware of this history. And we can’t say that George Washington didn’t warn us.Link of the day - Are you a person the world should know about?
http://www.catchapieceofmaine.com/
For USD 2,995, consumers can own a Maine lobster trap and all the lobsters it catches for an entire year through the Premium Trap program from Catch a Piece of Maine. As "partners," as the company calls them, customers of the program are assigned a dedicated lobsterman who will fish their trap throughout the 32-week season.
Everything he catches is tracked with a colour-coded band placed on the lobsters' claws, and all data is recorded online so that the partner can view their trap's activity, manage their catch and schedule shipments from anywhere. As lobsters are caught by the trap, the partner's account grows; as lobsters are requested for shipment, it decreases again. Lobsters can be shipped in batches of four as soon as they are caught, or they can be saved for later (in which case the company will substitute one just caught for the original); either way, details are included on when, where and by whom they were obtained.
Catch a Piece of Maine guarantees at least 48 1.5 lb lobsters for each partner—totalling over 70bs.—and also 12 lbs. steamer clams, 12 lbs. mussels, and 48 servings of Maine-made desserts over the course of the year. All shipments are sent via FedEx overnight delivery throughout the continental U.S.; shipping costs are included in the fee. Partners are even invited to come aboard the company's lobster boat in Maine if they can, to meet the lobstermen and experience the harvest first-hand. Corporate gifts and single-meal orders are also available, and Catch a Piece of Maine donates 10 percent of its profits to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, educating 5th and 6th grade students about the Maine lobster industry.
At a time when local fishermen are struggling to make a living, Catch a Piece of Maine's partnership program allows lobstermen to receive a premium for their product while also preserving their sustainable fishing methods, the company says. No less significantly, it also gives consumers an active hand in what has typically been a hands-off business. Finally, it dovetails nicely with the still made here trend, giving consumers a geographical connection and a story to tell about the source of their food.
[Via - SpringWise.Com]
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Weird $4 Gas Side-EffectGoogle I/O is Google’s developer conference (hence “I/O,” short for “Input/Output”), an event that showcases the very best of Google’s work over the last twelve months. So, we’re expecting nothing short of great things for Google I/O 2017, which will take place Wednesday, May 17 up through Friday, May 19 in Mountain View, California.
Android O
The biggest topic on tech enthusiast minds for Google I/O would have to be Android O, Google’s upcoming system update that is said to make Android better and more efficient in battery life, among other areas. The “O” in Android O still lacks a name and version number, though our best guess for the new update is Android Oreo, version 8.0. Google has teased Oreo cookies, so this is most likely the chosen name despite the company’s delay in announcing it.
From the first Android O developer preview, we can get a good idea for what Google’s Android O announcement will reveal: features such as greater background limits for processes, notification channels to increase user control, Autofill APIs to help fill in information such as the user’s name, address, zip code, telephone number, and so on, in the event of a retail or shopping purchase, as well as a picture-in-picture (PIP) mode designed for doing two things at once. Since Google has been invested in its developer previews, there are perhaps new features Google has added since the initial preview that we’ll get to see. Google could also announce the arrival of the Android Beta Program for Android O, which could allow consumers to test the software without having to manually install it. The tech giant always leaves surprises, and hopefully Google IO 2017 will bring a few of its own.
Google Assistant
Google Assistant was unveiled by Google last Fall when the search giant announced the beginning of its own smartphone collection with the Google Pixel phones. In fact, a large portion of the announcement’s beginning was consumed with Google Assistant – and with good reason. Though the Pixel and Pixel XL showcase Google Assistant marvelously, as the digital assistant can tell jokes, provide weather information, pull up information on anything from food to movies, cars, books, flights, and even vacations, the technology is looking dated at this point. Google intends to stay competitive in the AI space, considering that companies such as Apple and Samsung have launched their own AIs. Die-hard assistant lovers will want to know what Google intends to do to keep Google Assistant competitive in the months to come, and this could very well start with added support for new languages.
Google Assistant could see a roll out to the car (Android Auto), as Google is concerned with its new AI becoming a trend on as many devices as possible (though its landing on tablets is still delayed). Google has already started rolling out Google Assistant to other Android devices and is rumored to expand to the iOS mobile platform soon, meaning that iPhone users would also have access to the new AI. Perhaps this may be the push that Apple needs to get a little more “Siri-ous” about Siri. On the whole, expect Google Assistant to do more than it did when Google CEO Sundar Pichai unveiled it back in October.
Google Home
Alongside the Google Assistant is Google Home. When Google announced the device at last year’s I/O convention, the company commended Amazon for its Echo devices and praised Amazon’s creation as forward-thinking for the industry. When Google commends a product, it speaks volumes. Google Home has thus, been the answer to Amazon Alexa speakers.
Google has since partnered with Honeywell and Belkin Wemo so that their devices are controllable by way of Google Home and has brought Google Home compatibility to Netflix and Google Photos, demonstrating that the Google Assistant is the center of an automated home (the next big thing). We could see Google unveil a Google Home follow-up this year, along with some new capabilities and perhaps added ones that will appear on the current Google Home device. The stage has already been set for expanding Google Home functionality with the new voice-activated shopping as well as multi-user support made possible by Google Assistant. ‘Actions on Google‘ is in need of more developer support and the Google Assistant SDK is finally making its way out, a little late, but better than never.
Google Wi-Fi
Google Wi-Fi was announced last year to boost internet signals inside buildings and thus, improve internet access and performance. Little has been said about Google Wi-Fi, but we perceive an updated model is in the works. Google Wi-Fi will most likely work in tandem with Google Home, and if we’re lucky, we may just get a sneak peek at Google’s possible plans to launch a hybrid device sometime down the line.
Daydream VR
At Google I/O last year, the tech giant launched its very own Daydream VR platform for Android devices. Hints about the company’s VR headset (named “Daydream View”) were also revealed, as well as a design for Android OEMs to follow in crafting headsets of their own. We can see Google’s influence with Samsung’s new Gear VR with Controller that the Korean giant announced earlier this year at MWC 2017, but Google could announce a new design or at least hint at one for the upcoming Pixel 2 announcement this Fall. We could also see a new UI look for Daydream users, in lieu of Android O.
Daydream has been around for a year now, and the platform is in need of some new apps. We don’t know if Google will announce new partnering app companies, but we can expect some announcement regarding platform upgrades and changes at the upcoming event.
Android Wear
Google has had some Android Wear announcements at the Google I/O developer conferences of years past. In 2014, Google announced the Android Wear platform. At Google I/O; in 2015, Google announced software changes to Android Wear. In 2016, Google announced changes that would come to the wearables platform in Android Wear 2.0. And yet, the company finds its platform in a rather hard place in 2017. Samsung left Android Wear after crafting the Gear Live smartwatch in 2014, and Motorola announced at the end of 2016 a possible departure from Android Wear. This week, rumors are circulating that ASUS will also drop out, and Sony, having announced a Smartwatch 3 for Android Wear two years ago, doesn’t have a Smartwatch 4 in the works.
Yes, there are brand players in the space such as TAG Heuer, Casio, Swarovski, and other Android OEMs such as ZTE with its Quartz smartwatch, for example, Huawei with its Watch 2 and Watch 2 Classic, Movado with five new watch models, New Balance with its RunIQ athletic wrist wearable, LG and Google with the new LG Watch Sport and LG Watch Style, and Big Red brings its Wear 24 smartwatch into the race, but the departure of well-known Android smartphone OEMs doesn’t bode well for the platform. We’re in the dark as to how Google plans to counteract or respond to Android Wear OEM departures, and, with Android Wear 2.0 having been released earlier this Spring, we don’t expect an Android Wear 3.0 announcement any time soon. Perhaps Google will announce some new partners.
Chromecast
Google has pushed ahead in the rising demand for more multimedia content. The company’s first Chromecast was designed to provide great video and TV show quality for those who want to project their phone shows and videos onto the big screen (just plug-in the dongle in the TV, connect to Wi-Fi, and that’s it). The company has followed up with the success of its $35 Chromecast with the $69 4K Chromecast Ultra last Fall at the Made By Google 16 event. The goal, as always, is to provide great multimedia content no matter which device you’re using at the time. Just what surprises for Chromecast lie in store are a matter of waiting and watching, but we could see some price drops on current Chromecast devices and perhaps an updated design. Keep in mind that Google also re-branded Google Cast to ‘Chromecast Built-in‘ mid-way through the year, which may come with some implications. We hope to find out more.
Android TV
Google doesn’t want to be left behind in the Smart TV sector, either, especially with Google Assistant now on Android TV. And yet, since the roll out of Google Assistant to the device, all has been quiet on this front. Perhaps something is in store for Google I/O 2017, though one can only speculate. One idea is better integration with the rather new YouTube TV service. Another is some added content and support from third-party manufacturers as well as the developer community. It’s also possible that the capabilities of the Google Assistant for TV expand in order to help bridge the gap between other connected devices.
The main event is to be Google’s keynote, which will start promptly at 10:00am Pacific on Wednesday with Sundar Pichai. This address is expected to last for approximately one and a half hours before closing down into small groups for more detailed sessions.
For more on what to expect during the three days of Google-mania, read our roundup post linked below.
Here’s our weekly poll, aka question of the week. We’ve noted lots in this post, but what we really want to know is what tech slated for this year’s Google I/O developer conference are you most excited to hear about? We’ve included some likely choices, though it’s still anybody’s guess as to what Google will pick to address during its 1.5 hour keynote. Watch Google’s event online right here.
Submit your answer in our weekly poll. You can find it embedded down below or on our right sidebar. Be sure to let us know any of your thoughts in the comment section as well. We look forward to hearing your response.
Droid Turf will be covering the event starting Wednesday and ending Friday, as well as everything leading up to it and post event analysis as well as event insight. We’ll keep you posted on everything Google I/O 2017 right as it happens! Follow us on social media for up to the minute updates.While Spider-Man will spend'Amazing Spider-Man 2'continuing his romance with Gwen Stacy ( Emma Stone ) and will meet his future love, Mary Jane Watson, in'Amazing Spider-Man 3,' star Andrew Garfield has a different idea about Spidey's love life. What if he's gay?
Garfield spoke to Entertainment Weekly in advance of the 'Amazing Spider-Man 2' panel at Comic-Con 2013 and somehow the topic of Spider-Man's love life came to the forefront. And that's when Garfield revealed he spoke to the film's producers and director Marc Webb about a radical new idea.
I was like, ‘What if MJ is a dude?’ Why can’t we discover that Peter is exploring his sexuality? It’s hardly even groundbreaking!…So why can’t he be gay? Why can’t he be into boys?
Garfield even has an actor in mind: 'Chronicle' star Michael B. Jordan. "He’s so charismatic and talented. It’d be even better—we’d have interracial bisexuality!" says Garfield of the actor.
To be fair, Garfield (seen above on the set of 'Amazing Spider-Man 2' with Dane DeHaan, who co-stars as Harry Osborn) says he "was kind of joking, but kind of not joking," so we assume he's not literally lobbying for a bisexual Spider-Man but just theorizing about that possibility. In fact, it doesn't seem that far off to think that in 10-20 years, we'll have a superhero character in a major blockbuster who is gay.
It sounds like the 'Amazing Spider-Man' version of the character already has his girlfriends laid out for him but how would you feel about a gay superhero character in the future? Do you agree with Garfield that it's "hardly even groundbreaking?"This article is over 5 years old
A former Brazilian footballer, João Rodrigo Silva Santos, has been decapitated and his severed head delivered to his policewoman wife. Police in Rio de Janeiro said they suspect local drug traffickers.
The police unit that Santos's wife belongs to has been involved in a crackdown on Rio's gangs launched by the government to clean up Brazil's main cities before the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics.
Santos, 35, was kidnapped at night as he left the food shop he was running in the district of Realengo after retiring from football.
Early in the morning, his wife heard a noise outside her house and went out to check.
A backpack she recognised as Santos's was on the floor outside of the door. Inside was Santos's head. The G1.globo website reported the assailants had carved out the man's eyes and tongue.
"He was a good family man. He lived for football and played until recently," Bruno Santos, a friend of the victim said. "He had no enemies."
Santos played in several Brazilian teams, mainly in lower leagues and also briefly in Sweden.
He began with Bangu in 1996, before having stints at Olimpia, Nacional and the Swedish club Östers.In the aftermath of the presidential election, a bizarre narrative has emerged that the reason Donald Trump won (despite losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by three million votes) is that the media and political elite weren’t listening to “blue collar” white voters in the South and Midwest. We have been told by numerous pundits and politicians that the Democratic Party has abandoned working class whites, which allowed Trump to ride their pleas and economic concerns all the way to the White House.
Since then, the term “liberal bubble” has become weaponized, deployed in a nauseatingly self-righteous manner to dismiss everyone who holds values counter to Trump’s base. This week, for example, following Meryl Streep’s speech at the Golden Globes, Meghan McCain, political commentator and daughter of Senator John McCain, took to Twitter to claim that Streep’s speech is “why Trump won,” and that folks in Hollywood needed to recognize this, lest they enable his reelection.
I’m from the heart of “Trump’s America.” I was raised in Central Texas in white poverty. My father is a lifelong car mechanic, my mother worked minimum wage jobs throughout my childhood (and still does), and we lived in more trailer parks than I care to count, subsisting off welfare and the kindness of strangers. I proudly served in the military. I have been around “blue collar” folks my whole life—in fact, “blue collar” is a step up from my childhood experience—and I can tell you, without hesitation, that the “liberal bubble” is a destructive myth. I can tell you that these folks—my people—don’t need condescending conservatives speaking for our values because the truth is that (1) they don’t really give a fuck about us, and (2) we are not worthy of romanticizing.
Republicans have mastered wielding the struggles of poor white Americans as a cudgel against blacks, against Latinos, against women, against Jews and Muslims and LGBTQ folks. See them? They’re to blame for your struggle. You’re hurting because of them! I am tired of wealthy conservatives who have never set foot among us “white trash”—and sure as hell wouldn’t want their children marrying us—filming campaign commercials of themselves wading through star-spangled cornfields and ranting about the so-called “liberal bubble” and every buzzword that goes with it: Hollywood, communists, “college educated,” etc. There are white Americans who have never known a life other than living paycheck-to-paycheck. They don’t have any friends of color. They believe women belong in the home and that Islam is evil and that Jews killed Jesus and will burn in hell for it.
Never mind that Trump has gold-plated fixtures in every mansion he owns. Or that he got his start from his father’s seed money. Or that he wouldn’t piss on a poor white person if they burning alive. (Maybe if they were in a hotel bed in Moscow.) Never mind that Meghan McCain comes from a background of extraordinary privilege that made it even possible for her to land prestigious gigs at Saturday Night Live and The Daily Beast. Never mind all of that, because we’re supposed to believe that people like McCain and Trump understand “regular folks” like me.
To a certain extent, they're right. Trump understands that a number of rural Americans are fucking morons. And I’m not talking about folks too down on their luck to care about staying informed. I’m talking about people who have the access and resources and $70,000 median household incomes—they have no excuse not to know better, but stay willfully ignorant as a point of cultural pride. These are the folks who think intellectualism is a sign of weakness. In the arbitrary purview of toxic masculinity, books are frowned upon and brute strength and bluster are held up as virtues. These people occupy a world in which a swaggering John Wayne (who never served in the military during WWII, by the way) is somehow more patriotic than his liberal contemporaries who served in combat. Trump knows this. He knows how to ignite people’s worst impulses. He is the canvass upon which these folks project all their insecurities, the kind of people who are afraid of black and Latinos and Muslims and receive welfare while they rant against “government handouts.”
You know what I call a bigoted, moronic white person in a “blue collar” job? I call them a bigoted moron.
But Meghan McCain and all her conservative friends want all of us to believe that the bubble is exclusive to liberals on both coasts, not rural Americans who insulate themselves into an enormous social echo chamber, repeating the same stupid “facts,” fears, and conspiracy theories to each other while earnestly calling for a wall to be built upon the Mexican border.ONCE upon a time, there lived a man who was fascinated by the phenomenon of gravity. In his mind he imagined experiments in rocket ships and elevators, eventually concluding that gravity isn’t a conventional “force” at all — it’s a manifestation of the curvature of spacetime. He threw himself into the study of differential geometry, the abstruse mathematics of arbitrarily curved manifolds. At the end of his investigations he had a new way of thinking about space and time, culminating in a marvelous equation that quantified how gravity responds to matter and energy in the universe. Not being one to rest on his laurels, this man worked out a number of consequences of his new theory. One was that changes in gravity didn’t spread instantly throughout the universe; they traveled at the speed of light, in the form of gravitational waves. In later years he would change his mind about this prediction, only to later change it back. Eventually more and more scientists became convinced that this prediction was valid, and worth testing. They launched a spectacularly ambitious program to build a technological marvel of an observatory that would be sensitive to the faint traces left by a passing gravitational wave. Eventually, a century after the prediction was made — a press conference was called.
Chances are that everyone reading this blog post has heard that LIGO, the Laser Interferometric Gravitational-Wave Observatory, officially announced the first direct detection of gravitational waves. Two black holes, caught in a close orbit, gradually lost energy and spiraled toward each other as they emitted gravitational waves, which zipped through space at the speed of light before eventually being detected by our observatories here on Earth. Plenty of other places will give you details on this specific discovery, or tutorials on the nature of gravitational waves, including in user-friendly comic/video form.
What I want to do here is to make sure, in case there was any danger, that nobody loses sight of the extraordinary magnitude of what has been accomplished here. We’ve become a bit blasé about such things: physics makes a prediction, it comes true, yay. But we shouldn’t take it for granted; successes like this reveal something profound about the core nature of reality.
Some guy scribbles down some symbols in an esoteric mixture of Latin, Greek, and mathematical notation. Scribbles originating in his tiny, squishy human brain. (Here are what some of those those scribbles look like, in my own incredibly sloppy handwriting.) Other people (notably Rainer Weiss, Ronald Drever, and Kip Thorne), on the basis of taking those scribbles extremely seriously, launch a plan to spend hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of decades. They concoct an audacious scheme to shoot laser beams at mirrors to look for modulated displacements of less than a millionth of a billionth of a centimeter — smaller than the diameter of an atomic nucleus. Meanwhile other people looked at the sky and tried to figure out what kind of signals they might be able to see, for example from the death spiral of black holes a billion light-years away. You know, black holes: universal regions of death where, again according to elaborate theoretical calculations, the curvature of spacetime has become so pronounced that anything entering can never possibly escape. And still other people built the lasers and the mirrors and the kilometers-long evacuated tubes and the interferometers and the electronics and the hydraulic actuators and so much more, all because they believed in those equations. And then they ran LIGO (and other related observatories) for several years, then took it apart and upgraded to Advanced LIGO, finally reaching a sensitivity where you would expect to see real gravitational waves if all that fancy theorizing was on the right track.
And there they were. On the frikkin’ money.
Our universe is mind-bogglingly vast, complex, and subtle. It is also fantastically, indisputably knowable.
I got a hard time a few years ago for predicting that we would detect gravitational waves within five years. And indeed, the track record of such predictions has been somewhat spotty. Outside Kip Thorne’s office you can find this record of a lost bet — after he predicted that we would see them before 1988. (!)
But this time around I was pretty confident. The existence of overly-optimistic predictions in the past doesn’t invalidate the much-better predictions we can make with vastly updated knowledge. Advanced LIGO represents the first time when we would have been more surprised not to see gravitational waves than to have seen them. And I believed in those equations.
I don’t want to be complacent about it, however. The fact that Einstein’s prediction has turned out to be right is an enormously strong testimony to the power of science in general, and physics in particular, to describe our natural world. Einstein didn’t know about black holes; he didn’t even know about lasers, although it was his work that laid the theoretical foundations for both ideas. He was working at a level of abstraction that reached as far as he could (at the time) to the fundamental basis of things, how our universe works at the deepest of levels. And his theoretical insights were sufficiently powerful and predictive that we could be confident in testing them a century later. This seemingly effortless insight that physics gives us into the behavior of the universe far away and under utterly unfamiliar conditions should never cease to be a source of wonder.
We’re nowhere near done yet, of course. We have never observed the universe in gravitational waves before, so we can’t tell for sure what we will see, but plausible estimates predict between one-half and several hundred events per year. Hopefully, the success of LIGO will invigorate interest in other ways of looking for gravitational waves, including at very different wavelengths. Here’s a plot focusing on three regimes: LIGO and its cousins on the right, the proposed space-based observatory LISA in the middle, and pulsar-timing arrays (using neutron stars throughout the galaxy as a giant gravitational-wave detector) on the left. Colorful boxes are predicted sources; solid lines are the sensitivities of different experiments. Gravitational-wave astrophysics has just begun; asking us what we will find is like walking up to Galileo and asking him what else you could discover with telescopes other than moons around Jupiter.
For me, the decade of the 2010’s opened with five big targets in particle physics/gravitation/cosmology:
Discover the Higgs boson. Directly detect gravitational waves. Directly observe dark matter. Find evidence of inflation (e.g. tensor modes) in the CMB. Discover a particle not in the Standard Model.
The decade is about half over, and we’ve done two of them! Keep up the good work, observers and experimentalists, and the 2010’s will go down as a truly historic decade in physics.BitCharities Allows Social Media to Make a Difference
BitLanders is a social media platform that provides the “means and ends” to users engaging in incentive-based community content. Founder Francesco Rulli started the business formally known as Film Annex in 2006, and converted its sharing model to incorporate Bitcoin. The social media site rewards its users with the cryptocurrency based on content performance-measured algorithms voting on video, blog material and photos.
Also read: JoyStream Allows Users to Sell Bandwidth for Bitcoin
Currently, the site boasts a user-base of 500,000 registered users and continues to gain 1,000 new users per day. With small Bitcoin micropayments, Rulli believes that the traditional donation system can support a much larger effort. With its unique social media platform, BitLanders rewards users with an enriching environment for “social media addicts and gamers.” The software takes this new playing field and calculates each person’s social engagement with competitive ranking. At the end of every day, these calculations are added up to match your score with bitcoin, which is funded by BitLanders’ ad service. Francesco Rulli spoke with Bitcoin.com, telling us,
“The BitLanders’ community grows by 1,000 users per day. Some users are Bitcoin experts and others are social media addicts or gamers interested in new platforms and sources of inspirational rewards.”
This inspiration led the BitLanders team to form the cause BitCharities and its dedicated website. Through BitCharities, BitLanders users can donate their earnings to a range of charities and nonprofit organizations. 100% of the donations go to the specific missions, and the service connects them with donors and corporate supporters. BitLanders says, “You Win. We give on your behalf,” and they mean it. Founder Francesco Rulli tells Bitcoin.com readers,
“Bitcoin is the ideal currency for social good. It was a natural fit to educate our BitLanders users about doing social good and use the best tools made available by our services. The best way to increase your buzzscore and reward level is to post great content and donate money to charities. This is what fuels our platform growth; content and social good. Donations are made voluntarily by the user or supported by corporate donors. They can be as small as ten Satoshi, a low cost that allows any user on our platform to make a difference!”
Currently, BitCharities gathers over 10,000 daily donations. The goal is to empower digital citizens of any income level with its user-friendly ecosystem. There’s quite a list of participating charities that you can view here. Rulli and the BitLanders team promote the charities throughout the entire network, giving education to each promotion. With its buzz score sharing platform and access to improve social philanthropy, the site is unique and unlike Facebook or Twitter. The purpose is for you as the user to make money and improve the lifestyle of BitLanders site while increasing your social position.
BitLanders is breaking new ground in the land of social media, being one of the first legitimate bitcoin-based social media apps that seems to be flourishing. At the end of the day, individuals can cash out with their bitcoins or donate as much as they desire to various charities. This in turn has produced a strong and growing environment that other bitcoin-powered social media sites have yet to match. The platform grows quite rapidly on a daily basis, and founder Francesco Rulli is quite pleased with his results.
What do you think of Bitcoin Powered Social Media Sites? Let us know in the comments below!
Images courtesy of Pixbay, and RedmemesFORT MYERS, Fla. -- Good morning from the Fort, where the Boston Red Sox play the Baltimore Orioles -- the team that traded highly regarded pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez to Boston at the 201 |
stand out.[This unedited press release is made available courtesy of Gamasutra and its partnership with notable game PR-related resource GamesPress.]
BOSTON, MA – MARCH 28, 2016 – Independent studio Ape Law is set to release Episode 1 of the psychological horror game Albino Lullaby as an Oculus Store launch title tomorrow with the release of the Oculus Rift. The studio, comprised of veterans from Bioshock: Infinite, top-selling indie title Chivalry: Medieval Warfare and the Tomb Raider reboot, will bring their made-for-VR, no jump scares, no gore horror game on launch day to the Oculus on March 28 as well as the Vive on April 5. The new trailer features a streamer mashup playing Albino Lullaby both in VR and 2D: https://youtu.be/bm7iCQGZu1M Hailed by Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s Adam Smith as, “2015’s smartest horror game...” and summarized by Polygon’s Collin Campbell, "Part Stanley Parable and part Alfred Hitchcock... This is a sick place, full of sick allusions and sick jokes." “From the moment Albino Lullaby played so well on the DK1, we knew we had to move forward with VR in mind at every turn. We wanted to create a fantastic world for an ordinary person to explore as themselves in the role of the main character, and VR delivers that experience in a way never before so fully realized,” said Justin Pappas, creative director of Albino Lullaby and Founder of Ape Law. Current Albino Lullaby: Episode 1 Steam owners will receive a key for the Oculus store. Albino Lullaby: Episode 1 will be available from the main lobby of the Oculus store at launch, and the game is available now on Steam for $9.99 or as part of the Season One Pass for $24.99: http://store.steampowered.com/app/355860 Features of Albino Lullaby Include: • The Next Gen of Adventure Games - Player driven pacing, no cutscenes. • Transforming Game Space - Mechanical mansion deconstructs around you. • Environmental Storytelling - Intricate backstory conveyed through the game space. • Different Play Styles - Sneak or gung ho! • Episodic Releases - Pay as you go or get a season pass. • VR Ready - Built from ground up to play great on the Oculus Rift, Vive and Morpheus. With a game space that dynamically twists and contorts around you in real time, as you unravel an equally twisted narrative, Albino Lullaby shows that horror can be scary without jump scares or gore. Escape a surreal, psychological nightmare set in a dark and macabre Victorian town that clings to the precipices of underground cliffs. Discover hidden spaces haunted by 'The Grandchildren' and uncover clues to understanding just where and what you are. About Ape Law, LLC To make game for to give to man! Ape Law is an independent studio that exists to explore and experiment with games as the next great storytelling medium and was formed by Justin Pappas in the summer of 2013 in Cambridge, Mass. Justin has worked as a level designer on games like BioShock: Infinite and the Tomb Raider reboot and moved onto the indie scene in 2011 as the level design lead on Chivalry: Medieval Warfare. He is now the creative director and level designer for Albino Lullaby. Ape Law is comprised of other industry vets, who have worked on a myriad of games from Borderlands to Lord of the Rings Online and at studios like Warner Brothers, Hasbro and Harmonix. We are spread out over North America, from Toronto down to Austin and communicate primarily over Skype. Website: http://www.ApeLaw.com About Oculus Founded in 2012, Oculus VR, Inc. is building a next-generation consumer virtual reality platform. The company’s first product, the Oculus Rift, is a virtual reality headset that allows you to step inside a digital environment and feel as though you are truly there. The Oculus Rift provides an immersive, stereoscopic 3D view with an ultra-wide field of view and low latency head tracking that lets you look around naturally in 360 degrees. For more information, please visit http://www.oculus.com. ###Federal immigration could change forever under President Trump. The White House is expected to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival, the controversial DACA program that has given temporary legal reprieve to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants and has given conservatives fits since Obama bypassed Congress to start it in 2012.
But Judge Roy Moore doesn't know what that means. The former state Supreme Court justice and current front-runner in the special Alabama Senate primary appeared completely unclear on the concept during a July 11th local radio interview. [You can listen below with the exchange starting at 12:25]
Asked by WVNN's radio host Dale Jackson about Trump's push to end DACA protection for so-called Dreamers, a confused Moore responded "Pardon? The Dreamer program?"
JACKSON: "Yes, sir, the DACA/DAPA. You're not aware of what Dreamers are?"
MOORE: "No."
JACKSON: "This is a big issue in the immigration debate …"
MOORE: "Why don't you tell me what it is Dale and quit beating around and tell me what it is."
JACKSON: "I'm in the process of doing that Judge Moore."
MOORE: "OK."
It was the most cringe-worthy gaffe since Gary Johnson's " And what is Aleppo?"
After a lengthy explanation about how Obama created the program by executive order, Moore was indifferent at best and completely confused at worst.
The candidate first erroneously expressed gratitude that Congress has "already taken that up." And then ended the broadcast by promising that, if elected, "I would look at that program. I surely would. I think it needs to be looked at." It's not immediately clear if Moore even supports Trump's campaign promise to end the program.
Though most polls have Moore ahead of incumbent Sen. Luther Strange with a big lead ahead of the Sept. 26 Republican runoff, Moore is going to have to make up that knowledge gap. Of the almost 750,000 so called-dreamers in the United States, according to one estimate, at least 4,000 reside in Alabama.
Moore doesn't have much time to get fast. The runoff against Strange is just 25 days away.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.Houston (SPORSTSRADIO 610) – The Houston Texans linebacker Brian Cushing has been suspended 10 games on Wednesday for PED use, the team announced.
In a statement, the team did not reveal any more details.
“Brian Cushing of the Houston Texans has been suspended without pay for the team’s next 10 games for violating the NFL policy on performance enhancing substances.
Cushing’s suspension begins immediately. He will be eligible to return to the Texans’ active roster on Tuesday, November 28 following the team’s November 27 game against the Baltimore Ravens.”
Cushing is currently out for the Texans after suffering a concussion in Sunday’s game.
This is Cushing’s second suspension for performance enhancing drugs. He served a four game suspension in 2010. He won the Associated Press Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2009, even after a revote was taken after his suspension was announced.Mt Baldy Hike
In This Guide Turn by Turn Hike Directions & Hike Video
Mt Baldy Trail Maps
Picking the Right Time To Hike Mt Baldy
How to Get to the Mt Baldy Hike Distance 11 miles (17.7 km) Hike Time 7 Hours (Total) Difficulty Hard Total Ascent (?) 3,990 feet (1216m) Highest Elevation 10,064 feet (3068m) Fees & Permits Parking Fee Dog Friendly Off Leash Okay Park Contact Mt Baldy Visitor's Center Park Phone 909-982-2829
This 11 mile Mt Baldy hike brings you to the highest point in LA at 10,064 feet. With almost 4000 feet of climbing, it’s a tough yet popular hike, and well worth the effort. You can see from the Pacific to the Mojave on a clear day. There are a few ways to hike Mt Baldy, and this guide takes you on the most popular route.
Play your cards right and this could be you on the summit of Mt Baldy.
Mt Baldy is also known by it’s official name of Mt San Antonio, but everyone just calls it Mt Baldy. It was named for the bald (treeless) face of the Baldy Bowl which is visible when you see the mountain from LA. Mt Baldy is located in the new San Gabriel Mountains National Monument, as well as Angeles National Forest.
When to Hike Mt Baldy
I left early on this day and had the whole Devil’s Backbone section to myself, which is the best way to experience it. I’ve also seen pictures of a line of hikers from this same perspective. Leave early.
Do the Mt Baldy hike as early as possible to avoid the crowds. It’s one of the most popular hikes in LA. I usually leave at sunrise. The later that you leave, the tougher it will be to park at Manker Flats. If you can do the hike on a weekday, you’ll encounter even less crowds. If you’re starting later in the day, don’t forget to look at the sunset time. Getting caught on the trail after dark is a recipe for bad times.
Is There Snow On the Mt Baldy Trail?
So there’s no official way to know if there’s snow at the summit of Mt Baldy, but there are some roundabout ways to figure it out. If you’re in the summer months, say late May to October, the chances are that it’s clear.
When I want to check for snow and bad conditions, I do a couple of things.
First, I check the ski report for Mt Baldy Notch. If there’s snow here, there’s snow higher up.
I also check out some webcams that show Mt Baldy in the distance.
Then I check the Mt Baldy summit weather. These forecasts are a favorite because I can see not only the high and low temperatures, but also the winds. If there are high winds or very low temperatures at the summit, I know conditions are not great.
If there’s snow or bad weather, hike Mt Baldy on another day.
People have died on these trails in bad and wintery weather. Let me say that again – hikers die every winter on Baldy. It’s real, take it seriously and wait until summer if you don’t have mountaineering experience.
This is what the hike is like in the winter. If you happen to slip on ice or snow, you will fall 1000s of feet off the sheer sides to a certain death. Save it for the summer months; it’s much more fun. Thanks to my (experienced winter hiker) friend Kyle Saenz for the photo.
If the conditions aren’t good for hiking on Mt Baldy, try something challenging without snow at a lower elevation like Mt Wilson, Echo Mountain, Mt Lukens, or Saddleback Mountain.
How To Get to the Mt Baldy Hike
The Mt Baldy trailhead is just past the Manker Campground, about 1:15 hours east of downtown LA. You’ll drive through Mt Baldy Village on your way to the hike. It’s a good place to grab lunch after hiking.
Here’s the address you can put into your GPS to get to the trailhead.
Manker Campground, Mt Baldy, CA, 91759, USA
Drive past the campground to the next parking area between the road.
The trailhead is a little bit past the campground. Park as close to the trailhead as possible.
Here’s the parking by the trailhead. It’s usually a lot more crowded than this.
This is normally what the parking lot looks like. You can park on the right as well.
You need a parking pass for the lot. I use the affordable National Parks Pass, which gets me in every park, monument, and national forest. You can also use an (Southern California only) Adventure Pass, or buy a $5 day permit from the ranger’s office.
There have been reports of thefts at the trailhead parking lot. Be smart and don’t leave valuables visible in your car.
There are primitive bathrooms at the trailhead and in Manker Campground.
What to Bring on the Mt Baldy Hike
Even though this is a popular hike that lots of folks do, it’s still a serious mountain hike. The conditions at the top of Mt Baldy are famous for being extreme, mainly windy and cold. You should be prepared accordingly with extra layers, plenty of snacks, and 3L of water.
It’s also worth mentioning that some folks have problems with the altitude, especially those coming up from sea level. If you want to learn about the effects of altitude, check out my guide to Mt Whitney. Mt Baldy isn’t going to produce life threatening conditions (in general) but you could end up struggling and wheezing a bit.
Mt Baldy Trail Maps
There are two popular trail for the Mt Baldy hike, the Baldy Bowl / Ski Hut Trail and the Devil’s Backbone Trail. This hiking guide starts on the picturesque Devil’s Backbone Trail and then descends the Baldy Bowl Trail to the Sierra Club Ski Hut and back to Manker Flats. I find this routing to be the most enjoyable. If you want to avoid the crowds and do a much tougher hike, try the route on Bear Canyon trail.
Because trail markers on this hike sometimes get stolen, I highly recommend having a paper and electronic map.
Click To View Map
Mt Baldy Hike Map Downloads
Download the Hike GPX File
View a Printable PDF Hike Map
Mt Baldy Hike Elevation Profiles
You can see the route up the Devil’s Backbone Trail is not as steep as the Ski Hut Trail, which you descend. Hiking poles come in handy on the steep descent.
One of the coolest aspects of this hike is your ascent along the ridge line of Devil’s Backbone. The route to the Mt Baldy summit is very exposed. Don’t try it in bad weather. The Baldy Bowl / Ski Hut Trail descent is a little more sheltered and cooler on a hot day.
Here’s a topo map that gives you another view of the topography.
Tips on Not Getting Lost
Some hikers get lost when descending the Baldy Bowl / Ski Hut trail. The trail splits apart, comes back together, and can be confusing (more below). If you are descending and you see airplane wreckage, you’ve gone off the trail, immediately turn around and head directly uphill to rejoin the trail. If it doesn’t look like you’re on a trail, you’re not, turn around before you get stuck on a ledge.
If you do get lost, stop, collect yourself, consult your maps, and regroup. If you don’t find the trail after a little while, stop, stay put, and fire up your rescue beacon. Don’t move when you set off your beacon, stay where you set it off.
Mt Baldy Hike Directions
Hike Video
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Turn by Turn Directions
These directions have you hiking the entire way, but you can also cheat and take the chair lift to Mt Baldy Notch. It doesn’t cut that much off the hike, so I recommend just doing the hike.
The trailhead is the paved road to the left at the far end of the parking lot. The bathroom is up on the hill next to the entrance.
Continue past the signs and go through the gate, hiking up the paved road.
At the first switchback, you can see San Antonio Falls to the left.
The pavement ends and you gently climb up a dirt road toward Mt Baldy Notch.
At about 0.8 miles, stay right on the dirt road. You’ll be coming back on the trail to the left (which goes to the Sierra Club ski hut).
As you climb toward Mt Baldy Notch, turn around to see the awesome views.
Keep going straight, avoiding the dirt road down to the chairlift parking area.
At about 2.4 miles, you’ll see the ski lift to Mt Baldy Notch.
At the intersection close to the top, make the hard left to hike into Mt Baldy Notch.
This short section of trail brings you to Mt Baldy Notch.
Walk through the buildings to the open ski area in the middle of the Baldy Notch.
If you want to take a break, Mt Baldy Notch is a good place. There is a restaurant called Top of the Notch that is a nice place to grab a bite, or you can just do it picnic style.
There are lots of trails (ski runs) from Mt Baldy Notch. Take the main trail directly across from the trail you came into the area on. So that is, directly across from where you came into the Notch area.
Shortly after going up the hill, there’s an intersection, hike to the left.
Now there’s a short but tough climb (up the ski slope). Keep hiking straight up, avoiding the trails heading down to the left.
This section of the hike is steep. Take breaks, turn around, and soak in the views of the Cajon Pass.
No rest here! The trail keeps going up. Hike to the right as the trail climbs.
At the end of the ski slope, hike to the right as the Devil’s Backbone trail starts. You can see Mt Baldy in the distance.
Stay to the right as the trail continues to split.
A pole marks the beginning of the Devil’s Backbone Trail. It’s narrow but 100% doable in normal conditions. If there’s snow and ice here, it’s time to turn around and go back down the way you came.
As you hike along the Devil’s Backbone trail, the mountain drops hundreds of feet down on either side.
While the trail is narrow, there’s no point where you have to balance or fall. It’s wide enough to hike safely on.
Take your time and enjoy the Devil’s Backbone trail, there are great photo opportunities and views.
Don’t forget to turn around and get some shots with the Devil’s Backbone in the distance.
The Devil’s Backbone Trail leaves the exposed stretch and starts to climb around the west side of the mountain.
At about 5.4 miles, a side trail to Mt Harwood splits off to the right. Give it a pass and continue hiking to the left.
The trail widens and Mt Baldy looms in front of you.
This is the last tough stretch of the Mt Baldy hike. Start climbing toward the summit.
As you hike this steep section of trail, it splits apart into many smaller trails. They all lead to the top and rejoin each other at regular intervals.
Take breaks on this steep trail to turn around and soak in the great views of the Devil’s Backbone trail.
Look for the post at the top of the hill, which marks the start of the Devil’s Backbone trail from Mt Baldy Summit.
You made it to the Mt Baldy summit!
Stone wind shelters are at the summit of Mt Baldy. Pick a nice spot, soak in the views, and refuel for the trip down.
Pose for a picture with the Mt Baldy summit sign.
Two signs point you back in the right direction when you descend.
The views from Mt Baldy are incredible. On a clear day, you can see west to the Pacific and east into the Mojave Desert.
Time to hike back down. This part is a little tricky. The Baldy Bowl / Ski Hut Trail is between the Devil’s Backbone Trail and the Bear Canyon Trail to the next peak over, which leads to Mt Baldy Village. A post marks the Baldy Bowl trail.
Once you’ve confirmed that you’re on the start of the Baldy Bowl Trail, start your descent to the Ski Hut.
After you start hiking the trail, it’s becomes well defined.
This part of the hike is a little tricky. The trail starts to split apart. Generally, head to the left, avoiding any trails that head steely down into the ravine. When in doubt, look for other hikers coming up the trail. I wish the trail was better defined, but it’s not.
There are reports of signs pointing down toward the ravine. Ignore them and stay on the main ridge. The ravine is a dead end. If you see aircraft wreckage, you’ve gone too far. Turn around and go back up the hill.
A trail sign confirms that you’re in the right place. Hike toward the Ski Hut and Manker Flat (where you started).
This next section can be tricky. Again, you want to avoid heading down into the canyon to your right. Look for the poles with the yellow blaze and follow them. The trail will split and come back together often. As long as you’re heading to a yellow-blazed pole, you’re okay.
Some trail signs are mixed in with the yellow blazes.
Keep following the yellow blaze poles. In this case it’s down the hill. You’re heading to that plateau in the distance.
At the plateau the trail levels out and makes a hard left down a shaded switchback section.
Eventually the trail will become rocky and you enter a boulder field.
The trail can be hard to follow through the rocks here. You’re going to be looking for the trail to your left as you come through the rocks.
This satellite photos shows the boulders in the last shot and the trail to the left.
Once you make the left the trail is easy to spot and there is a sign.
Soon you’ll see the Sierra Club Ski Hut to your right as you descend.
Soon after that, you’ll cross the spring/streamright before the Sierra Club Ski Hut.
After the stream, a side trail leads to the Sierra Club Ski Hut, which you can rent out.
Soak in the views at the Ski Hut.
People also camp occasionally around the Ski Hut. Check it out and head back to the trail.
After the Ski Hut, go back to the last junction after the stream, make the left, and hike down the trail towards Manker Flats.
This section of the hike is well defined and descends steadily. Avoid any side trails off to the right on a steep incline.
Trail signs confirm that you’re in the right place.
When you see the trail register you’ll be approaching the dirt road to Baldy Notch.
The Ski Hut Trail ends at the dirt road that you ascended earlier. Hike to the right to head back to Manker Flats and the end of the hike.
As you descend, look up to admire the saddle on the Devil’s Backbone Trail that you hiked across a few hours earlier.
You did it! Pat yourself on the back, that was a tough hike!
If you are going to bag Mt Baldy, why not set Mt Whitney as your next goal? You won’t be disappointed, it’s awesome.
Did something change on this hike? If so, please contact me and let me know. I'll update the guide.After the Viacom-owned network finished filming their new treasure-hunt themed “Real World/Road Rules Challenge” on a remote, uninhabited island in the Republic of Panama, locals returned to find their beach tattered and abused.
The television show, which premieres on September 17th, took over the neighboring, inhabited island in militant style by hiring the local police to prevent residents from accessing a public beach. As it turned out, according to local witnesses, MTV had cleared a small patch of rainforest to build a tiki-hut structure near the beach, developed an access road through the forest, and installed generators and lighting on the beach.[social_buttons]
Since the beach was guarded by armed officers, the locals only heard rumors of the destruction until they were able to go back to the beach after filming had finished. “I have seen the aftermath of a tornado and this was almost as bad,” read the account, written by Jmaher and Michael Drake. “A large plot of rainforest had been cleared, a pristine Caribbean beach had been trashed, and the creators had simply packed up and left. A family of what appeared to be ‘squatters’ had already moved into one of the buildings left behind.”
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At the time of the writing, MTV had not yet announced the premiere of the television show. The authors deduced that the network had been behind the commotion after finding papers with MTV’s logo among other garbage littering small village’s the streets. The nearby uninhabited island (which the show’s contestants ravaged for hidden treasure) had not been visited by the writers, so we’ll have to watch the show to see how that island fared. All this comes after MTV’s recent efforts to encourage teens to go green.
“Perhaps I have been unjustified in my criticism and, if so, I will offer my apologies whenever it becomes obvious that I have been unfair,” the lengthy piece reads, nearing conclusion. “In the meanwhile I will continue to show my irritation for what I perceive Mtv to have done to a beautiful area of rainforest and beach.”
A trailer for the upcoming television show can be found here.
Photo Credit: Joe Crawford on Flickr under Creative Commons license.
[Via: Ecorazzi]
Other Posts Relating to Environmental Destruction:Twitter's first annual financial results were revealed on Thursday. Buried deep in the document is the price it paid IBM after it was confronted with a patent infringement threat by Big Blue: $36 million. Bloomberg was first to highlight the price tag.
IBM sent a letter to Twitter in November saying it was infringing at least three IBM patents. That resulted in a negotiation that ended up with Twitter getting a license to IBM's patents, acquiring about 900 of them for itself, and (we now know) paying $36 million.
The patent exchange was spun in positive terms, as something that would boost Twitter's intellectual property portfolio to help it defend itself from other threats against competitors. The exchange does do that, but this "deal" wouldn't have happened but at the end of IBM's massive patent gun, which was pointed at Twitter right before its IPO.
IBM is the largest US patent-holder. At one point, the company was receiving $2 billion annually from patent licensing.
The $36 million payment represents more than 5 percent of Twitter's 2013 revenue, which was just under $665 million. Overall, the company experienced a $34.3 million net loss for the year—so it might have been in the black, if it hadn't been for the IBM patent payout.
The three IBM patents asserted in November were: US Patent No. 6,957,224, "efficient retrieval of uniform resource locators," No. 7,072,849, "Method for presenting advertising in an interactive service," and No. 7,099,862, "programmatic discovery of common contacts."In the past week the redaction bot has progressed well. After the intial Ireland test, it has proccessed the UK and is now finishing off the ‘Western Europe’ area. Spain, and Italy are fully proccessed, France is very nearly complete, and the bot is (at time of writing) getting to work on some densely mapped regions such Germany and the Netherlands. You can see its progress on the redaction bot progress map
As you’ll see, the internal checks of the bot and the API occasionally throw up errors which cause a region (1 degree square) not to be fully processed. The developers working on the bot managed to track some of these failures down to specific bugs, meanwhile others are caused by temporary glitches in the API. The bot has been re-run in several areas for this reason.
You’ll also notice many yellow “current” regions being processed. These are parallel instances of the bot processing code. Although we’re not really in a hurry, we have a big dataset to get through. Running in parallel like this is proving to be a little faster.
There is still time to perform remapping ahead of the bot reaching your part of the world, though you may wish to refrain from editing in a region where the bot is actually runnning, to avoid any unnecessary complications. If you’re in a green area there is now a new kind of remapping to do. This is easier and clearer in many ways. Head out and remap those patches where the bot has redacted data.
Remember the license has not changed yet. Even in areas where processing is complete and redactions have been made, the license remains the same until we declare otherwise.
Follow the rebuild mailing list for more details and discussion.
This post is also available in: RussianShare. "What are the most important beats that we can't lose? Start with those, and cut everything else out." "What are the most important beats that we can't lose? Start with those, and cut everything else out."
The Last of Us creative director Neil Druckmann has revealed that the movie adaptation will strip the game's narrative down to its essentials.
Speaking with MCVUK, Druckmann explained that there was, predictably, a lot of rewriting involved in morphing a 15-hour narrative experience into a two-hour one.
“I'm in the middle of it now, and it's been super difficult because there's so much that happens in The Last of Us – even just in the cinematics – that can't fit in a film," said Druckmann, "let alone all the gameplay in-between and dialogue.”
Druckmann explained that a lot of detail in the game has had to be chopped in order to maintain focus on its central duo, Joel and Ellie.
“It almost has this novel quality as far as how much content there is. And a film works really well when it's laser-focused, so the first part of it was like: well, what is this story really about? It's clearly about Joel and Ellie. What are the most important beats that we can't lose? Start with those, and cut everything else out.
Exit Theatre Mode
“It's been really difficult to cut certain things out, but what I'm starting to get this is really focused narrative that's about these two characters. Some parts will be similar to the game and some parts will be quite different, but it's kind of interesting in helping me understand this other medium and its strengths compared to video games.”
The Last of Us will be brought to the big screen by Screen Gems, the studio behind the Resident Evil film franchise. The film counts Spider-Man and Evil Dead filmmaker Sam Raimi among its producers, but a director has yet to be officially brought on board. At the Screen Gems panel at this year's Comic-Con, Druckmann and Raimi revealed they've been in talks with Game of Thrones' Maisie Williams to star as Ellie.
Lucy O'Brien is Entertainment Editor at IGN AU. Follow her ramblings on Twitter.Last weekend we had a bunch of people over for dinner. I picked up a few two-liter bottles of soda, which, I don’t know, I couldn’t really figure out how many I should have bought, I had no idea how much soda people were planning on drinking. I’d say in total, about one and a half liters went, but it was like half a liter from each bottle. And so, as the rest of the week went by, I’d stare at these bottles, wanting to dump them all down the drain, but my roommate insisted on keeping them around, “I’ll drink them!” he said.
And maybe he had a glass the next day, but no more than a glass, because the days passed and I started to keep track of the soda level inside each bottle. Day after day, it wasn’t going down, I told Bill, I was like, “Hey man, we really have to get rid of this soda,” and he was like, “Why? Just leave it there, it doesn’t matter,” but I tried to argue, I was like, “Bill, that stuff’s getting flatter every day, nobody’s ever going to drink it, let’s just dump it, what is it, like three dollars? Come on, you couldn’t pay me three dollars to drink a cup of flat soda.”
But I think I pushed a little too far, now Bill was starting to push back just for the sake of pushing back, which I don’t get, not everything has to be a huge power struggle, but still, he averted his eyes, I think he might have called me a “soda elitist,” which I actually took as a compliment, because yes, when it comes to soft drinks, I think you have to be exacting in your standards. Otherwise why spend money at all on bottled drinks? If you don’t care about the carbonation, you might as well just buy packets of Kool-Aid, it’s significantly cheaper.
We were at a stalemate. I started buying new soda, smaller sized bottles. I’d keep them nice and cold in the fridge. On Wednesday night I ordered some pizzas and asked Bill, “Hey man, help yourself. You want a nice cold Coke to go with that?” It was the Mexican kind, the stuff that comes in the glass “hecho en Mexico” bottles, real sugar, delicious. “Yeah man, that sounds great.” And so I popped one open and extended my arm before laying down, “So, uh, I guess this means we can get rid of those big guys over there, right?”
“Actually,” he recoiled his hand, “That’s a good point. You have the bottle, I’m going to work on those leftovers.” What a jerk. Just admit it when you’re wrong. And he went over to the counter, the bottle had all of these little condensation drops on the inside from having not been opened in so long, when he opened the top, and I was listening, there wasn’t even the slightest sound of any air escaping. That soda had to have been completely flat for a few days now.
But he filled up his glass with ice, I asked him for a glass also, for my fresh Coke, I wanted him to see the bubbles dancing out of the top, when I took that first sip, I made this exaggerated face, like they tickling my nose. “Ahh,” that ridiculous refreshing sound after I took my first sip, to which Bill offered the same thing with his sip, but I could tell by the look on his face that it was gross, he kind of puckered up as he tried to choke it down.
But what came next, it was probably the low point of our friendship. I was like a slice and a half deep into dinner, and I had just taken a huge sip from my drink. While I had the rest of the pizza in my hand, Bill grabbed the two liter bottle and poured the sickly contents of that expired plastic bottle right into my cup, right on top of my good soda. I still had probably more than twenty-five percent of the cup filled with the good stuff, and it was ruined, the rest of my drink spoiled by Bill polluting it with his week-old poison.
I turned my head and said, “Get that shit out of my face,” placing extra emphasis on the word shit, just to really drive home that point, like hey Bill, that was a real dick move buddy, you want to play games with your own soda? Fine. But you’ve totally crossed a line here. And he just kind of smiled at me, “What? Just giving you a little refill,” before taking a huge bite out of his slice, the pizza that I bought for him.
I went into a rage. I grabbed that bottle, I ran to the sink, I started emptying it out down the drain. There were still the other two bottles, and Bill made a move toward the kitchen, like what was he going to do, try and stop me? I grabbed a knife out of the block and stabbed a few holes right in the bottom. “What the hell man? That’s my soda!” he screamed as I placed the leaking bottles from the counter into the kitchen sink.
Bill looked like he was going to make a move, like he was going to push me or something, and so, I don’t know, I guess I was a little more agitated than I thought. I held out the knife still in my hands, like go ahead and try something. Not that I had any intentions of actually stabbing him. The whole situation had steered out of control. And that’s when I screamed out, “Steve!” because while we were fighting in the kitchen, my dog Steve had quietly jumped off the couch and made a move for the pizza. And he got it, it only took him like three or four bites, and he polished off everything.Get the biggest Manchester United FC stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Wayne Rooney has come out fighting as the debate over his position – and first-team place – rages on.
The United striker insisted his England place is not guaranteed – and never has been.
He hit back as the discussion over whether Roy Hodgson should drop him intensifies.
Rooney was stuck out on the left wing for the 2-1 defeat to Italy on Saturday night and that has raised question marks about whether it is time to take him out of the starting line-up.
But he angrily claimed that he has worked hard for his place in the England team – but doesn’t simply expect to play. “I’ve never felt that. Why would I feel my place in the team is guaranteed?” snapped Rooney.
“I work hard to try and get into that team. I have never said my place is guaranteed. I don’t expect to play, I work hard. I want to play.
“We have got a lot of good, young players so we will all work hard, all give the manager different options, different choices and whoever he picks then I am sure we will all respect that.”
The Rooney debate is becoming a burning issue kicked off before the tournament by his former United team-mate Paul Scholes who claimed he had peaked and questioned whether Hodgson would have the nerve to drop him.
But Scholes was also frustrated by the role handed to Rooney on Saturday and called for him to be used as a centre-forward.
“The disappointing thing was not the way Wayne Rooney played but where he was played,” Scholes said.
“I’ve previously said the best position for Wayne is centre forward. If you think about the contenders at the World Cup and goalscorers – Holland play (Robin van Persie) in his best position, Brazil play Neymar where he wants to play, Argentina with Messi, Portugal with Ronaldo.
“I don’t blame Wayne one little bit but he was played in three different positions. He’s without a doubt England’s best goalscorer but he was played on the left, played on the right, then in the centre.
“Where’s the confidence in Wayne to say: ‘You’re our main player. You’re our centre forward’ |
Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said. “This has been a very bad two weeks for the Republican Party.”
By: Jon Terbush, The Week, October 16, 2013Flow restrictors can help prevent children from taking too much acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, which can cause liver damage if taken in high doses.
FDA Building 51 houses the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. (Photo: Public Domain)
The Food and Drug Administration has endorsed the use of a safety device for bottles of children’s medication containing liquid acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol.
Called a flow restrictor, the device fits into the top of a bottle to prevent kids from inadvertently squeezing or sucking out too much liquid. In high doses, acetaminophen can result in liver damage and even death.
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While the FDA guidance released earlier this month does not require use of the devices, it is a strong signal to manufacturers that flow restrictors are considered an important safety feature to help reduce accidental overdoses.
“This is definitely significant,” said Dr. Dan Budnitz, a scientist for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who is leading an effort to make children’s medicine safer.
"It stands to reason that flow restrictors may be used as an effective safeguard against unintentional harm from oral liquid [over-the-counter] products, such as acetaminophen."
The move comes 20 months after ProPublica and Consumer Reports reported on the devices, which have been shown to greatly reduce the liquid dose that children can accidentally remove from a bottle. About 10,000 children each year visit the emergency room for overdosing on liquid medicines, many of them containing acetaminophen, studies show.
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The ProPublica story uncovered internal FDA documents showing that agency scientists had been urging the adoption of such devices since at least 2001. But FDA officials hesitated, debating whether the agency had the power to require their use.
In a statement, the agency said drug manufacturers would “benefit from the guidance’s clear advice on the formulation, labeling, and delivery of these products.”
In 2011, a panel of FDA outside advisors was scheduled to discuss the use of flow restrictors, among other measures. While not binding, the recommendations of such advisors are typically adopted by the FDA.
A month before the meeting, pharmaceutical industry representatives announced that they would voluntarily begin adding flow restrictors to infants’ and children’s pediatric medicine bottles. McNeil Consumer Healthcare, the Johnson and Johnson unit that makes Tylenol, led the way.
The flow restrictors would help “reduce the incidence and magnitude of accidental acetaminophen exposures,” Dr. Edwin Kuffner, a McNeil executive, said in a letter to health-care professionals. The company had first used a type of flow restrictor on Infants’ Tylenol in 1999.
The FDA left the design of the flow restrictors to the industry. Several companies manufacture devices with different designs, costing from two cents to 10 cents apiece.
Consumer Reports’ tested the devices on the market. While all helped reduce the chance that kids would drink too much medicine, some devices worked better than others. McNeil, which has long promoted the safety of its Tylenol products, was using one of the less effective types of flow restrictors, the test showed. Family Dollar, a discount store, had a store brand with one of the more effective types.
After the articles, Budnitz, Consumer Reports, government regulators, and industry representatives such as McNeil began working together to develop standards to test the efficacy of flow restrictors. Final results are expected to be issued in 2016 by ASTM International, a group that sets guidelines for more than 12,000 products and services.
The FDA’s formal guidance has the effect of pushing makers to use flow restrictors on acetaminophen products for kids. And the standards will provide makers with a uniform way to gauge the performance of the devices.
“It stands to reason that flow restrictors may be used as an effective safeguard against unintentional harm from oral liquid [over-the-counter] products, such as acetaminophen,” the FDA said.
Still, neither the drug agency nor industry has indicated a willingness to require the flow restrictors for other liquid children’s medicines, such as prescription cough medicine. Researchers believe that installing the devices in all kids’ liquid medicines might help further reduce accidental overdose.
“It’s incremental progress, but it definitely is progress,” Budnitz said.
In a statement, McNeil said that it believes the “first line of defense” against accidental overdose is for parents and caregivers to store medicine in a high, out-of-sight place after use. The company said it had not changed the type of flow restrictor that it uses.
“We believe flow restrictors help prevent accidental and unsupervised ingestions and accordingly have elected not to change the approach,” the company said.
The Consumer Healthcare Products Association, an industry group for over-the-counter medicine companies, said its members welcomed the measure.
“We are pleased to see [the] FDA finalize this guidance,” the association said in a statement.
This post originally appeared on ProPublica as “After Years of Study, the FDA Endorses Safety Device for Liquid Children's Medications” and is re-published here under a Creative Commons license.Wally Crouter, a broadcaster who served as morning host of Toronto radio station CFRB for 50 years, has died at age 92. Crouter passed away peacefully in his sleep Monday according to the radio station, which is now known as Newstalk 1010.
Wally Crouter, shown in the CFRB studio in 1973, has died at age 92. ( GRAHAM BEZANT / TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO )
Crouter was born on Aug. 5, 1923, in Lindsay, Ont., and joined CFRB on Nov. 1, 1946 after serving with the Canadian Army in the Second World War and a brief stint with CHEX in Peterborough. Over the course of a half-century, he became one of CFRB’s most famous broadcasters and the city’s top-rated morning host. According to Crouter’s son Glenn, Crouter would often stop to speak with people who recognized his father’s voice instantly in public. “He’d stop and talk to them and never ever did I ever see, in the entire time, him ever not giving the person the proper time that he felt to get to know them — and thank them for listening.”
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“He was an icon in Toronto. Whenever there was a big story, like Hurricane Hazel or the opening of the subway, Wally was there. Everyone listened and wanted to be on the Wally Crouter morning show,” said Mike Bendixen, the station’s program director, in an interview with the Star. “Decade after decade, Wally brought this comforting tone to his audience as he unpacked the day’s news. It was like listening to a family or friend.”
Crouter retired exactly 50 years later, on Nov. 1, 1996. He was later inducted into the Canadian Broadcast Hall of Fame. “It’s unheard of to have a career spanning that length, especially in radio,” said Bendixen. “He really was Canada’s longest-serving morning radio man.” He noted that Crouter aged so well on air because of his innate ability to be apart of the every Torontonian’s daily grind and stories, no matter who they were. “He took morning radio and crafted his own show when he first came to CFRB at 23. His show became such a comforting, familiar experience for news every morning that his many listeners passed down his show from generation to generation,” said Bendixen.
“He spoke to hundreds of thousands of people at the same time. Each one of them thought he was talking to them directly,” said Ted Woloshyn, a former CFRB host who took over the morning show after Crouter’s retirement. “His warmth, his charm, his work in the community — he’s a very charitable, very hospitable man. It’s a combination of all those things that made him as great as he is.”
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It was his hospitality that allowed Crouter to become friends with people such as golf legend Arnold Palmer, CFL superstar Jackie Parker and hockey immortal Gordie Howe. “Whenever any celebrities, movie stars, musicians — anybody with any name recognition in the city — the first thing they were told is to call Wally Crouter,” said Glenn. “He’ll get you acclimated. He’ll get you familiar with the city. He’ll introduce you to the right people.” Crouter is survived by his wife Lynne, sons Dale and Glenn, daughter Janice, and five grandchildren.Well-known Linux kernel developer Ted Ts'o announced this week that he has joined Google, leaving behind his previous role as CTO of the Linux Foundation. Ts'o, an expert on filesystem development, played a central role in creating Ext4, the latest generation of the dominant Linux filesystem.
In a statement on his blog, Ts'o expressed enthusiasm for his new job and pointed to a recent mailing list post by a Google engineer which reveals that the search giant is in the process of upgrading its storage infrastructure from Ext2 to Ext4. Ts'o says that he will continue working on Ext4 and other parts of the Linux kernel while he is at Google.
His departure from the Linux Foundation is not sudden or unexpected—the organization has an informal policy of rotating people through the CTO position at regular intervals. When Ts'o took the job in 2008, he came from IBM and it was understood that he would serve a two-year term with the foundation. With his term completed, he has decided to join Google instead of going back to Big Blue.
Ext4 faced some criticism during its development following the discovery of possible data loss issues relating to the filesystem's implementation of delayed allocation. Ts'o created patches that have addressed those issues, minimizing the potential risk. Google's decision to deploy Ext4 is a strong endorsement of the filesystem's reliability and affirms its suitability for enterprise adoption.
In a mailing list post, Google engineer Michael Rubin provided more insight into the decision-making process that led the company to adopt Ext4. The filesystem offered significant performance advantages over Ext2 and nearly rivaled the high-performance XFS filesystem during the company's tests. Ext4 was ultimately chosen over XFS because it would allow Google to do a live in-place upgrade of its existing Ext2 filesystems.
"The driving performance reason to upgrade is that while ext2 had been 'good enough' for a very long time the metadata arrangement on a stale file system was leading to what we call'read inflation'. This is where we end up doing many seeks to read one block of data. In general latency from poor block allocation was causing performance hiccups," he wrote. "For our workloads we saw ext4 and xfs as 'close enough' in performance in the areas we cared about. The fact that we had a much smoother upgrade path with ext4 clinched the deal."
The Linux Foundation has not yet announced who will be the organization's next CTO. It would be fitting for the foundation to use its newly-announced Linux Jobs board to find a worthy candidate, but it's more likely that the organization will pick someone from their growing roster of member companies.The next time you’re on vacation in the U.S. and grab a familiar-looking bottle of Labatt Blue, it just might surprise you who it’s made by. North American Breweries, which owns the rights to sell Labatt in the U.S., is contracting out production to none other than Labatt archrival Molson-Coors. Several Labatt brands, including the iconic Blue, will start rolling out of Molson-Coors facilities in Toronto or Montreal later this year. Labatt beer destined for Canada will still be brewed by Labatt. The move is part of the fallout from brewing giant InBev’s purchase of Anheuser-Busch in 2008. As part of the purchase, the U.S. Department of Justice forced InBev to sell Labatt USA. It was bought by North American Breweries in early 2009. NAB, in turn, was given three years to shift production of its Labatt brands to someone other than Labatt.
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“We analyzed our options, which included buying or building a brewery, and contract brewing. There is a lot of brewing capacity in Canada so we chose to pursue a partnership, which frees up capital that we can invest in our brands,” NAB president Rich Lozyniak explained in a statement. Eventually, they settled on Molson-Coors. “Experience with large-scale volume and a reputation for exceptional customer service made Molson the best fit,” Lozyniak said. While it might seem a bit like the Hatfields renting out a stall to the McCoys, the move didn’t come as a big surprise, according to Charlie Angelakos, vice-president of corporate affairs at Labatt.
“Because there are limited options, it was always very likely that NAB’s sub-licensee would be an existing Canadian brewing company,” Angelakos said, adding that Labatt wasn’t told in advance of NAB’s decision. Angelakos also pointed out that licensing agreements and contracting out production are common practices in the brewing industry. While it’s more common for a local brewer to be licensed to make a foreign brew, such as Labatt’s production of Guinness Extra Stout, Angelakos says it also happens with domestic brews. Montreal craft brewer McAuslan, for example, produces Moosehead Lager for the Quebec market. And Moosehead has also done contract work for Molson-Coors, according to Molson-Coors spokesperson Fergie Devins. While contracting out production may be a common practice, having one of your flagship brands brewed by an archrival poses a long-term danger to the brand, said Alan Middleton, professor of marketing at York University’s Schulich School of Business.
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At a time when the difference in taste between the big brands is minimal, any suggestion that it doesn’t matter who makes it or where it’s made, is the beginning of a slippery slope, said Middleton. “Brand differentiation is very important. And this chips away at that a little bit. Brands very rarely have a big implosion. It’s more like death by a thousand cuts, and this is one of them,” said Middleton, adding that it doesn’t matter that the decision only affects beers destined for the U.S. Still, Angelakos said that even John Labatt, who founded the company 163 years ago, would have probably understood the rationale for having a beer bearing his name brewed by an archrival. “Given that John Labatt was a practical businessman, it’s likely he wouldn’t have acted any differently and accepted that companies have to comply with government regulation even when it might not be their first choice,” said Angelakos.Image copyright pepmiba Image caption Agri-food is particularly challenging to the 'no hard border' policy because of strict EU rules about food imports
The DUP has dismissed a suggestion that agri-food trade could be regulated on an all-Ireland basis after Brexit.
Agri-food is a particular challenge to the "no hard border" policy because of strict EU rules on food imports.
An internal European Commission memo seen by Irish broadcaster RTÉ suggested Northern Ireland could effectively remain in the EU system for agri-food.
That would require controls between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, enforced at ports by EU officials.
It would also mean Northern Ireland would have to indefinitely comply with EU animal health and food safety rules.
The memo was passed to the Irish government in February, RTÉ reported.
DUP MEP Diane Dodds said it would be "politically unacceptable and economically catastrophic" to erect trade barriers between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
"It is not going to happen," she said.
A spokesman for the Department of Agriculture in Dublin said: "We are aware of the document referred to in the story by RTÉ.
"The document has no official status but should be seen as an exploration of ideas on how to address the very serious issues facing the island of Ireland as a result of the UK's decision to withdraw from the EU.
"The government has been consistent in its view that a political solution is required, especially on the objective of avoiding a hard border, and that technical solutions should not be the starting point."
A spokesman for the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs said: "DAERA has not seen the paper and therefore cannot give a view at this stage."NEW REWARD: $400 Connouisseur Club Combo Pack. Lifetime membership for you and a friend, spouse, relative...whomever. Enjoy the perks of 20oz pours for the price of a 16oz all day every day for life.
*also includes URB tulip glassware, 750ml growler, T-Shirt, sticker pack, digital recipe download and shout out.
NEW REWARD: $350 URB Limited Release + Connoisseur Club Bundle This package combines two great reward options, the Limited Bottle Release access and the Connoisseur club.
*Also includes URB tulip glassware, 750ml growler, T-shirt, sticker pack, digital recipe download and shout out.
$25 Logo Glassware Reward includes two (2) URB branded tulip glasses
$50 and $100 Pre-Opening Party Reward is for you and includes a guest invite to the party as a part of the package.
Urbanrest Brewing Company is a Ferndale, Michigan based startup Microbrewery focused on organic, open fermented urban farmhouse ales and scratch made farm-fresh food. Our mission is to provide the local community with world class beers made sustainably using ingredients grown locally at the Urbanrest Farm and through a variety of local Michigan suppliers.
We're in the process of transforming an old paint filter manufacturing facility in to a cozy, family friendly taproom using green building principles and some crafty ingenuity. We're commited to making every effort to protect our future with thoughtful intention using re-used and re-purposed materials whenever possible.
Our 7-barrel reclaimed Michigan dairy system will initially only produce enough beer to serve our local community. It's our belief to grow organically and build our business as demand for our beer increases. We'll focus primarily on taproom sales with a very limited amount of draft distribution. Beer is perishable, the longer it travels the more it continues to degrade and we want people to enjoy our beers the way we intended, at peak freshness.
We are incredibly thankful to be a part of this amazing industry and the continued support of each and every person helps motivate us to keep pushing further.
Why We Need Your Help
We've put in a large sum of resources in order to secure our property and purchase brewing equipment. However, the taproom space needs renovation and the funds generated in this campaign will help us do so. We want to build a cozy, comfortable atmosphere for people to come and see how we make our beer. We'll purchase a used walk-in cooler, construct our bar, build a reclaimed wooden bar-top, purchase restored tables and chairs, install fixtures and add some decorative flair.
Refurbished Walk-In Cooler
Taproom Fixtures and Furnishings
Reclaimed Wooden Bar
Taproom Miscellanous Construction
Connoisseur Club
Every time you order a pint in our taproom you'll receive a 20oz fill in your very own ceramic Urbanrest Brewing mug for the price of a 16oz pint.
Merchandise Update with Pictures Added:
If we reach our goal, merchandise will be available for pick up in the URB taproom on specific dates. We will communicate that process at the end of our campaign and if necessary work with those unable to pick up their goods.
T-SHIRT UPDATE: Our T-Shirt's are available in Mens and Womens styles and in white or grey. Available in sizes ranging from S-XXL. We'll send out a survey at the end of the campaign requesting specific sizing and color information.
URB Logo Tulip Glass
URB 750ml swing-top growler
URB 2 Liter Palla Growler
Womens Grey T
Womens White T
Mens Grey T
Mens White T
Pre-Opening Party
You will receive an invitation to our pre-opening party the week prior to opening to the general public. In addition you will also receive an URB 750ml swing-top growler, logo tulip glass, sticker pack, digital recipe download and shout out. You could be one of the first to experience our taproom.
Limited Bottle Release Access
Access to our URB limited releases. These will be rare releases via email with a focus on experimentation with new and unusual ingredients and yeasts. Available only to subscribers (limit 2 per batch). Also includes 750ml swing-top growler, tulip glass, digital recipe download, sticker pack and shout out.
URB Pairing Dinner For Two
Come, break bread with us and enjoy our deliciously prepared foods and unique beverages. We'd love to have you.
Brewer for a Day
Have you ever wanted to brew a batch of beer at a brewery? Here's your chance. You and a guest will join us for a brew day on our pilot system. See firsthand how we create our recipes and develop new and experimental beers and then have a personal Q&A session afterwards.
The second level of this prize package includes the pilot brew session as well as a large scale production batch. You'll be a part of the process from recipe development to pouring through the taps. You'll then get all the glory with a special release and tapping at our pub.
Beer Festival Guests of Honor
All of the above + you and a friend will get to be our Beer Festival guest of honor where you'll pour the beer you helped design and brew for festival goers. We'll even throw a release party for you at the pub and dress you in all the URB swag you can handle.One Man's Quest To Combat Counterfeit Drugs — With A Suitcase
Enlarge this image toggle caption Mahafreen H. Mistry/NPR Mahafreen H. Mistry/NPR
In a small house in rural Kenya, a young woman gives birth to a healthy little girl. Before anyone can celebrate, the mother starts bleeding. The woman will die soon if the bleeding doesn't stop.
Luckily, the midwife has a drug in front of her, called oxytocin. It can easily stop the postpartum bleeding and save the women's life. She takes the medication, but nothing happens. It doesn't work.
This story is fictitious. But the scenario is all too common.
The problem is counterfeit drugs — medications that don't have the active ingredient or have insufficient quantities of it to be effective. In other words, drugs that don't work.
Counterfeit drugs account for roughly $75 billion of the $900 billion global pharmaceutical market — and about 100,000 deaths a year in Africa alone. In Kenya, up to 30 percent of drugs on the market are counterfeit, the World Health Organization reported. Many "drugs" are no more than just chalk or water.
One man in Boston is trying to change that.
Muhammad Zaman, a biomedical engineer at Boston University, has designed a suitcase that detects fake drugs. Called PharmaChk, the device is about the size of a carry-on bag. When you open it up and pop a pill into the designated spot, it tells you whether the drug is real or not.
Zaman showcased PharmaChk at the annual DevelopmentXChange conference in Washington, D.C., a few weeks ago. Back in 2014, he won a $2 million grant from Saving Lives at Birth to bring PharmaChk closer to commercial production.
"The idea here is very simply. It's a method to measure the potency of the drug," he says, demonstrating a prototype of the device to Goats and Soda at the conference. "Anybody can get trained in 15 minutes."
The outside shell of PharmaChk is hard plastic. Inside are wires, chips and tiny channels that shuttle liquid around. In essence, the device measures the concentration of a drug's active ingredient and how fast it dissolves.
For example, say you want to test a malaria drug. It can be a pill, powder or a solution. You simply mix the drug with plain water and combine it with a second solution – a fluorescent probe that comes with the kit. In this case, the probe is developed specifically so that it binds to active ingredients in malaria drugs.
"When there's a reaction between the probe and the drug, there is light," Zaman says. "The light that comes out is directly proportional to the amount of [active ingredients in] the drug.
"Imagine you are dealing with a drug that is completely fake," he continues. "When you add the probe, there is no light. We can say there is no active ingredient in the drug."
The interaction between the drug and the probe takes place inside a silicon-polymer testing chip that sits atop a tiny camera, all embedded in the suitcase. The camera captures the light, and the software translates the readings.
It's similar to the litmus test — a chemical way of testing the acidity of a solution — but instead of color, you have a quantitative number that tells you how much active ingredient there is in the pill. The results are then displayed on a touch screen.
Zaman isn't sure yet how much the PharmaChk will cost, but he projects it will less than the GPHF-Minilab, a similar device already out on the market. The Minilab is also shaped like a suitcase, but it weighs about 200 pounds. And it does not provide testing for liquids. It also takes hours to process samples, compared to Pharmachk's 15 minutes.
Zaman and his team took PharmaChk to Ghana last year to test it out in city hospitals, clinics and small pharmacies — and to see what people think of the device. The team plans on returning to Ghana again this year. Eventually they want to try it out in rural communities, as well.
Device like PharmaChk empower doctors, nurses and pharmacists, says Dr. Youseph Yazdi, a biomedical engineering professor at Johns Hopkins University.
Here in the U.S., we rely on regulations to ensure medications are what their labels say they are. These regulations are missing or don't work in many developing countries.
Such problems will always be there, Yazdi says, but when health workers know whether the drug is fake or not, they can reject it on the spot. "They will know, and they won't buy it," he says.
Currently, Zaman and his team have standard probes for antimalarial drugs and antibiotics. They plan to develop more probes for testing tuberculosis medications and uterotonics — drugs that help control postpartum hemorrhage.The numbers are in for the most recent players the Raiders signed so now we can update the Raiders available salary cap space.
First, Matt Schaub re-did his contract to bring his base salary down from $10.93 million to a reported $9 million. He had no guaranteed money but his entire base salary would have counted against the cap if he were on the roster come the regular season. He now carries a cap hit of $8 million according to reports.
Charles Woodson re-signed last week but his numbers took a while to come out. His new one-year deal has a $1.15 million base salary which is down from last season. However, his deal carries more guaranteed money due in part to a $1.15 million signing bonus. Toss in a $200k workout bonus and an additional $1 million in incentives and you have a nice even cap number of $3.5 million
What that means is the Raiders are currently $14.7 million under the salary cap.
Of course, the team must leave room for the rookie pool, which is now projected to count $3.4 million against the cap based on figures from Overthecap.com.
This leaves the Raiders with an estimated $11.3 million still left to spend in free agency.
Remember, the Raiders basically must spend as much as they possibly can because with the 72% they used last year, they must spend 95% over the next three years. Add to it the $9.3 million in dead money they carry this year - which doesn't count towards the salary floor - they are up against it spend all available cap money.
With free agency winding down, the remaining players are going to come relatively cheap. The team still has enough money to add several players as free agents. Another option would be to extend the contracts of some current players, using up the cap space that way.
Follow @LeviDamienAny company that wants to do seismic testing in Oakmont will have to meet multiple regulations, under an ordinance that council adopted in a unanimous vote.
“The ordinance was thoroughly researched,” council President Thomas Briney said, referring to the measure adopted July 3. “We sought input from several sources, including our solicitor and information from other (municipal) engineers who gave input in preparation of similar ordinances. I think the ordinance is very fair.”
The borough would collect a $500, non-refundable permit fee and anyone who violates the ordinance could be fined up to $1,000 per day.
Testing will be restricted to between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. Monday through Friday, and no testing will be permitted on holidays.
Other regulations in the ordinance include having applicants set up a $5,000 escrow account to cover borough costs incurred as a result of the permitted project, and restricting weight drop testing to a minimum of 100 feet and charge (explosive) testing to a minimum 300 feet from any building.
The ordinance is available for viewing at the borough building, 767 Fifth St.
Several residents thanked council for adopting the ordinance and accepting their input at previous meetings.
“It appears you covered many of the bases,” resident Ralph Gilbert said.
Resident Pam York encouraged council to increase the permit fee and to have an educational program for property owners about seismic testing.
Oakmont does have a law restricting gas wells in residential districts to parks only. Wells can be in industrial and commercial districts as well.
Monroeville-based Huntley & Huntley Inc. wants to do a seismic survey in Oakmont to collect data on geologic conditions deep underground to map the area but has no plans to drill in the borough, the company’s external affairs specialist, Benjamin Komlos, said.
“At no point were we putting wells in Oakmont,” he said. “We don’t want to step on anybody’s toes. We have no problem with (the ordinance).”
Komlos said there is no timeline to start testing.
Council also approved a motion on July 3 denying any request from Huntley & Huntley for seismic testing unless it complies with the ordinance.
Michael DiVittorio is a Tribune-Review staff writer.
Michael DiVittorio is a Tribune-Review staff reporter. You can contact Michael at 412-871-2367, mdivittorio@tribweb.com or via Twitter.Growing up we were taught a number of rules. As children, we were told to look both ways before crossing the street. As young adults, we were forced to memorize all the driving laws before getting a license. The reasoning behind these rules made sense: you look both ways to see if there is oncoming traffic, you memorize driving laws to avoid a car accident. But some Texas laws may come as a complete surprise.
For example, it is illegal to carry wire cutters in your pocket in Austin. According to government professor David Prindle, this law dates back to when there was a controversy between landowners who preferred open ranges and those who wanted to keep their land closed off with barbed wire. Some in favor of open ranges went around cutting the barbed wire. It was difficult to determine who the criminal was, so by creating a law prohibiting wire cutters from being carried, this discretion was easily avoided.
“I suspect a lot of the weird laws are old,” Prindle said. “Some were certainly relevant at the time they were made. Though, there is one I remember that prohibited throwing onions, and I can’t imagine why that was necessary.”
Other laws seem crazy but are still enforceable. In Texas, if you and your partner socially refer to one another as husband and wife, you can be considered legally married.
This is known as a common law marriage. It simply requires an agreement between partners that they are married and living together. Not all states recognize and give the same rights to those in a common law marriage.
Law student Luis Soberon is interested in the law of adverse possession.
“In Texas, the law of adverse possession states that if you occupy someone else’s land for a certain amount of time and if you actually intended to dispossess the true owner, you get the land,” Soberon said. “Basically, it turns a trespasser into a legal owner, and in Texas, it’s like rewarding the wrongdoer.”
This law was tested last year in Flower Mound, Texas, when Kenneth Robinson moved into a $330,000 house that had been in foreclosure. He filled out the necessary paperwork, filed it with the Denton County courthouse and paid a mere $16 for the rights to the house.
“This dates back to the early 20th century when squatters were farming on land not owned by them,” Prindle said. “It passed because these squatters voted in favor of adverse possession.”
Then there are the shockingly strange incidents.
In 1971, the Texas Legislature passed a resolution honoring Albert de Salvo. Salvo murdered 13 women in the 1960s and was christened the “Boston Strangler.” According to Prindle, Representative Tom Moore Jr. introduced the resolution in order to prove his point that legislators regularly pass bills without fully reading them. His point was quickly proven.
Multimedia journalism senior Cameron Miculka found this particular incident humorous, but still relevant to current problems in the Texas Legislature.
“I think that the root of the problem is that legislators don’t read and research everything thoroughly because of the massive amount of legislation they receive,” Miculka said. “I understand that it is not feasible for legislators to read everything that passes by their desks, but I would hope that those elected would trust their staff enough to do research so that serial killers aren’t honored through legislation.”
In 1980, Corpus Christi residents voted in favor of a proposition that would lower the property tax ceiling and limit annual tax increases. The city’s response to this was to sue the residents, forcing the taxpayers to foot the bill for the lawsuit against themselves.
One thing you may not consider crazy is the Texas state flower being the bluebonnet, or the Texas state bird being the mockingbird, but if you’ve been referring to the plant eating lizard “Pleurocoelus altus” as the Texas state dinosaur, think again.
In 2007, Southern Methodist University paleontology graduate student Peter Rose examined the dinosaur’s fossil only to determine that it had never set foot in Texas. In 2009, the state dinosaur was changed to the “Paluxysaurus,” a species which was found in northern Texas.
So while Austin is certainly weird, you may want to extend that term to the entire state of Texas — or the laws at least.
Printed on Monday, February 20, 2012 as: Quirky laws are obsolete, funny to modern TexansBy using the top electrode as the catalyst that turns plain silicon into valuable black silicon, scientists from Rice University have developed a way to simplify the production of solar cells.
The Rice lab of chemist Andrew Barron disclosed the research in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces.
Black silicon is silicon with a highly textured surface of nanoscale spikes or pores that are smaller than the wavelength of light. The texture allows the efficient collection of light from any angle, at any time of day. Barron and his team have been fine-tuning the creation of black silicon for some time, but an advance in the manufacturing technique should push it closer to commercialization, he said.
Barron noted the new work led by Rice postdoctoral researcher Yen-Tien Lu has two major attractions. “One, removing steps from the process is always good,” he said. “Two, this is the first time in which metallization is a catalyst for a reaction that occurs several millimeters away.”
Barron said the metal layer used as a top electrode is usually applied last in solar cell manufacturing. The new method known as contact-assisted chemical etching applies the set of thin gold lines that serve as the electrode earlier in the process, which also eliminates the need to remove used catalyst particles.
The researchers discovered that etching in a chemical bath takes place a set distance from the lines. That distance, Barron said, appears to be connected to the silicon’s semiconducting properties.
“Yen-Tien was doing the reaction with gold top contacts, adding silver or gold catalyst and getting these beautiful pictures,” he said. “And I said, ‘OK, fine. Now let’s do it without the catalysts.’ Suddenly, we got black silicon — but it was etching only a certain distance away from the contact. And no matter what we did, there was always that distance.
“It told us the electrochemical reaction is occurring at the metal contact and at the silicon that’s a certain distance away,” Barron said. “The distance is dependent upon the charge-carrying capacity, the conductivity, of the silicon. At some point, the conductivity isn’t sufficient for the charge to carry any further.”
Barron said an extremely thin layer of gold atop titanium, which bonds well with both gold and silicon, should be an effective electrode that also serves for catalysis. “The trick is to etch the valleys deep enough to eliminate the reflection of sunlight while not going so deep that you cause a short circuit in the cell,” he said.
He said the electrode’s ability to act as a catalyst suggests other electronic manufacturing processes may benefit from a bit of shuffling.
“Metal contacts are normally put down last,” Barron said. “It begs the question for a lot of processes of whether to put the contact down earlier and use it to do the chemistry for the rest of the process.”
The research was supported by the Robert A. Welch Foundation, the Welsh Government Sêr Cymru Program and Natcore Technology.
Barron is the Charles W. Duncan Jr.-Welch Professor of Chemistry and a professor of materials science and nanoengineering at Rice and the Sêr Cymru Chair of Low Carbon Energy and Environment at Swansea University.
Publication: Yen-Tien Lu and Andrew R Barron, “In-situ fabrication of a self-aligned selective emitter silicon solar cell using the gold top contacts to facilitate the synthesis of a nanostructured black silicon anti-reflective layer instead of an external metal nanoparticle catalyst,” ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 2015; DOI: 10.1021/acsami.5b01008
Images: Courtesy of the Barron GroupBy Will Boggs MD
(Reuters Health) – There are so many different genetic forms of autism that using the singular term, autism, is misleading, researchers say.
“We believe a better term to use is ‘the autisms,’ or ‘the autism spectrum disorders’ (that is, plural),” Dr. Stephen W. Scherer |
sketches for Infinity Gauntlet. They are added to this story above and below.
Original story: Boxers, wrestlers and MMA competitors fight over belts, so why should fighting over a glove be any different?
Marvel has pulled back the curtain on another of its Secret Wars teasers Tuesday, revealing via Hero Complex of a new Infinity Gauntlet series set in the confines of Battleworld. Written by Gerry Duggan and illustrated by Dustin Weaver, the series sees a young woman named Anwen who discovers one of the Infinity stones and has what the series writer calls "a post-apocalyptic-coming-of-age-action-adventure yarn."
And yes, an Infinity Gauntlet series wouldn't be complete without Thanos.
Secret Wars Infintity Gauntlet concept art Credit: Marvel Comics
"I’ve been a fan of Jim Starlin’s since buying his comics off of spinner racks as a kid. He’s been a big time influence on me," Duggan said of the writer of the original Infinity Gauntlet series. "The difference here is that this version of the Mad Titan is a little bit more mysterious…and our heroes don’t know to fear the name Thanos."
Duggan describes Dustin Weaver's take on Thanos as "more grizzled," noting that Marvel is encouraging them to "play rough" with the characters.
Secret Wars Infintity Gauntlet concept art Credit: Marvel Comics
"In the case of this series, you’ll see some old ideas and characters in a new way, while being introduced to brand new concepts," says Duggan. "There’s one idea in particular that I would love to tell you about, but Marvel holds all the Infinity Stones and would erase my answer from this timeline."
One new idea he did talk about is the new character at the center of this, Anwen. Describing her as an "inexperienced" young hero for Marvel, art with the Hero Complex article shows the character wearing a red version of the Nova helmet and costume. Duggan currently writes the ongoing Nova series, so this would seem to be a spiritual continuation of that through Secret Wars.
Secret Wars Infintity Gauntlet concept art Credit: Marvel Comics
Secret Wars Infintity Gauntlet concept art Credit: Marvel ComicsMeet the horses
Of the eight we have today at our Icelandic horse farm, six hold Icelandic passports. The other two were born in the U.S. All horses here are trained in the Icelandic tradition, which means "in the nature".
No horse has entered Iceland for more than a thousand years, and once a horse leaves the island it can never return. These horses have been selectively bred for intelligence, courage, and hardiness, qualities that matter when you live in a rough, volatile environment that's pretty much always trying to kill you. Raised outside and kept wild for their first three to four years, Icelandic horses swim glacial rivers and climb treacherous lava rock. They are survivors.
They are badass.
They are fierce and fiercely loyal.
But they also have "the magic five" gaits. Besides the three gaits that most horses have (walk, trot, canter), Icelandic horses have a fourth gait, Tolt, that lets you ride up to 30mph without spilling your beer (yes, that's a thing we compete in.) Some Icelandic horses have the most prized gait of all, the Flying Pace. It is an all-out, racing gait, but when you ride it you have the sensation of floating in space.
When you see Icelandic horses in fast tolt, they all look like Sleipnir, the eight-legged horse of the Norse god Odin (father of Thor).WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Roman Catholic Church-affiliated organizations on Tuesday obtained last-minute court injunctions that give them temporary exemptions from a part of the Obamacare healthcare law that requires employers to provide insurance policies covering contraception.
A man looks over the Affordable Care Act (commonly known as Obamacare) signup page on the HealthCare.gov website in New York in this October 2, 2013 photo illustration. REUTERS/Mike Segar
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor granted one temporary injunction to Baltimore-based Little Sisters of the Poor and Illinois-based Christian Brothers Services, plus related entities.
Two different appeals courts granted stays in three other cases that had been pending at the high court, filed by various organizations, including Catholic University of America and non-profits in Michigan and Tennessee, according to a lawyer representing the groups. The lower court action meant the Supreme Court did not need to act in those cases.
The groups were all asking the courts to exempt them temporarily from the so-called contraception mandate while litigation continues. The mandate, which was due to take effect for the organizations on Wednesday, is already in place for many women who have private health insurance.
The organizations accuse the federal government of forcing them to support contraception and sterilization in violation of their religious beliefs or face steep fines.
The 2010 Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, requires employers to provide health insurance policies that cover preventive services for women, including contraception and sterilization.
The act makes an exception for religious institutions such as houses of worship that mainly serve and employ members of their own faith, but not schools, hospitals and charitable organizations that employ people of all faiths.
As a compromise, the administration agreed to an accommodation for non-profits affiliated with religious entities that was finalized in July.
Under the accommodation, eligible non-profits have to provide a “self certification” - described by one lower court judge as a “permission slip” - that authorizes the insurance companies to provide the coverage. The challengers say that step alone is enough to violate their religious rights.
In separate cases, the Supreme Court already has agreed to hear oral arguments on whether for-profit corporations have the basis to object to the contraception mandate on religious grounds. The court is due to hear the arguments in March and decide the two consolidated cases by the end of June.Boston’s Latino population has been established and growing for some time, yet Latinos continue to be underrepresented in city government leadership roles, according to a report released this week in Boston.
The report, “The Silent Crisis: Including Latinos and Why It Matters” shows that while Latinos make up 17.5 percent of Boston’s population, they hold only 7.5 percent of cabinet, senior staff or chief positions and only 7.1 percent of board and commission seats in city government.
The study was commissioned by the Greater Boston Latino Network and conducted by Miren Uriarte of UMass Boston, James Jennings of Tufts University and independent researcher Jen Douglas.
“Latinos are very strong in this city in numbers, but you would not know that looking at the numbers in government positions,” said Uriarte, adding that Latino representation would need to double in both executive roles and board and commission seats in order to be equitable.
The study also looked at Chelsea and Somerville, both of which also showed a gap between Latino population and positions in government leadership. The most dramatic gap is in Chelsea, where Latinos make up 62.1 percent of the population but hold only 14.3 percent of executive positions and 10.9 percent of board and commission seats. In Somerville, the Latino population is 10.6 percent, while in its city government, Latinos hold 1.7 percent of board and commission positions and no executive positions.
Alexandra Oliver Dávila is executive director of Sociedad Latina, a nonprofit that serves Latino youth. Her organization is a member of the Greater Boston Latino Network. She said area Latino-led organizations formed the network because they were concerned about lack of funding for Latino-led organizations and lack of Latino representation in government.
The results of the study did not surprise her, Dávila said, but she hopes the report will spur action.
“We just haven’t had a seat at the table where decisions are made,” she said. “It creates a very compelling case. I think there will be action. The fact that the [Boston] mayor is listening and taking it very seriously — I think there will be some movement.”
The report acknowledges that Mayor Martin Walsh took office just this year, and has made some progress in creating a diverse group of leaders, so Latino representation in Boston government is “in many ways (and hopefully) a work in progress for this administration.” On the same day the report was released, Walsh announced the creation of a new Office of Diversity and the appointment of the city’s first-ever chief diversity officer, Shaun Blugh, and deputy chief diversity officer, Freda Brasfield, both of whom are black.
The study examined 47 active boards and commissions listed on the City of Boston website. These are entities that “guide, support, monitor, or regulate different areas of the government of the city,” such as the Arts Commission, the School Committee and the Licensing Board, each of which has one Latino appointee, and the Fair Housing Commission and the Parks and Recreation Commission, which currently have no Latino appointees. In all, out of 395 board and commission seats, 28 are held by Latinos, according to the report.
In the most senior mayoral administration roles, Health and Human Services Chief Felix G. Arroyo is the only Latino among 10 chiefs, and none of Walsh’s five other cabinet members are Latino.
Boston’s Latino population as of the 2010 U.S. Census is 107,917, a nearly 27 percent increase over the 2000 Census count of 85,089. But while the population shows rapid growth, the report notes that Latinos have been in Boston since the late 1800s and that the contemporary community dates back to the 1950s and ’60s when Puerto Ricans began settling in the South End. In more recent decades, Dominican and Central American immigrants have added to the growth, and the percentage of foreign-born Latinos in Boston is estimated now to be about 43 percent.
Uriarte rejected the notion that Latino underrepresentation might be blamed on language barriers, newcomer status or an insufficient pool of talented candidates.
“We now have second, third generation Latinos,” she said. “Some are English dominant, or English-only. If there was an effort, we would find the people. We would find folks of all colors to populate those commissions.”
The report emphasizes the importance of inclusion for an effective, efficient and legitimate government. Recommendations include action by local governments to create specific goals toward recruiting a “critical mass” of Latino leaders, and by citizen groups to be organized and vocal, form alliances with other underrepresented groups and collaborate with city government to develop strategies and oversight for achieving inclusion.
Latino underrepresentation in Boston’s municipal government is especially troubling given the dominance of Latinos in some areas of city services, such as housing, economic development and education, Uriarte noted. For instance, Latinos make up the largest ethnic group among the Boston’s 56,000 public school students, giving them a particularly high stake in the future of the Boston Public Schools.
Adding to the urgency, a recent BPS-commissioned report highlighted significant disparities in education opportunities and achievement for Latino and black students, who together make up 78 percent of the city’s school population.
“This is about a policy of inclusion,” said researcher Uriarte, who also served on the advisory committee for the BPS report. “We use Latinos as an example, but I would be surprised if we found anything different with an community of color. You cannot change the outcome for African Americans and Latinos unless you’re committed to changing how the city is serving these populations.”Welcome back to the Paper Champion. Today we continue our review of the best Uncommons in the Battle For Zendikar set. The commons seemed to be a bit weaker than usual and no creatures were featured, so let’s take a look at what the uncommons have in store…
Breaker of Armies
This creature can be crippling to cast but if you do ever manage to bring it into play and attack with it, it will do exactly what it’s named to do, break armies. Ten damage goes a long way to finishing off all of a players blockers and allows for other creatures to sneak in for damage.
Carrier Thrall
Carrier Thrall at first seems like a garbage creature but it has value. When it dies, hopefully trading one-for-one on a block or attack, you get a comparable 1/1 into play you can use for additional mana in a pinch. Not to shabby.
Catacomb Sifter
If there is one thing in Magic creatures do well, it’s dying. Don’t let their deaths be in vain. With Catacomb Shifter in play, any creature you control that dies nets you a Scry effect. This includes the 1/1 Eldrazi token the Shifter brings into play.
Drana’s Emissary
For those of you that know me, this card is right up Orzhov player’s alley. It’s a 2/2, flies, and munches away at your opponent’s life total every upkeep. I vote this creature to be the best of the uncommons but I’m a tad biased.
Encircling Fissure
I’ve played with this card over the last few weeks. It’s a great combat trick to drop on blockers or rushing opponent’s creatures. When cast they will be fed into the buzzsaw while dealing no damage in return. Also add you can cast it for the Awaken cost and gain an additional creature to block with.
Retreat to Coralhelm
I really like the Retreat cards in this set. They all offer just a little boost for just playing lands. Out of the five, the Retreat to Coralhelm seems the best to me. It offers the chance to scry as well as tap or untap creatures. This can get you additional creature ability triggers, tapping the opponent’s creatures for quick attack or even playing the land during the second Main Step to allow for an additional blocker.
Roil Spout
This is a fun annoying card to play on offending creatures. It keeps the peace for a turn and ruins the opponent’s next draw step. Rarely will you get the Awaken ability due to it’s cost but the spell stands on it’s own without the added benefit.
Stasis Snare
For those of you that have been riding Oblivion Ring for it’s budget removal capabilities, there is a new king in town. Stasis Snare can be cast as an instant and ruin your opponent’s plans.
Sylvan Scrying
Land fetching is all the rage nowadays and this spell can dig up some prime real estate. Just cast, dig, draw and drop.
Transgress the Mind
I’m curious how many black decks in Modern will be sideboarding this card against decks like Twin, Tron or Delver. This discard has what it takes to stuff these decks cold if played early enough. Time will tell.
Vampiric Rites
If you thought Alter’s Reap was decent, you will love this enchantment. You can now turn your sacrificed creatures into a small stream of life and drawn cards.
Many of the uncommons were highlighted here. I found the uncommons slot to be better than average and many cards listed here can find a place in multiple deck types, especially casually.
A final word, one thing I’d like to pat the Wizards crew on for this set is the staggered power and toughness of creatures. So many other sets focused on creatures with 2/2 or 3/3. Battle For Zendikar has many creatures with 2/3 and other oddball power/toughness rankings. In my games, this has led to more thought involved, especially in gang blocking in order to kill off pesky attackers. Anything that decreases the no-brainer blocks of the past is a good thing and I hope Wizards keeps this in the future.
Swing Last,
Aiokii
Like this article? You can contact Aiokii in the comments below or follow him on Twitter or Facebook. Aiokii can also be found on MTGO, hit him up for a game sometime. Also, take the time to check out Reddit Budgetdecks for cheap discussion and deck ideas.
AdvertisementsA screenshot of Gillett senior Brian Zahn's interception of a spike attempt attempt to stop the clock by Crivitz senior quarterback Sebastian Atwood during a M&O Conference football game last Friday. (Photo: Courtesy of Gillett football coach Rick Kamps)
Brian Zahn made the first interception of his career on Friday.
The Gillett senior’s pick was perhaps the first interception of its kind as well.
Trailing 14-6 at home against Crivitz, Zahn made a diving interception with about 15 seconds remaining in the first half to halt a drive inside the Tigers’ 10-yard line.
The 6-foot-1, 200-pound defensive tackle’s pick of an attempt by Wolverines senior quarterback Sebastian Atwood to stop the clock with a forceful spike on third down was nothing short of amazing.
“I couldn’t believe it at first,” said Zahn.
“I was at the right place, right time, with the right idea. It just all came together perfectly.”
Video of the play had reached over 400,000 views by Tuesday afternoon on MaxPreps.com, which voted it the No. 1 high school football play in the nation for the week.
ESPN.com and other national media outlets also posted the clip.
The footage of Zahn’s first career interception may have never made an online splash like it did had the Gillett three-sport athlete never posted it Saturday as his first tweet on Twitter.
“I started it with the purpose of trying to put it on the Hudl Top 5,” said Zahn, referring to the online video scouting tool most high school teams use.
“It has been a really cool experience to see it explode from what it was. I wasn’t going to put it anywhere at first, but then my teammates kind of told me I should because they thought it was really cool.”
The reaction to the interception was a positive note for the Tigers, who ultimately lost 30-6 to Crivitz in the M&O Conference game.
The Wolverines’ victory made it easier for Atwood to watch the rare interception again when some of his teachers replayed it on projectors in their classroom this week.
The 6-foot-5, 190-pound quarterback feels the ball may have hit the ground. But in hindsight, it created a memory both players and their teams can look back on after receiving national attention.
“It was weird,” Atwood said. “We went to watch film (Monday) and logged onto our Hudl and it was there. It was weird that people started tagging me in it. All of my social media just blew up.
“Hopefully, I’ll never have to be on that end of a play like that again.”
Gillett head coach Rick Kamps said he has never seen an interception like that before — at any level.
Besides coaching high school football for over 20 years, Kamps has done freelance TV work for Fox Sports’ NFL broadcasts for 20 years.
“I didn’t realize that we had the ball,” Kamps said. “I’m looking at the white hat (official) signal that we had the ball. I was just like, ‘What the hell just happened?’”
Zahn said he noticed earlier in the drive when Atwood did a spike to stop the clock the left-handed quarterback didn’t step back.
“I thought next time, since he didn’t back up at all, I might as well try to dive for it,” said Zahn, who dove over the Crivitz’s left guard to make the interception.
“He threw it, and it just stuck in my hands. It just stuck right there.”
Although the play was shocking, Kamps wasn’t surprised that Zahn was the one to make it.
Besides being a student with a 4.14 GPA, Kamps called Zahn a “jack of all trades.” The senior plays center, defensive tackle, long snaps and even tapes ankles for teammates.
“He’s an incredible long snapper,” Kamps said. “He can snap it 25 yards on a dime and put it right in a player’s hands. I keep telling him that you have something these teams look for because not everybody can do that.
It’s likely nobody will ever be able to duplicate an interception in the same fashion Zahn did on Friday.
“He just took a chance,” Kamps said. “He was able to take a (series) that looked like it was going to be disastrous for us and make something out of it.”
— apekarek@pressgazettemedia.com and follow him on Twitter @andrewpekarek.SEATTLE — Roadside litter comes in all shapes and sizes — from dirty diapers to syringes — but there's one category that out-grosses the rest: trucker bombs.
Most drivers whiz along the nation's highways largely oblivious to their roadside surroundings. But next time you are out there, take a closer look.
"As soon as you look for it you’ll see it," says Megan Warfield, litter programs coordinator at Washington state's Department of Ecology. "You just see them glistening in the sun. It’s just gross."
They are trucker bombs, plastic jugs full of urine tossed by truckers, and even non-truckers, who refuse to make a proper potty stop to relieve themselves.
The state hasn't counted how many such jugs are found each year, but a single, small county decided to do its own tally. "In one year," Warfield says, "one crew found 2,666 bottles of urine, 67 feces covered items, not including diapers, and 18 syringes."
It even happens at rest stops. "That’s the mystery," Warfield says. "There’s a bathroom right there, there’s also a trash can."
Job stress, pressure cited
Truckers, for their part, point to a lack of convenient parking areas and an industry that's become more stressful since deregulation in the 1980s.
Urine jugs, says Todd Spencer, executive vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, "are an indicator of how much stress and pressure drivers are under." Those factors range from having to get deliveries on time to making up for higher fuel prices by reducing costs elsewhere.
The legal work week for truckers is 60 hours, the former truck driver says, and "the real work week is usually 20 to 30 hours beyond that."
"What actually drives this more than anything else," he adds, "is that the vast majority of drivers are paid only for miles driven," so they cut corners where possible.
Spencer doesn't see much improvement for drivers either, saying companies would have to be forced to improve conditions.
Leigh Strope, a spokeswoman for the Teamsters union, concurs that a major factor is that "many drivers only get paid when the wheels are rolling."
But she also insists that union drivers aren't the ones stooping to urine jugs. "You won't find Teamsters urinating in jugs and littering the nation's highways," she says. "Our drivers are guaranteed rest and dinner breaks because it's in their union contract."
Handling the goods
Disposing of trucker bombs, aka torpedoes or pee bottles, is a thankless task that in many cases falls to highway cleanup crews.
California has a hazardous waste contractor to deal with human waste. In Washington, a spill response crew is called in to dispose of large volumes of trucker bombs.
Safety experts emphasize that urine is 99 percent sterile and that jugs of it can be moved if crews avoid contact with the liquid, Warfield says. But cleanup crews remain reluctant, with some fearing the liquid could actually be something else also dumped along highways — dangerous chemicals used to make the illegal drug methamphetamine.
$1,025 fine
Hoping to break truckers of the dirty habit, Washington state lawmakers created a "dangerous litter" category in 2002 and increased fines to $1,025 from $95 for general litter.
Washington state's campaign against human waste litter includes this poster, which is posted at truck stops.
When it comes to human waste, the dangerous category covers trucker bombs and dirty diapers. Together they accounted for 8,000 pounds of trash collected from state roads last year.
The state has also launched a "Litter and it will hurt" campaign — its first prevention campaign in a decade.
"We have made a little bit of progress," Warfield says, citing a new survey that found 2,000 tons less of roadside litter than in 1999.
The Washington State Patrol issued 3,995 tickets or warnings about litter in 2003, the most recent year for which data is available, nearly 800 fewer than in 2002.
Several other states have taken similar steps to stop truckers from dumping containers of urine. Wyoming this year increased the maximum penalty for littering bodily fluid to nine months in jail and a $1,000 fine. The maximum penalty for other litter is six months in jail and a $750 fine.
Mowers 'hit them, they explode'
In April, Colorado increased its "human waste" fine from $40 to $500. Transportation employees convinced lawmakers of the need for the drastic increase with their tales of finding urine jugs as they mowed roadway ditches. "We hit them, they explode. The operator ends up wearing this stuff," Randy Dobyns told state senators.
Dobyns estimated he picks up at least 50 containers a week, sometimes milk jugs, water bottles or even bags filled with urine. "The folks who dispose of this stuff are very creative in their use of containers," he said.
Some states have gone so far as to appeal to truckers themselves, but Warfield recalls how that backfired on a colleague in Arizona. "He did not get a warm reception," she says.The Last Minutes of George Harrison
GEORGE HARRISON summoned the world’s greatest private eye to his sickbed to map out secret plans for his own funeral. And today the News of the World can detail the meticulous arrangements that the two men carefully wrote down: the secret blueprint for the death of a superstar. We can also reveal that former Beatle George was cremated within just NINE HOURS of passing away.
Desperate to keep gawping crowds away from his wife Olivia and son Dhani, George turned to Gavin de Becker, security guru to stars such as Cher, Michelle Pfeiffer, Joan Rivers, Jeff Goldblum and Brooke Shields. De Becker also helped comic Bill Cosby to capture the killer of his son Ennis. The meeting took place at George’s bedside in New York’s Staten Island University Hospital. His wife Olivia, 53, was there too, though 24-year-old son Dhani could not bring himself to help plan the secret disposal of his father’s body.
De Becker, who has become George’s close friend, started with a pen and a blank sheet of paper on his lap and began writing. Thirty minutes later the list was complete.
POINT 1: One of the most heart-rending of all. George would not return to Friar Park, the Henley-on-Thames mansion he had lovingly restored into one of the great stately homes of England. Nor would he ever see Liverpool again.
Epitaph - A source told the News of the World: “He knew if he died at Friar Park there’d be crowds outside the gate and it would be a circus. His body would have to be taken out by hearse or undertaker’s van, and he didn’t want that photograph as his epitaph. Nor did he want a scrum at the church or crematorium.”
POINT 2: George could not be allowed to die in hospital, certainly not a New York hospital anyway. His death would immediately become public knowledge, crowds would gather and there would be a free-for-all as his body was removed. The hearse would have to crawl through streets clogged with traffic at any time of day or night and would be impossible to miss.
POINT 3: The most macabre of all. George was faced with the awful question: “Where shall I die?” At one point George contemplated ending his days in his Hawaii home. This was ruled out. Maui airport is relatively small and George would have been recognised and his home besieged. De Becker suggested his own large home in Beverly Hills. It had the space and the privacy and De Becker himself would be on home territory with all the vast security resources he could make available. It was vital, though, that George should get to De Becker’s home secretly.
POINT 4: He would also need painkillers, especially diamorphine, and the journey from New York all the way to Beverly Hills would be too arduous for someone in his condition. They planned a stop-over at Los Angeles UCLA Medical Centre for ‘pain management’. George signalled his approval. Every last second of his life was finally mapped out. Now all that remained were the details of his own funeral service.
POINT 5: A doctor would be on hand to provide a death certificate, allowing virtually immediate cremation. A local Los Angeles funeral home would be notified to expect an unidentified male deceased. A nondenominational chapel was chosen for a funeral service before moving on to a crematorium. His ashes would be scattered in the Far East, where George first famously let his spirituality blossom with the rest of The Beatles under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Crucially that meant building in a 10-12 hour gap between his death and the release of that news to the world.
George, 58, had been told on or about November 14 that it was unlikely he could survive another month. After being treated for lung and throat cancer, he had been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour. On Saturday, November 17, it was decided that he would leave the New York hospital as the De Becker plan was put into operation.
He had just a few days to say goodbye to his dearest friends, for the rest of his secret journey would have to be made without them. He picked up the telephone and dialled his elder sister Louise Harrison. After a bitter family row they had hardly spoken for ten years. Louise, 63, who has lived in America since 1963, immediately flew from Illinois where she runs a small hotel called A Hard Day’s Night. A friend of hers said: “She and George hugged and said all was forgiven. They both cried. George told her, ‘None of it matters any more’.”
She would later be devastated when news of his death was released.
Among the next on George’s list were Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. Paul visited George and listened tearfully as Harrison is thought to have calmly told him: “I won’t be here for Christmas.”
Ringo was in Boston, Massachusetts, nursing his own daughter who is suffering from cancer. “He said he’d fly over that night,” said our source. “He also said he’d cancel his band’s tour of Canada to be with George to the end.” Vigil George told him not to, and added: “I’m at peace.” Ringo would be touring with his band in Canada when the news of his old friend’s death reached him.
On Saturday, November 17, George was told by doctors that he could be taken from New York. With no publicity he boarded a private jet to LA’s small Santa Monica airport. From there he entered UCLA Medical Centre, just as planned.
On Tuesday as Harrison’s condition deteriorated, he was taken to Beverly Hills in a closed, unmarked ambulance. For the next 36 hours, Harrison drifted in and out of consciousness. Olivia and Dhani maintained a constant vigil. The only ‘outsider’ allowed to visit was his great friend Ravi Shankar who played gentle sitar music. An intravenous drip fed glucose into George’s body. Occasionally he took sips from a liquid diamorphine drink.
The end came at 1.30 pm on Thursday Los Angeles time-9.30pm in Britain. His two best friends from the Krishna faith, Shayam Sundara and Mukunda, who George has known for more than 30 years, were said to be chanting quietly into their meditation beads as he passed away.
At 10.30pm in LA, by now 6.30 on Friday morning in Britain, George had been cremated. In a Hare Krishna funeral service George’s simple wood coffin was sprinkled with rose petals, and the air was filled with essence of sandalwood. There were no hymns. A Hare Krishna priest read from the Bhagavad-Gita, a series of sacred Hindu verses. Krishna expert Radha Mohan explained: “The body has always been cremated as soon as possible in India and the ashes scattered on a sacred river. It is beneficial for the soul on its eternal journey.”
At midnight in LA, 8 am in London, news of his death was released. By this time a plane was in the air with Olivia, Dhani and George’s ashes. It was the same Learjet that had flown George from New York. De Becker had secured the 10 hours of space and private time that the family needed.
A source close to de Becker told the News of the World: “It was a classic Gavin operation to spoil any unwelcome attention.” George’s ashes have to be scattered over a holy river as the Krishna faith forbids ashes being scattered over land. Members of the faith believe George had chosen either the Ganges or the River Yamuna in Northern India, 40 miles from the Taj Mahal. Kripa Moya Das, of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, explained: “This holy river (the Yamuna) runs through Mr Harrison’s favourite spiritual retreat in Northern India.”There are hard choices and then there are hard choices—like what to call your political memoir. As with politics, the genre seems encourage a certain brand of safe conformity. When in doubt, politicians can try one resolute word like Duty (Robert Gates) or Leadership (Rudy Giuliani). If you’re Barbara Bush and you’re writing a memoir, you can go with, well, A Memoir. America is a always a good place to start whether you’re An American Son (Marco Rubio), have lived An American Life (Ronald Reagan) or happen to know America By Heart (Sarah Palin). Bravery of all shades is to be celebrated from The Audacity of Hope (Barack Obama) to A Fighting Chance (Elizabeth Warren) to the Courage to Stand (Tim Pawlenty).
Still having trouble coming up with a title for a political memoir of your own? We’ll do the work for you. Click below to create a new title and share the results.
Write to Samuel P. Jacobs at sam.jacobs@time.com.Why We Need a New Political Party
By Mark Hamilton
Founder of the Twelve Visions Party
We see the century-long trend: the Democratic Party and the Republican Party have become all about gaining political power. Therefore, today I introduce the Twelve Visions Party, a new political party that reverses the century-long power-grab by making politics only about protection and not about power.
I will begin by saying: There are ostensible qualities I love about the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, from which rises the Twelve Visions Party:
Let’s start with the Democratic Party:
I love the Democrats’ idea of tolerance, acceptance, and protection of all races, religions, and social classes. The problem, as I pointed out before, is that our political parties supplant their good original intentions with a thirst for political power. So, the Democratic Party’s tolerance and love for people has transmogrified into a grotesque power-play to win groups…to win certain races, religions, and social classes or voting segments of our population, which has led to extraordinarily damaging consequences. For example, democrats push for extensive entitlements for those voting segments, in essence buying their votes. Those entitlements are now sinking America into mind-boggling debt. Those entitlements are bankrupting our children’s futures.
The original, beautiful idea of tolerance, acceptance, and protection of all people, of minorities and all religions and the unprotected ‘little guys’ inspired me and my Twelve Visions Party idea. In order to protect even the smallest of minorities, my Twelve Vision Party idea introduced the fundamental, natural law of protection — the Prime Law. The Prime Law protects the smallest of all minorities: the individual — a minority of one. It protects everyone equally and does not favor a group or significant voting segment of the population. Therefore, the vote-gathering power-play is not available for democrats. Thus, the Democratic Party hypocritically and shamefully has no interest in the protection of the smallest of all minorities — the individual. That responsibility instead falls on the Twelve Visions Party. In the end, the old party’s ostensible quality of tolerance, acceptance, and protection of everyone, which I fell in love with, has been used as a trick to gain votes and political power at our expense. Now, the Twelve Visions Party with the Prime Law of Protection captures and enforces the original, beautiful idea of tolerance, acceptance, and protection of everyone…without tricking people for votes and political power.
Now let’s shift to the Republican Party:
I love the Republicans’ idea of fiscal responsibility and limited government. The problem, as I pointed out before, is that our political parties supplant their good original intentions with a thirst for political power. So, the Republican Party’s fiscal responsibility and limited government (when in power) transmogrified into fiscal irresponsibility and government empowerment…into a grotesque power-play to buy or pander to groups or voting segments of our population, which has led to extraordinarily damaging consequences. For example, republicans when in power push for elaborate spending sprees (and for mandating morals) that please voting segments, in essence buying their votes. Those spending sprees now contribute to America’s insurmountable debt. Those spending sprees are now bankrupting our children’s futures.
The original, beautiful idea of fiscal responsibility and limited government inspired me and my Twelve Vision Party idea. In order to truly limit government, my Twelve Vision Party idea introduced the fundamental budget of limited government — the Protection-Only Budget. The Protection-Only Budget funds only the fundamental, prime purpose of our government — physical safety and protection, which includes military, intelligence, domestic security, justice, courts, prisons, police, veterans. The Protection-Only Budget protects everyone equally and does not favor a specific group or voting segment of the population. Therefore, the vote-gathering power-play is not available for republicans. Thus, the Republican Party hypocritically and shamefully has no interest in the Protection-Only Budget and its massive reductions that would immediately wipe out the deficit and eventually the debt. That responsibility to limit government and eradicate the debt instead falls on the Twelve Visions Party. In the end, the old party’s ostensible quality of fiscal responsibility and limited government, which I fell in love with, has been used as a trick to gain votes and political power at our expense. Now, the Twelve Visions Party with the Protection-Only Budget captures and enforces the original, beautiful idea of fiscal responsibility and limited government…without tricking people for votes and political power.
The Prime Law of Protection and the Protection-Only Budget capture the beautiful, original intentions of the Democrats and Republicans while removing the hypocritical tricks and power-plays. In many ways, the Democrats and the Republicans have become the same: their drive for political power has supplanted their original intentions. Indeed, when in power they are both spending away our country’s future, sending us into mind-boggling debt, bankrupting our children’s future. Soon, there will |
and singular those things which the said judge shall then and there consider of him in this behalf; and have you then and there this writ.
Similarly named writs [ edit ]
The full name of the writ is often used to distinguish it from similar ancient writs, also named habeas corpus. These include:
Habeas corpus ad deliberandum et recipiendum : a writ for bringing an accused from a different county into a court in the place where a crime had been committed for purposes of trial, or more literally to return holding the body for purposes of "deliberation and receipt" of a decision. ("Extradition")
: a writ for bringing an accused from a different county into a court in the place where a crime had been committed for purposes of trial, or more literally to return holding the body for purposes of "deliberation and receipt" of a decision. ("Extradition") Habeas corpus ad faciendum et recipiendum (also called habeas corpus cum causa ): a writ of a superior court to a custodian to return with the body being held by the order of a lower court "with reasons", for the purpose of "receiving" the decision of the superior court and of "doing" what it ordered.
(also called ): a writ of a superior court to a custodian to return with the body being held by the order of a lower court "with reasons", for the purpose of "receiving" the decision of the superior court and of "doing" what it ordered. Habeas corpus ad prosequendum : a writ ordering return with a prisoner for the purpose of "prosecuting" him before the court.
: a writ ordering return with a prisoner for the purpose of "prosecuting" him before the court. Habeas corpus ad respondendum : a writ ordering return to allow the prisoner to "answer" to new proceedings before the court.
: a writ ordering return to allow the prisoner to "answer" to new proceedings before the court. Habeas corpus ad testificandum: a writ ordering return with the body of a prisoner for the purposes of "testifying".
Origins in England [ edit ]
Habeas corpus originally stems from the Assize of Clarendon, a re-issuance of rights during the reign of Henry II of England.[8] In the 17th century, the foundations for habeas corpus were "wrongly thought" to have originated in Magna Carta.[9] This charter declared that:
No Freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseized of his Freehold, or Liberties, or free Customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any other wise destroyed; nor will We not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his Peers, or by the Law of the land.
However the preceding article of Magna Carta, nr 38, declares:
"No legal officer shall start proceedings against anyone (not just freemen, this was even then a universal human right) on his own mere say-so, without reliable witnesses having been brought for the purpose". - in the original Latin: "Nullus balivus ponat aliquem ad legem, simplici sua loquela, sine testibus fidelibus ad hoc aductis"
Pursuant to that language, a person may not be subjected to any legal proceeding, such as arrest and imprisonment, without sufficient evidence having already been collected to show that there is a prima facie case to answer. This evidence must be collected beforehand, because it must be available to be exhibited in a public hearing within hours, or at the most days, after arrest, not months or longer as may happen in other jurisdictions that apply Napoleonic-inquisitorial criminal laws where evidence is commonly sought after a suspect's incarceration. Any charge leveled at the hearing thus must be based on evidence already collected, and an arrest and incarceration order is not lawful if not supported by sufficient evidence.[citation needed]
In contrast with the common law approach, consider the case of Luciano Ferrari-Bravo v. Italy[10] the European Court of Human Rights ruled that "detention is intended to facilitate … the preliminary investigation". Ferrari-Bravo sought relief after nearly five years of preventive detention, and his application was rejected. The European Court of Human Rights deemed the five year detention to be "reasonable" under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides that a prisoner has a right to a public hearing before an impartial tribunal within a "reasonable" time after arrest. After his eventual trial, the evidence against Ferrari-Bravo was deemed insufficient and he was found not guilty.
William Blackstone cites the first recorded usage of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum in 1305, during the reign of King Edward I. However, other writs were issued with the same effect as early as the reign of Henry II in the 12th century. Blackstone explained the basis of the writ, saying "[t]he king is at all times entitled to have an account, why the liberty of any of his subjects is restrained, wherever that restraint may be inflicted."[11] The procedure for issuing a writ of habeas corpus was first codified by the Habeas Corpus Act 1679, following judicial rulings which had restricted the effectiveness of the writ. A previous law (the Habeas Corpus Act 1640) had been passed forty years earlier to overturn a ruling that the command of the King was a sufficient answer to a petition of habeas corpus.[12] The cornerstone purpose of the ''writ of habeas corpus'' was to limit the King's Chancery's ability to undermine the surety of law by allowing courts of justice decisions to be overturned in favor and application of ''equity'', a process managed by the Chancelor (a bishop) with the King's authority.[13]
The 1679 codification of habeas corpus took place in the context of a sharp confrontation between King Charles II and the Parliament, which was dominated by the then sharply oppositional, nascent Whig Party. The Whig leaders had good reasons to fear the King moving against them through the courts (as indeed happened in 1681) and regarded habeas corpus as safeguarding their own persons. The short-lived Parliament which made this enactment came to be known as the Habeas Corpus Parliament - being dissolved by the King immediately afterwards.
Then, as now, the writ of habeas corpus was issued by a superior court in the name of the Sovereign, and commanded the addressee (a lower court, sheriff, or private subject) to produce the prisoner before the royal courts of law. A habeas corpus petition could be made by the prisoner him or herself or by a third party on his or her behalf and, as a result of the Habeas Corpus Acts, could be made regardless of whether the court was in session, by presenting the petition to a judge. Since the 18th century the writ has also been used in cases of unlawful detention by private individuals, most famously in Somersett's Case (1772), where the black slave Somersett was ordered to be freed.[14] During that case, these famous words are said to have been uttered: "The air of England has long been too pure for a slave, and every man is free who breathes it".[15] During the Seven Years' War and later conflicts, the Writ was used on behalf of soldiers and sailors pressed into military and naval service.[16] The Habeas Corpus Act 1816 introduced some changes and expanded the territoriality of the legislation.
The privilege of habeas corpus has been suspended or restricted several times during English history, most recently during the 18th and 19th centuries. Although internment without trial has been authorised by statute since that time, for example during the two World Wars and the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the habeas corpus procedure has in modern times always technically remained available to such internees. However, as habeas corpus is only a procedural device to examine the lawfulness of a prisoner's detention, so long as the detention is in accordance with an Act of Parliament, the petition for habeas corpus is unsuccessful. Since the passage of the Human Rights Act 1998, the courts have been able to declare an Act of Parliament to be incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, but such a declaration of incompatibility has no legal effect unless and until it is acted upon by the government.[17]
The wording of the writ of habeas corpus implies that the prisoner is brought to the court for the legality of the imprisonment to be examined. However, rather than issuing the writ immediately and waiting for the return of the writ by the custodian, modern practice in England is for the original application to be followed by a hearing with both parties present to decide the legality of the detention, without any writ being issued. If the detention is held to be unlawful, the prisoner can usually then be released or bailed by order of the court without having to be produced before it. With the development of modern public law, applications for habeas corpus have been to some extent discouraged, in favour of applications for judicial review.[18] The writ, however, maintains its vigour, and was held by the UK Supreme Court to be available in respect of a prisoner captured by British forces in Afghanistan, albeit that the Secretary of State made a valid return to the writ justifying the detention of the claimant.[19]
Other jurisdictions [ edit ]
Australia [ edit ]
The writ of habeas corpus as a procedural remedy is part of Australia's English law inheritance.[20] In 2005, the Australian parliament passed the Australian Anti-Terrorism Act 2005. Some legal experts questioned the constitutionality of the act, due in part to limitations it placed on habeas corpus.[21][22][23]
Canada [ edit ]
Habeas corpus rights are part of the British legal tradition inherited by Canada. The rights exist in the common law but have been enshrined in the Constitution Act 1982, under Section Ten of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.[24] This states that "Everyone has the right on arrest or detention... (c) to have the validity of the detention determined by way of habeas corpus and to be released if the detention is not lawful".
Suspension of the writ in Canadian history occurred famously during the October Crisis, during which the War Measures Act was invoked by the Governor General of Canada on the constitutional advice of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, who had received a request from the Quebec Cabinet. The Act was also used to justify German, Slavic, and Ukrainian Canadian internment during the First World War, and the internment of German-Canadians, Italian-Canadians and Japanese-Canadians during the Second World War. The writ was suspended for several years following the Battle of Fort Erie (1866) during the Fenian Rising, though the suspension was only ever applied to suspects in the Thomas D'Arcy McGee assassination.[25]
The writ is available where there is no other adequate remedy. However, a superior court always has the discretion to grant the writ even in the face of an alternative remedy (see May v Ferndale Institution).[26] Under the Criminal Code the writ is largely unavailable if a statutory right of appeal exists, whether or not this right has been exercised.
France [ edit ]
A fundamental human right in the "1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man" drafted by Lafayette in cooperation with Thomas Jefferson,[27] the guarantees against arbitrary detention are enshrined in the French Constitution and regulated by the Penal Code. The safeguards are equivalent to those found under the Habeas-Corpus provisions found in Germany, the United States and several Commonwealth countries. The French system of accountability prescribes severe penalties for ministers, police officers and civil and judiciary authorities who either violate or fail to enforce the law.
"Article 7 of [1789] Declaration also provides that 'No individual may be accused, arrested, or detained except where the law so prescribes, and in accordance with the procedure it has laid down.'... The Constitution further states that 'No one may be arbitrarily detained. The judicial authority, guardian of individual liberty, ensures the observance of this principle under the condition specified by law.' Its article 5 provides that everyone has the right to liberty and sets forth permissible circumstances under which people may be deprived of their liberty and procedural safeguards in case of detention. In particular, it states that 'anyone deprived of his liberty by arrest or detention shall be entitled to take proceedings by which the lawfulness of his detention shall be decided speedily by a court and his release ordered if the detention is not lawful'."[28]
France and the United States played a synergistic role in the international team, led by Eleanor Roosevelt, which crafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The French judge and Nobel Peace Laureate René Cassin produced the first draft[29][30] and argued against arbitrary detentions. René Cassin and the French team subsequently championed the habeas corpus provisions enshrined in the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.[31]
Germany [ edit ]
Germany has constitutional guarantees against improper detention and these have been implemented in statutory law in a manner that can be considered as equivalent to writs of habeas corpus.
Article 104, paragraph 1 of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany provides that deprivations of liberty may be imposed only on the basis of a specific enabling statute that also must include procedural rules. Article 104, paragraph 2 requires that any arrested individual be brought before a judge by the end of the day following the day of the arrest. For those detained as criminal suspects, article 104, paragraph 3 specifically requires that the judge must grant a hearing to the suspect in order to rule on the detention.
Restrictions on the power of the authorities to arrest and detain individuals also emanate from article 2 paragraph 2 of the Basic Law which guarantees liberty and requires a statutory authorization for any deprivation of liberty. In addition, several other articles of the Basic Law have a bearing on the issue. The most important of these are article 19, which generally requires a statutory basis for any infringements of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Basic Law while also guaranteeing judicial review; article 20, paragraph 3, which guarantees the rule of law; and article 3 which guarantees equality.
In particular, a constitutional obligation to grant remedies for improper detention is required by article 19, paragraph 4 of the Basic Law, which provides as follows: "Should any person's right be violated by public authority, he may have recourse to the courts. If no other jurisdiction has been established, recourse shall be to the ordinary courts."[32]
India [ edit ]
The Indian judiciary, in a catena of cases, has effectively resorted to the writ of habeas corpus to secure release of a person from illegal detention.[33] For example, in October 2009, the Karnataka High Court heard a habeas corpus petition filed by the parents of a girl who married a Muslim boy from Kannur district and was allegedly confined in a madrasa in Malapuram town.[34] Usually, in most other jurisdictions, the writ is directed at police authorities. The extension to non-state authorities has its grounds in two cases: the 1898 Queen's Bench case of Ex Parte Daisy Hopkins, wherein the Proctor of Cambridge University did detain and arrest Hopkins without his jurisdiction, and Hopkins was released,[35] and that of Somerset v Stewart, in which an African slave whose master had moved to London was freed by action of the writ.
The Indian judiciary has dispensed with the traditional doctrine of locus standi, so that if a detained person is not in a position to file a petition, it can be moved on his behalf by any other person. The scope of habeas relief has expanded in recent times by actions of the Indian judiciary.[36]
In 1976, the habeas writ was used in the Rajan case, a student victim of torture in local police custody during the nationwide Emergency in India. On 12 March 2014, Subrata Roy's counsel approached the Chief Justice moving a habeas corpus petition. It was also filed by the Panthers Party to protest the imprisonment of Anna Hazare, a social activist.
Ireland [ edit ]
In the Republic of Ireland, the writ of habeas corpus is available at common law and under the Habeas Corpus Acts of 1782 and 1816. A remedy equivalent to habeas corpus is also guaranteed by Article 40 of the 1937 constitution.
The article guarantees that "no citizen shall be deprived of his personal liberty save in accordance with law" and outlines a specific procedure for the High Court to enquire into the lawfulness of any person's detention. It does not mention the Latin term, habeas corpus, but includes the English phrase "produce the body".
Article 40.4.2° provides that a prisoner, or anyone acting on his behalf, may make a complaint to the High Court (or to any High Court judge) of unlawful detention. The court must then investigate the matter "forthwith" and may order that the defendant bring the prisoner before the court and give reasons for his detention. The court must immediately release the detainee unless it is satisfied that he is being held lawfully. The remedy is available not only to prisoners of the state, but also to persons unlawfully detained by any private party. However the constitution provides that the procedure is not binding on the Defence Forces during a state of war or armed rebellion.
The full text of Article 40.4.2° is as follows:
Upon complaint being made by or on behalf of any person to the High Court or any judge thereof alleging that such person is being unlawfully detained, the High Court and any and every judge thereof to whom such complaint is made shall forthwith enquire into the said complaint and may order the person in whose custody such person is detained to produce the body of such person before the High Court on a named day and to certify in writing the grounds of his detention, and the High Court shall, upon the body of such person being produced before that Court and after giving the person in whose custody he is detained an opportunity of justifying the detention, order the release of such person from such detention unless satisfied that he is being detained in accordance with the law. [Italics added]
The writ of habeas corpus continued as part of the Irish law when the state seceded from the United Kingdom in 1922. A remedy equivalent to habeas corpus was also guaranteed by Article 6 of the Constitution of the Irish Free State, enacted in 1922. That article used similar wording to Article 40.4 of the current constitution, which replaced it 1937.
The relationship between the Article 40 and the Habeas Corpus Acts of 1782 and 1816 is ambiguous, and Forde and Leonard write that "The extent if any to which Art 40.4 has replaced these Acts has yet to be determined". In The State (Ahern) v Cotter (1982) Walsh J opined that the ancient writ referred to in the Habeas Corpus Acts remains in existence in Irish law as a separate remedy from that provided for in Article 40.[37]
In 1941, the Article 40 procedure was restricted by the Second Amendment. Prior to the amendment, a prisoner had the constitutional right to apply to any High Court judge for an enquiry into her detention, and to as many High Court judges as she wished. If the prisoner successfully challenged her detention before the High Court she was entitled to immediate, unconditional release.
The Second Amendment provided that a prisoner has only the right to apply to a single judge, and, once a writ has been issued, the President of the High Court has authority to choose the judge or panel of three judges who will decide the case. If the High Court finds that the prisoner's detention is unlawful due to the unconstitutionality of a law the judge must refer the matter to the Supreme Court, and until the Supreme's Court's decision is rendered the prisoner may be released only on bail.
The power of the state to detain persons prior to trial was extended by the Sixteenth Amendment, in 1996. In 1965, the Supreme Court ruled in the O'Callaghan case that the constitution required that an individual charged with a crime could be refused bail only if she was likely to flee or to interfere with witnesses or evidence. Since the Sixteenth Amendment, it has been possible for a court to take into account whether a person has committed serious crimes while on bail in the past.
Italy [ edit ]
The right to freedom from arbitrary detention is guaranteed by Article 13 of the Constitution of Italy, which states:[38]
Personal liberty is inviolable. No one may be detained, inspected, or searched nor otherwise subjected to any restriction of personal liberty except by order of the Judiciary stating a reason and only in such cases and in such manner as provided by the law. In exceptional circumstances and under such conditions of necessity and urgency as shall conclusively be defined by the law, the police may take provisional measures that shall be referred within 48 hours to the Judiciary for validation and which, in default of such validation in the following 48 hours, shall be revoked and considered null and void. Any act of physical and moral violence against a person subjected to restriction of personal liberty shall be punished. The law shall establish the maximum duration of preventive detention.
Malaysia [ edit ]
In Malaysia, the remedy of habeas corpus is guaranteed by the federal constitution, although not by name. Article 5(2) of the Constitution of Malaysia provides that "Where complaint is made to a High Court or any judge thereof that a person is being unlawfully detained the court shall inquire into the complaint and, unless satisfied that the detention is lawful, shall order him to be produced before the court and release him".
As there are several statutes, for example, the Internal Security Act 1960, that still permit detention without trial, the procedure is usually effective in such cases only if it can be shown that there was a procedural error in the way that the detention was ordered.
New Zealand [ edit ]
In New Zealand, habeas corpus may be invoked against the government or private individuals. In 2006, a child was allegedly kidnapped by his maternal grandfather after a custody dispute. The father began habeas corpus proceedings against the mother, the grandfather, the grandmother, the great grandmother, and another person alleged to have assisted in the kidnap of the child. The mother did not present the child to the court and so was imprisoned for contempt of court.[39] She was released when the grandfather came forward with the child in late January 2007.
Pakistan [ edit ]
Issuance of a writ is an exercise of an extraordinary jurisdiction of the superior courts in Pakistan. A writ of habeas corpus may be issued by any High Court of a province in Pakistan. Article 199 of the 1973 Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, specifically provides for the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus, empowering the courts to exercise this prerogative. Subject to the Article 199 of the Constitution, "A High Court may, if it is satisfied that no other adequate remedy is provided by law, on the application of any person, make an order that a person in custody within the territorial jurisdiction of the Court be brought before it so that the Court may satisfy itself that he is not being held in custody without a lawful authority or in an unlawful manner". The hallmark of extraordinary constitutional jurisdiction is to keep various functionaries of State within the ambit of their authority. Once a High Court has assumed jurisdiction to adjudicate the matter before it, justiciability of the issue raised before it is beyond question. The Supreme Court of Pakistan has stated clearly that the use of words "in an unlawful manner" implies that the court may examine, if a statute has allowed such detention, whether it was a colorable exercise of the power of authority. Thus, the court can examine the malafides of the action taken.[40]
The Philippines [ edit ]
In the Bill of Rights of the Philippine constitution, habeas corpus is guaranteed in terms almost identically to those used in the U.S. Constitution. in Article 3, Section 15 of the Constitution of the Philippines states that "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended except in cases of invasion or rebellion when the public safety requires it".
In 1971, after the Plaza Miranda bombing, the Marcos administration, under Ferdinand Marcos, suspended habeas corpus in an effort to stifle the oncoming insurgency, having blamed the Filipino Communist Party for the events of August 21. Many considered this to be a prelude to martial law. After widespread protests, however, the Arroyo administration decided to reintroduce the writ. In December 2009, habeas corpus was suspended in Maguindanao as the province was placed under martial law. This occurred in response to the Maguindanao massacre.[41]
In 2016, President Rodrigo Duterte said he was planning on suspending the habeas corpus.[42]
On May 23, 2017 at 10 pm Philippine time, President Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law in the whole island of Mindanao including Sulu and Tawi-tawi for the period of 60 days due to the series of attacks mounted by the Maute group, an ISIS-linked terrorist organization. The declaration suspends the writ.[43]
Scotland [ edit ]
The Parliament of Scotland passed a law to have the same effect as habeas corpus in the 18th century. This is now known as the Criminal Procedure Act 1701 c.6.[44] It was originally called "the Act for preventing wrongful imprisonment and against undue delays in trials". It is still in force although certain parts have been repealed.
Spain [ edit ]
The present Constitution of Spain states that "A habeas corpus procedure shall be provided for by law to ensure the immediate handing over to the judicial authorities of any person illegally arrested". The statute which regulates the procedure is the Law of Habeas Corpus of 24 May 1984, which provides that a person imprisoned may, on her or his own or through a third person, allege that she or he is imprisoned unlawfully and request to appear before a judge. The request must specify the grounds on which the detention is considered to be unlawful, which can be, for example, that the custodian holding the prisoner does not have the legal authority, that the prisoner's constitutional rights have been violated, or that he has been subjected to mistreatment. The judge may then request additional information if needed, and may issue a habeas corpus order, at which point the custodian has 24 hours to bring the prisoner before the judge.
Historically, many of the territories of Spain had remedies equivalent to the habeas corpus, such as the privilege of manifestación in the Crown or Aragon or the right of the Tree in Biscay.
United States [ edit ]
The United States inherited habeas corpus from the English common law. In England, the writ was issued in the name of the monarch. When the original thirteen American colonies declared independence, and became a republic based on popular sovereignty, any person, in the name of the people, acquired authority to initiate such writs. The U.S. Constitution specifically includes the habeas procedure in the Suspension Clause (Clause 2), located in Article One, Section 9. This states that "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it".
The writ of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum is a civil, not criminal, ex parte proceeding in which a court inquires as to the legitimacy of a prisoner's custody. Typically, habeas corpus proceedings are to determine whether the court that imposed sentence on the defendant had jurisdiction and authority to do so, or whether the defendant's sentence has expired. Habeas corpus is also used as a legal avenue to challenge other types of custody such as pretrial detention or detention by the United States Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement pursuant to a deportation proceeding.[citation needed]
Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War and Reconstruction for some places or types of cases.[45][46] During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt suspended habeas corpus. Following the September 11 attacks, President George W. Bush attempted to place Guantanamo Bay detainees outside of the jurisdiction of habeas corpus, but the Supreme Court of the United States overturned this action in Boumediene v. Bush.
Equivalent remedies [ edit ]
Biscay [ edit ]
In 1526, the Fuero Nuevo of the Señorío de Vizcaya (New Charter of the Lordship of Biscay) established a form of habeas corpus in the territory of the Señorío de Vizcaya, nowadays part of Spain. This revised version of the Fuero Viejo (Old Charter) of 1451 codified the medieval custom whereby no person could be arbitrarily detained without being summoned first to the Oak of Gernika, an ancestral oak tree located in the outskirts of Gernika under which all laws of the Lordship of Biscay were passed.
The New Charter formalised that no one could be detained without a court order (Law 26 of Chapter 9) nor due to debts (Law 3 of Chapter 16). It also established that no one could be arrested without previously having been summoned to the Oak of Gernika and given 30 days to answer the said summon, and that upon presenting themselves under the Tree, they had to be provided with all evidence and accusations so that they could defend themselves (Law 7 of Chapter 9). No one could be sent to prison or deprived of their freedom until being formally trialed, and no one could be accused of a different crime until their current court trial was over (Law 5 of Chapter 5). Those fearing they were being arrested illegally could appeal to the Regimiento General that their rights could be upheld. The Regimiento (the executive arm of the Juntas Generales of Biscay) would demand the prisoner be handed over to them, and thereafter the prisoner would be released and placed under the protection of the Regimiento while awaiting for trial.[47]
Crown of Aragon [ edit ]
The Crown of Aragon also had a remedy equivalent to the habeas corpus called the manifestación de personas (literally, demonstration of persons).[48] According to the right of manifestación, the Justicia de Aragon (lit. Justice of Aragon, an Aragonese judiciary figure similar to an ombudsman, but with far reaching executive powers) could require a judge, a court of justice, or any other official that they handed over to the Justicia (i.e., that they demonstrated) anyone being prosecuted so as to guarantee that this person's rights were upheld, and that no violence would befall this person prior to him being sentenced.[49] Furthermore, the Justicia retained the right to examine the judgement and decide whether it satisfied the conditions of a fair trial; if the Justicia was not satisfied, he could refuse to hand the accused back to the authorities. The right of manifestación acted like an habeas corpus: knowing that the appeal to the Justicia would immediately follow any unlawful detention, these were effectively illegal. Equally, torture (which had been banned since 1325 in Aragon) could never take place.[49] In some cases, people exerting their right of manifestación were kept under the Justicia's watch in manifestación prisons (famous for their mild and easy conditions) or house arrest; more generally however, the person was released from confinement and placed under the Justicia's protection, awaiting trial. The Justicia always granted the right of manifestación by default, but they only really had to act in extreme cases, as for instance famously happened in 1590 when Antonio Pérez, the disgraced secretary to Philip II of Spain, fled from Castile to Aragon and used his Aragonese ascendency to appeal to the Justicia for manifestación right, and therefore prevent his arrest at the King's behest.
The right of manifestación was codified in 1325 in the Declaratio Privilegii generalis passed by the Aragonese Corts under king James II of Aragon.[50] It had been practiced since the inception of the kingdom of Aragon in the 11th century, and therefore predates the habeas corpus itself.[49]
Poland [ edit ]
In 1430, King Władysław II Jagiełło of Poland granted the Privilege of Jedlnia, which proclaimed, Neminem captivabimus nisi iure victum ("We will not imprison anyone except if convicted by law"). This revolutionary innovation in civil libertarianism gave Polish citizens due process-style rights that did not exist in any other European country for another 250 years. Originally, the Privilege of Jedlnia was restricted to the nobility (the szlachta), but it was extended to cover townsmen in the 1791 Constitution. Importantly, social classifications in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth were not as rigid as in other European countries; townspeople and Jews were sometimes ennobled. The Privilege of Jedlnia provided broader coverage than many subsequently enacted habeas corpus laws because Poland's nobility constituted an unusually large percentage of the country's total population, which was Europe's largest. As a result, by the 16th century, it was protecting the liberty of between five hundred thousand and a million Poles.[51]
Roman-Dutch law [ edit ]
In South Africa and other countries whose legal systems are based on Roman-Dutch law, the interdictum de homine libero exhibendo is the equivalent of the writ of habeas corpus.[52] In South Africa, it has been entrenched in the Bill of Rights, which provides in section 35(2)(d) that every detained person has the right to challenge the lawfulness of the detention in person before a court and, if the detention is unlawful, to be released.
World habeas corpus [ edit ]
In the 1950s, American lawyer Luis Kutner began advocating an international writ of habeas corpus to protect individual human rights. In 1952, he filed a petition for a "United Nations Writ of Habeas Corpus" on behalf of William N. Oatis, an American journalist jailed the previous year by the Communist government of Czechoslovakia.[53] Alleging that Czechoslovakia had violated Oatis's rights under the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and that the United Nations General Assembly had "inherent power" to fashion remedies for human rights violations, the petition was filed with the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.[54] The Commission forwarded the petition to Czechoslovakia, but no other United Nations action was taken.[54] Oatis was released in 1953. Kutner went on to publish numerous articles and books advocating the creation of an "International Court of Habeas Corpus".[55]
International human rights standards [ edit ]
Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides that "everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person". Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights goes further and calls for persons detained to have the right to challenge their detention, providing at article 5.4:
Everyone who is deprived of his liberty by arrest or detention shall be entitled to take proceedings by which the lawfulness of his detention shall be decided speedily by a court and his release ordered if the detention is not lawful.
See also [ edit ]
Enemy Combatant Detainees: Habeas Corpus Challenges in Federal Court
Notes and references [ edit ]
^ per Blackstone ^ The applicant must make out a prima facie case. However, once that is done, the applicant is entitled to the writ as of right, which is then granted ex debito justitae ("from a debt of justice", that is, as a matter of right)JUST moments after winning the 2014 Man Booker Prize, Tasmanian author Richard Flanagan was full of praise for a “golden time for Australian writing’’.
Flanagan, who broke a decade-long drought at the Man Booker Prize, winning the £50,000 ($90,000) award this morning for his novel of the Thai-Burma Railway The Narrow Road to the Deep North, told The Australian it was “difficult to admit’’ how thrilled he was.
“I am just so delighted that this long life of writing has come to this, one of the world’s greatest prizes.’’
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He said he was privileged to join fellow Australians Thomas Keneally and Peter Carey on the Booker honour roll and predicted more local success in the future.
“This is a golden time for Australian writing,’’ he said.
Taking home the world’s most important book prize is vindication for Flanagan, who was widely expected to win this year’s Miles Franklin Literary Award but lost out to English writer Evie Wyld for All the Birds, Singing.
“It’s a wonderful feeling, but it’s an overwhelming feeling too because to be a writer you don’t expect these sort of things,” Flanagan said at the black tie Booker ceremony at London’s Guildhall.
Flanagan, 53, dedicated the novel, which took him 12 years to write, to his father Archie, who, as prisoner 335, was a survivor of the “Death Railway,” one of Edward Dunlop’s Thousand — the prisoners building the Burma Railway to supply the Japanese army. Archie Flanagan died in April 2013, aged 98, soon after Flanagan completed the book.
“He was always beautiful when answering questions I had. He trusted me that I wouldn’t let him down,” said Flanagan of his father.
REVIEW: Poetry without a shred of pity
GALLERY: The Man Booker Prize for Fiction
The author had described himself and his siblings as “children of the narrow road to the deep north”.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North centres on the Weary Dunlop-like character Dorrigo Evans, an army surgeon who becomes a leader of PoWs on the railway. He is an ambiguous character who, at war and later in civilian life, is uneasy with the hero status bestowed on him by
others.
As he hugged the Duchess of Cornwall at the Guildhall Ceremony, Flanagan said Australians sometimes perceived the Man Booker Prize as something as a chicken raffle.
“ I just didn’t expect to end up with the chicken,” he said.
Australia’s fourth Booker Prize winner added: “ My grandparents were illiterate and I never expected to stand here before you in a grand hall in London as a writer being so honoured.
“ Perhaps in consequence I do not share the pessimism of the age about the novel, they are one of our greatest spiritual aesthetic and intellectual traditions.”
AC Grayling, one of the judges, called his book “ an absolutely superb novel, a really outstanding work of literature” and described it as so powerful he couldn’t put it down.
Flanagan said he would use the money “to do what everyone else does with money: live.
“I am not a wealthy man; in essence I can continue to write,” he said.
He said the novel was not his father’s story; “But he trusted me to write a book that might be true”.
He said it was a book he didn’t particularly want to write, but one he realised he had to write if he was to continue as a novelist.
Flanagan praised the Booker’s decision to “open up and grow” in a world where “the razor wire keeps getting rolled out and we are encouraged |
was doing up there.
Still, even though Chow’s name appeared first on the poster, he wasn’t really the star of the movie. That position belongs to the movie’s two female leads. As Yu Shu Lien, the great fighter whose love for Li Mu Bai must remain unspoken, Michelle Yeoh found ways to project fire and restraint in equal measure. The unspoken longing that she shares with Chow is immediately apparent from the movie’s very first scene. And as the tempestuous young kung-fu genius whose story drives the entire movie, Zhang Ziyi, in her first real starring role, was just magical, starting off as a brat who steals legendary swords for fun and ending it as a tragic figure. My favorite scene in the movie, the goofy-fun restaurant brawl, is a total Zhang showcase. In it, she’s both a stone-cold bad motherfucker and a petulant child, and that’s not a combination we often see.
Lee knew how to play around with myths. The movie was based on a book from a wuxia novel series from the ’30s, and Lee clearly knew all the rules and conventions of the genre, working them effortlessly. But the movie also takes as much delight in the sheer beauty of its costumes and sets as it does in its fights. Also, Lee’s previous movie was the Civil War Western Ride With The Devil, and Lee clearly hadn’t gotten the Western entirely out of his system. Crouching Tiger was, after all, the story of a veteran fighter who decides, at the movie’s beginning, that he wants to hang his weapon up for good, and about the haughty young hot dog who wants the life she’s read about in books. These are pure Western tropes, and the movie’s desert scenes—the long flashback where Jen Yu falls in love with a roaming bandit after he steals her fancy comb—even look like a Western.
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But the movie never feels like a movie-genre pastiche. Instead, it’s a completely sincere addition to a long cinematic tradition, albeit one pretty obscure to the Western art-house crowds who made up one of the main Crouching Tiger audiences. In telling his story, Lee wasn’t just nodding to older movies. He was showing how effective this sort of story could be, especially given the level of craft and budget and thought that he was able to devote to it. The movie is written so carefully that even the snarling villain Jade Fox (Cheng Pei-Pei) has a coherent set of motives: She’s pissed because kung-fu masters have used her for sex without being willing to teach her anything, and because her protégé has surpassed her while keeping it a secret from her.
For whatever reason, Americans were ready for a movie like this in 2000. A lot of the credit probably goes to the wave of Hong Kong action stars and directors who came to Hollywood in the late ’90s, changing the visual grammar of Hollywood movies. And it goes to Yuen Woo-Ping, who’d brought a similar sense of ecstatic unreality to the fights he choreographed in The Matrix a year earlier. It didn’t hurt, either, that Crouching Tiger wasn’t just a kung-fu movie; it was also a grand and lush romantic epic with as much in common with The English Patient as it had with, say, Iron Monkey.
And Crouching Tiger changed things. Its director and stars never really benefited, at least in Hollywood. Chow and Yeoh had both been trying to break through in American movies for years, and it would never really happen for either of them. It wouldn’t happen for Zhang, either, though she at least got to cash in with Rush Hour 2. The movie did lead Ang Lee to get that superhero-movie budget to direct Hulk, but his vision was so deliriously weird that both audiences and studios rejected it. Lee saved himself from movie jail only by making a widely beloved transcendent masterpiece in Brokeback Mountain soon afterward.
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Still, even if Crouching Tiger didn’t make any new Hollywood stars, it did lead directly to a revival of lush, grand-scale wuxia movies, with movies like House Of Flying Daggers and Hero (both of which starred Zhang) following shortly thereafter. And more to the point, Crouching Tiger set the stage for a whole new era in action cinema, one where people from different countries and cultures worked together, often outside the Hollywood system, to make movies that resonated globally. Two years later, we’d get The Transporter, in which a French producer-screenwriter and a Hong Kong director joined forces to turn a glowering British actor into a worldwide action star. Maybe Crouching Tiger didn’t lead directly to a world where things like that were possible, but it was an early sign that things were changing, that the map was realigning itself.
Other notable 2000 action movies: The year’s runner-up honors have to go to Japan’s fascinatingly fucked-up Battle Royale, a ferociously bleak dystopian dark comedy in which a class full of teenagers are forced to kill one another on an island, for the enjoyment of a ruling class of sadistic adults. This movie, which seemed almost impossibly nasty when it first came out—watching it almost felt like an illegal act—somehow helped lay the groundwork for a series of young-adult novels and blockbuster movies that would challenge Harry Potter’s dominance. How did that happen?
In Hollywood, much of the attention went to Ridley Scott’s grizzled period epic Gladiator, which was more or less an action movie even though the action scenes themselves were basically incoherent. Still, even if that movie was old-school Spartacus-style spectacle, there were plenty of signs of a new future emerging in American action movies. One of the year’s biggest was John Woo’s gloriously nonsensical Mission: Impossible II, a movie that climaxes with Tom Cruise throwing a somersault leg-drop. Jackie Chan got his first big post-Rush Hour project with Shanghai Noon, an Old West action-comedy that teamed him up with a sleepily charming Owen Wilson, a guy who seemed to mesh better with Chan than Chris Tucker ever did.
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And then there was Romeo Must Die, which, implausibly enough, teamed Jet Li up with first-time actor Aaliyah, who would’ve probably been a huge movie star if she hadn’t been tragically killed in a plane crash a year later. Romeo Must Die would be the first in a troika of oddly antiseptic hip-hop martial arts movies from the Polish director Andrzej Bartkowiak, all of which would star both DMX and Anthony Anderson. In fact, DMX got to have a brief run as an honest-to-god movie star mostly because producer Scott Rudin noticed how pissed off audiences were when his character got quickly killed in Romeo Must Die.
Not all American action movies would be so forward-thinking. The dumber-than-rocks Gone In 60 Seconds remake was exactly the sort of explosion-happy Nicolas Cage vehicle that was still raking in Michael Bay-style money. The Patriot took the Mel Gibson grim-faced patriarch punch-up and moved it into the colonial era. The thunderingly stupid Ben Affleck robbery-noir twist-fest Reindeer Games would, tragically, turn out to be the last big movie from the old master John Frankenheimer, who had made the great Ronin only two years earlier and who would be dead two years later. The muddled and CGI-drunk cloning thriller The 6th Day was yet another sign that Arnold Schwarzenegger was washed-up. And the cheap, CGI-heavy Aliens rip-off Pitch Black was also pretty dumb, except for one crucial ingredient: a chiseled and marble-mouthed young star named Vin Diesel, whose enormous charisma was immediately obvious.
This would probably be a good place to mention X-Men, which made a ton of money and kickstarted the superhero movie craze. But for my money, X-Men is also the moment that superhero movies split off from action movies and become their own thing. There are certainly crossovers, like Blade II or Punisher: War Zone or Dredd, or even Deadpool or Logan. But for the most part, I don’t consider superhero movies to be action movies, at least not in the way that this column defines them. So this column will mostly ignore the descendants of X-Men going forward.
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2000 was also the year that the Hong Kong lunatic Tsui Hark, after making a pair of probably unintentionally avant-garde Jean-Claude Van Damme movies, went back to Hong Kong to make Time And Tide, a gorgeously stylish hit-man movie that makes basically no narrative sense at all. But Japan probably had a bigger year than Hong Kong. Other than Battle Royale, Japan gave us Takeshi Kitano (who’d had a memorably bloodthirsty role in Battle Royale) directing himself as a yakuza who travels to Los Angeles and finds himself allied with Omar Epps, of all people, in Brother. And Japan gave us Versus, a low-budget indie film about floppy-haired yakuza fighting vampires in an enchanted forest. For all the chances that Hollywood was taking around that time, nobody in America was quite ready to try making something like that.
Next time: A street-racing-themed Point Break rip-off somehow makes a ton of money and, even more improbably, kicks off our greatest running blockbuster franchise.Russian intervention in Ukraine and military manoeuvres in the Baltic region, which is reliant on Russian gas, have stoked concern that the Kremlin could try to destabilise the countries (AFP Photo/Genya Savilov)
Brussels (AFP) - Poland on Thursday signed a landmark deal to build the first EU gas pipeline to the isolated Baltic countries, reducing their uneasy reliance on Russian supplies.
"You have witnessed history being made," European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said after the signing of the 558-million-euro ($636 million) deal between Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
"You have ended the energy isolation of the Baltics. You have ended their long-lasting dependence on a single supplier," Juncker said.
The pipeline of more than 500 kilometres (300 miles) from Poland to Lithuania is the first between the two countries, and the first between the eastern Baltic Sea region and continental Europe, the Commission said.
The European Union is providing financing of 300 million euros, officials said.
The Baltic states, once run from Moscow as Cold War-era satellites, joined the EU in 2004 and now see the bloc as offering a more secure future, especially after Russia's intervention in Ukraine.
The three however remain heavily dependent on Russia for energy supplies, stoking fears they were too exposed to a newly assertive Moscow which has not been slow to play the gas card in its stand-off with Kiev.
"We know how harmful effects can be if member states play off against each other or if we are divided by states outside of the EU," Polish Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz told reporters.
Kopacz was also quoted by the Polish embassy to the EU as saying, in reference to Russia, that the "abusive gas policy... will no longer be possible".
- More projects ahead -
In April, the three Baltic leaders urged Poland and the EU to speed up work on the gas pipeline.
Construction is set to begin next year on the GIPL (Gas Interconnection Poland-Lithuania) pipeline and have an initial annual capacity of 2.4 billion cubic metres, according to Commission figures.
Preparatory work began in 2009.
Anastasios Giamouridis, senior consultant for Poyry Management Consulting in Oxford, England, told AFP the deal will benefit not only Lithuania but also Latvia and Estonia, "which for the moment are still characterised by a high degree of dependency on Russian supply".
He said the next step will be to provide more access to storage and transmission lines "so that the benefits of these diversified gas supply options for Lithuania can be shared more fully with both Latvia and Estonia".
Kopacz on Monday opened a maritime liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal on the Baltic coast to ensure Warsaw's energy independence from Russia.
The 720-million-euro ($820-million) investment in the northwestern city of Swinoujscie comes at a time when Poland has also built hundreds of kilometres of pipelines and underground gas reservoirs.
The country of 38 million people currently depends on its own resources for a third of the gas it consumes, importing 40 percent from Russia and 20 percent from Central Asia.
The first liquefied gas tanker will arrive from Qatar -- the world's largest LNG producer -- around mid-December.About this project
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You can send us an email at gullible@MyFreedomSmokes.comHalo: The Master Chief Collection Tournament Cancelled Due To Bugs By William Usher Random Article Blend Halo: The Master Chief Collection since it launched last year for the Xbox One. The rushed launch of the game came at a heavy price, and 343 and Microsoft are still paying for it to this very day... even in the e-sports arena.
According to
Yep, a lot of protests going on in this Open cup. Either connection issues to blame, or something else. — HCS Live Tweets (@HCSLiveTweets) April 25, 2015 We're aware of and investigating party joinability issues. As a result, we'll be canceling HCS Cup #1, and apologize for the inconvenience. — Halo (@Halo) April 26, 2015
Originally, the Halo Championship Series was supposed to run over the weekend between April 25th and April 26th. However, after getting through Saturday things took a turn for the worst when Sunday rolled around and connectivity issues started plaguing the tournament, which eventually caused them to have to shut things down.
The continued presence of network problems in
Unfortunately, 343 Industries has yet to get a complete handle on the networking issues in Halo 3: ODST DLC for free. It's a nice gesture on Microsoft's part but it certainly doesn't solve the issue with the multiplayer that has now bled over into the game's presence in the e-sports arena.
In fact, the Halo Championship Series is part of the fast-growing ESL and having the game pull out of a weekend tournament due to connectivity and matchmaking issues that have been present since release does not bode well for the game's reputation in the electronic competitive leagues.
On the upside, Halo: The Master Chief Collection's single-player campaign modes have worked quite well since launch and hasn't given gamers too many problems. However, the single-player modes aren't the ones that keep people coming back and spectating during e-sports events.
Some people have joked that Halo: The Master Chief Collection may not be fixed properly until Assassin's Creed Unity.
I'm sure 343 Industries will likely want to get a handle on the issues before the next big championship rolls around for 343 Industries and Microsoft have been desperately trying to fixsince it launched last year for the Xbox One. The rushed launch of the game came at a heavy price, and 343 and Microsoft are still paying for it to this very day... even in the e-sports arena.According to Eurogamer, 343 had to cancel cup #1 in the second season of the official Halo Championship Series. As explained with the tweets below.Originally, the Halo Championship Series was supposed to run over the weekend between April 25th and April 26th. However, after getting through Saturday things took a turn for the worst when Sunday rolled around and connectivity issues started plaguing the tournament, which eventually caused them to have to shut things down.The continued presence of network problems in Halo: The Master Chief Collection has contributed to the game's poor showing in the media since its debut back in November of 2014.Unfortunately, 343 Industries has yet to get a complete handle on the networking issues in Halo: The Master Chief Collection. The matchmaking put a lot of people off from the title last year and it was such a headache that Microsoft promised that those who bought the game in November would be givenDLC for free. It's a nice gesture on Microsoft's part but it certainly doesn't solve the issue with the multiplayer that has now bled over into the game's presence in the e-sports arena.In fact, the Halo Championship Series is part of the fast-growing ESL and having the game pull out of a weekend tournament due to connectivity and matchmaking issues that have been present since release does not bode well for the game's reputation in the electronic competitive leagues.On the upside,'s single-player campaign modes have worked quite well since launch and hasn't given gamers too many problems. However, the single-player modes aren't the ones that keep people coming back and spectating during e-sports events.Some people have joked thatmay not be fixed properly until Halo 5 comes out. Hopefully Microsoft and 343 Industries get a handle on the situation before Halo 5 launches this upcoming October. A game still being broke nearly six months after release is actually worse than Ubisoft's broken launch ofI'm sure 343 Industries will likely want to get a handle on the issues before the next big championship rolls around for Halo. Otherwise it could be pretty embarrassing having a game like Halo: The Master Chief Collection stumbling through the e-sports events or being pulled due to a matchmaking bug that's been present since the game first launch back in November of 2014. Blended From Around The Web Facebook
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Many neurological disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease, are marked by impaired motor skills. In addition, growing evidence suggests there’s a link between some neurodegenerative diseases and body weight. A recent NIH study, for example, found that adults who are obese or overweight at midlife may be at risk for earlier onset of Alzheimer’s disease.
Despite these compelling findings, the genetic risk factors that contribute to the connections between motor impairment, obesity, and neurological disorders are poorly understood. Learning more about these links could shed light on the causes of many neurodegenerative diseases, and possibly lead to new therapies.
Now, a new study by scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has identified genetic factors that influence motor performance and body weight in a genetically diverse group of mice. The researchers also found the genes identified in the mice overlap significantly with genes related to neurological disorders and obesity in people.
The research, reported November 9 in the journal Scientific Reports, provides further evidence for a link between obesity and neurodegenerative disease. It could also help guide the search for the genetic roots of neurological diseases.
“Our research provides a new framework for studying the genetic associations between motor skills, body weight, and diseases effecting the central nervous system,” says Antoine Snijders of Berkeley Lab’s Biological Systems and Engineering Division. He conducted the research with Jian-Hua Mao and several other Berkeley Lab scientists.
The scientists studied a recently developed population of laboratory mice specially bred to be as genetically diverse as the human population. This mouse model, called the Collaborative Cross, encompasses nearly 90 percent of the genetic variation in lab mice. About 95 percent of human disease genes are found in the mouse genome, providing an important resource for human health research. Studying mice also allow scientists to control for other factors besides genetics that can affect disease, such as environmental conditions and diet.
The scientists used 365 mice from the mouse model, measuring their body weight and rotarod performance at ten weeks of age. A rotarod is a rod that rotates more quickly over time, forcing mice to balance like a lumberjack at a log rolling competition. As expected from such a genetically diverse population of mice, the researchers found a wide variation in the mice’s ability to balance on the rotarod. Also as expected, they found that heavier mice didn’t last as long on the rotarod as lighter mice.
The researchers then conducted a genetic linkage analysis and discovered that both rotarod performance and body weight are very complex, in that they both involve a large number of regions of the genome. Specifically, they found 14 regions associated with body weight and 45 associated with rotarod performance. Seven of these overlap, for a total of 52 regions associated with rotarod performance and body weight.
To translate these findings to humans, the scientists compared the 1694 mouse genes in the 52 regions with human genes associated with body weight and neurological disorders, as identified in several genome-wide association studies.
They found that 103 mouse genes in 39 of the 52 regions overlap with 1766 human genes. For example, genome-wide association studies have identified 186 genes in humans associated with Alzheimer’s disease. The Berkeley Lab scientists found seven of these genes in the mice regions. In addition, 834 human genes are associated with obesity. The scientists found 48 of these genes are important in the mouse rotorod experiments. Similar strong overlaps were found for Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and other diseases.
“This demonstrates that the Collaborative Cross mouse model can help us find genetic risk factors for neurological and other diseases,” says Mao.
Mao and Snijders are also using the Collaborative Cross mice in a Microbes to Biomes project to explore and reveal the interactions of gut microbes, their hosts, and the environment.
The research was funded by Berkeley Lab’s Microbes to Biomes Laboratory Directed Research and Development program and the Office of Naval Research.
###
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addresses the world’s most urgent scientific challenges by advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health, creating new materials, and revealing the origin and fate of the universe. Founded in 1931, Berkeley Lab’s scientific expertise has been recognized with 13 Nobel prizes. The University of California manages Berkeley Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. For more, visit www.lbl.gov.
DOE’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.One of the CIA’s top security officials said the cloud infrastructure built by Amazon Web Services is improving the spy agency’s cybersecurity posture and speed to mission handling national security threats.
“Cloud has been a godsend for folks trying to implement systems quickly and for us to secure workloads better,” said CIA Chief Information Security Officer Sherrill Nicely, speaking Thursday at an event hosted by Nextgov.
“We’re very happy with it,” Nicely added. “Our agency and other [intelligence community] components are busily working to move their workloads into the cloud, and off legacy and into the new.”
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The CIA tapped AWS for an initial contract worth $600 million in 2013 to build a cloud computing infrastructure for the 17 agencies that comprise the intelligence community. AWS has since developed and launched an IC Marketplace as part of the deal, which—like its private sector Marketplace—allows IC agencies to peruse a smorgasbord of vetted software offerings they can try, purchase and spin up in the cloud.
AWS “opened up the hood and let us see” some of its inner workings early on in what became a mutually beneficial vendor-customer relationship from a security perspective, Nicely said.
“It was a really good learning experience; we got to understand what Amazon does to protect your information commercially, and our info internally," Nicely said. "We also found a few things and gave them feedback on changes we’d like them to make for us."
She added that AWS “took a lot of that to heart,” and improvements made have positively affected AWS' commercial customers.
In addition, Nicely said the cloud’s elastic compute features improve the speed at which the agency can carry out cybersecurity audits on IT systems. Prior to the cloud’s instantiation, Nicely said internal systems would bog down under the weight of huge amounts of audit data.
In some cases, systems might slow or shut down entirely. With elastic compute, virtual private clouds spin up rapidly when systems come under pressure, so “there is no longer any of that impact from systems filling up and unable to do work,” she said.The new season is now just one week away and in the build-up to the first game, we’ve had an MLS 2015 Season Preview up everyday. Today we take a look at what to expect from the Portland Timbers in 2015…
The Portland Timbers head into their fifth MLS season after joining in 2011. They looked set to be on course for a playoff finish in 2014 until the penultimate game of the season when a 0-0 draw at home to Real Salt Lake allowed the Vancouver Whitecaps to agonisingly nip in ahead of them by just one point, despite the final day victory over FC Dallas for the Timbers. Head coach Caleb Porter will be hoping he can inspire his side to perform to the same level as last year while tweaking some minor elements of the team to make them that little bit more effective.
Last season’s finish: Western Conference position: 6th – P34 – W12 – D13 – L9
What needs to change this year?
Portland Timbers need to start the season better this time around. They didn’t record a victory until their ninth game of the season in 2014 and that left them playing catch up for the remainder of the campaign. The Timbers only managed 10 points from their opening 11 games and that hampered their progress massively.
Despite the slow start, they finished the season brilliantly with just one defeat in their final nine games, picking up five wins and three draws. If the Oregon side can carry that vein of form through to 2015 then they will have a good chance of having a successful year.
Turning some of the draws into wins at home is another important area that could be improved. Portland only managed five victories on home soil in 2014, while they played out nine draws.
Key changes to the squad:
Ins: Adam Kwarasey – Goalkeeper, Nat Borchers – Defender, Jeanderson Pereira – Defender, Dairon Asprilla – Midfielder
Outs: Donovan Ricketts – Goalkeeper, Michael Harrington – Defender, Pa Modou Kah – Defender, Rauwshan McKenzie – Defender, Danny O’Rourke – Defender, Steve Zakuani – Midfielder, Kalif Alhassan – Midfielder
Key Player: Diego Valeri – Midfielder
Diego Valeri will miss the start of the 2015 campaign through injury and is hoping to return by May. The Timbers need to ensure they don’t feel the full force of his absence in the early stages of the season. The Argentinian playmaker scored 11 goals, made 14 assists and was the stand-out player for Portland in 2014. He will be crucial for the Timbers as they look to mount a serious challenge for a top-six finish in the Western Conference and qualify for the playoffs.
One to watch: Fanendo Adi – Forward
Fanendo Adi notched an impressive nine goals from just 18 starts in 2014 and also made four assists. The big Nigerian forward could play an important role when he leads the line for the Timbers. At 6 feet 4 inches, he provides a different proposition for opposing teams compared to other forwards in this Portland squad. He’s only 24-years-old so he’s got a promising career ahead of him and if the Timbers are to challenge for the top spots, his excellent goals-per-game ratio could be crucial.
Predicted finish: Western Conference – 3rd
The Portland Timbers have only recorded one playoff finish since their participation in Major League Soccer began in 2011. However, they look in great shape to be one of the strongest sides in the Western Conference in what promises to be one of the most exciting MLS seasons to date.
What are you expecting from the Portland Timbers in 2015?
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PocketThe military has pledged to back whoever wins Sunday's presidential election in Guinea [Reuters]
The military has pledged to back whoever wins Sunday's presidential election in Guinea [Reuters]
Our correspondent described the prevailing sentiment throughout the country as one of "massive enthusiasm".
Almost 4000 local and foreign observers were deployed for the election in a country with a population of 10 million.
Vigorous campaign
Campaigning has been vigorous, with posters plastered on walls and candidates holding boisterous rallies in the streets.
"A compressed timetable for the elections has generated some irregularities and some technical challenges," Human Rights Watch said in a statement on Friday.
"But the defence ministry's promise to keep the military in barracks during the election period, and to back whoever wins is a very positive sign."
The top contenders are thought to be Cellou Dalein Diallo and Sidya Toure, two former prime ministers and Alpha Conde, a longtime government opponent, but with 24 candidates in the running, Sunday's vote is unlikely to produce a clear winner.
Results are expected by Wednesday, after which the front runners are expected to form alliances in a bid to win voters for a July 18 run-off.
More than 4.2 million Guineans have registered to vote, including more than 112,000 in 17 foreign countries in Africa, Europe and the US.
Guinea gained independence from France in 1958 and has since been ruled by a succession of civilian and military dictators.
It is a country "rich in minerals yet riddled with poverty", Al Jazeera's Simmons said.
It is the world's top bauxite producer, a mineral needed to produce aluminum, and also holds significant deposits of diamonds, gold and iron ore.
Stadium carnage
A military government led by Moussa 'Dadis' Camara gained international notoriety in September 2009 after army units opened fire on pro-democracy demonstrators gathered in a Conakry stadium.
Security forces massacred more than 150 people, wounded 1,000 others and raped some 100 women.
That carnage acted as a turning point in the country's turbulent history.
"It is remarkable to that think that only nine months ago, the Guinean army slaughtered many opposition supporters and raped women in a football stadium," our correspondent said of Sunday's polls.
In December 2009, Camara was shot by an aide. He survived but was forced into exile as part of a tenuous peace deal.
General Sekouba Konate, Camara's deputy, appointed a civilian prime minister and established a civilian-led transitional governing council, paving the way for a new constitution and Sunday's elections.You must enter the characters with black color that stand out from the other characters
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— A Raleigh homeowner says he was forced to spend thousands of dollars to rip out a patio, walkway and concrete platform in order to sell his house – all due to a little-known housing rule designed to protect drinking water.
Pat Pannese said he was blindsided when the mortgage surveyor informed him his.21-acre property in the Bedford Falls neighborhood exceeded the city's impervious surface ordinance.
“We were devastated,” he said. “That's the first we had ever heard of the rule.”
Following state codes enacted in 2001, local governments can limit homeowners, especially in watershed areas, in the amount of ground that is covered by solid surfaces. The rule applies to all homeowners, even those who don’t live in a watershed.
Once a house is built on a lot, hard surfaces – such as a roof, patio, walkway or driveway – can only cover a certain percentage of the land. If too much land is covered, the homeowner is responsible for removing the hard surface.
The reason is due to rain, which falls on natural surfaces and slowly filters its way into the earth and nearby water supplies. However, water from roofs, sidewalks, driveways and patios collects and flows unfiltered posing more of a contamination threat to drinking supplies.
“Water quality is a critical issue in this area," said Michael Orbon, Wake County's water quality director.
He says impervious rules are important in protecting the drinking water supply and that many homeowners don’t understand the breadth of the rules. For example, gravel and dirt driveways are also considered impervious because the soil is compacted.
Tim Maloney is Wake County's planning, development, and inspections director and oversees the unincorporated areas. Every home under his jurisdiction that’s not in a watershed has an impervious surface limit of 30 percent, meaning only a third of the property can be covered by a hard surface.
Since Raleigh, Cary and other municipalities have their own regulations, Maloney admits most people probably have no idea about their impervious surface rules.
“I think there's room for improvement in any way that we communicate with the public,” he said.
Real estate agent Melissa Schambs says homeowners are constantly caught off guard by the limitations, partly because rules vary depending on where they live.
“I would call it a very big issue,” she said. “Pretty much wherever you are you can run into some kind of impervious limit.”
In Pannese’s case, he spent thousands tearing out a concrete walkway in the front of his house, a platform on the side of his house and a patio in his backyard. Raleigh Storm Water inspectors told him it all had to be replaced by sod to bring the property into compliance so he could sell the house.
“It was a nightmare and very stressful,” he said. “We had to make accommodations to the buyer and spend all this money.”
Pannese said he never changed anything after moving into the house in 2006. The issue apparently fell through the cracks when the house transferred from the developer.
“Why would we have a problem today when we didn't have one when we bought the house?” Pannese said.
Schambs says someone "dropped the ball."
“You could say it was the builder who knew he had an impervious limit. You could say it was someone in the building department who should have channeled it somewhere else," she said.
Homeowners are urged to contact their county or town planning department to find out what their impervious surface limits are. It varies by county, town and even neighborhood, so there's no simple chart to see if you're in compliance.Many of the lakes and rivers, including recreational waters, across the US have taken on a bluish-greenish hue this summer. This is due to outgrowth of blue-green algae.
Blue-green algae are not, as this common name might suggest, plant-like or related to seaweed: they are bacteria called Cyanobacteria. Unlike most other bacteria, these microscopic organisms obtain their energy from sunlight through the process of photosynthesis (like plants).
At high levels, blue-green algae are toxic and hazardous to human health. The organisms can produce neurotoxins, cytotoxins, endotoxins and hepatotoxins. The risks are high when ‘algae blooms’ occur, which are visible to the human eye. One toxin, microcystin, is a recognized liver toxin and potential liver carcinogen.
The main way to deal with algae blooms is through chemical treatment. Suitable chemicals include calcium hypochlorite, copper sulphate, cupricide and simazine.
A new science report infers that the monitoring and reporting of toxic algal blooms is underreported and the response are poor. The report from Oregon State University suggests that more resources should be put in to dealing with blue-green algae outbreaks; furthermore, the report predicts that the incidents are likely to increase in the future.
As an example of the seriousness these microorganisms can cause, in 2014 the drinking water supply was temporarily shut down in Toledo, Ohio (a city of 500,000 people). This was the direct result of cyanobacterial contamination of water taken from Lake Erie. The intensity of the contamination of Lake Erie that the color transformation was visible from outer space.
As a general warning, water from recreational rivers and lakes should never be drunk. Even boiling |
us an escapism that is still grounded in a critical analysis of our society. It should come as no surprise then that currently, in our reality, we are witnessing something similar in the race to Mars. It is now the Age of Mars, promising with it a new space race to reach the glory of landing the first humans on Mars. Of the many players trying to occupy the Martian throne, the most legendary house of them all, NASA, is planning on doing it by 2030.
A dragon has been born to aide this legendary house in the guise of SpaceX, bringing with it promising technology and more efficiency. Across the pond, Russia’s Roscosmos clings to the memories of a more successful Soviet forefather as it collaborates with the ESA to push to the Red Planet. On the vast lands of Asia, powerful players like China’s CNSA eye our neighboring planet, promising to put humans there. India and Japan have missions of their own to help in research and science on Mars, as well as the UAE, bring a multilayered play of various nations of Planet Earth.
We will explore all those warring factions, allies, and smaller players in the struggle to take over the throne, sending the first humans to settle there. I’ve taken the liberty to design a fantasy map of each faction and their location on what would resemble a terraformed (and medieval) Mars. If any of you geologists want to point out errors in my design, then please forgive me. I’m a writer, first and foremost. I invite anyone with better talents than me to design a cooler map if they wish. I’ll display it here. For me, this is a purely “artistic” design, which I’ve used Inkarnate for (try them out, they’re in Beta and free). Having addressed all that, we can begin looking at the map.
The Map of Houses
Map of Mars, by yours truly
In this futuristic Areoan society, the great Houses of Mars have conquered and terraformed the land of Red. In the peninsula north of Mariner Valley lies the golden warriors of SpaceX, driving innovation and technological progress for all the other houses to use. To their south lies long term allies NASA and their colony, the most noble and ancient house of the entire realm, the kings of space.
In the Euroscosmos lives the unified alliance of once great medieval realm of majesties and graces and queendoms, who are now focusing entirely on the scientific method to help gather more information on Mars. To the South, lies the dynastic dragon rulers of China, bringing with them the lower cost tools and technology completely optimized to make further discoveries on Mars, if not main contenders to the throne.
The houses of Arabia and mighty India dwell among the giants, profiting through data gathering and having their stake in the Red Planet. Visitors flock to see the ruins of what was once a ULA Post, now a dinosaur among space travelers. In this painted future, only one claimed the Throne of being the first to land on Mars.
Table of Contents
NASA
When I first heard of NASA, I remember it as an elementary school boy looking at an image of Neil Armstrong in an astronaut suit in social studies class. I remember the blue logo that lay on his arm with the letters NASA, and I always questioned what it was. Such an easy and pleasant word, right? NASA. It always felt like it meant something great, ambitious even.
NASA definitely needs no introduction in this post, and if you really never heard of it before, then I really want you to reach out to me, as I have never met a Mars fan who never heard of NASA and still managed to find my blog in the deep universe of the Internet!
Neil Armstrong on the Moon
NASA in a way is the most influential and richest house in the entire map. With a war chest coming up to $18.4 billion a year (which is still not enough, if you pay attention to Neil deGrasse Tyson). The Lannisters with their wealth and the Baratheons with their power couldn’t match NASA in its reach out there to the black beyond. NASA can perform several robotic operations a year all over the Solar System, so in a way, it’s the main leader in our venture into the cosmos.
Like any influential leader, the only way to secure your future is with a vision and a plan that you can unite your people behind, and that’s what NASA intends to do with it’s planned Journey to Mars. You can read an overview of the Journey to Mars, but if you don’t want to read all of it, we can get to the gist of what it truly means.
NASA is preparing the technologies and requirements needed to send humanity to land on an asteroid in the year 2025 and Mars in 2030s. While having a wealth of information from exploring Mars via robotic probes and landers and rovers over the past 40 years, NASA has also been preparing for the voyage by sending astronauts to Low Earth Orbit to board the International Space Station. Aboard the ISS, many experiments are conducted to study the effects of microgravity on the human body. Not only that, but the we can assume each mission to the ISS as a testing ground for conducting deep space missions in the future, Mars and beyond.
We have to admire NASA here because it’s playing not just the long game, but the let’s-do-it-right-once-we-have-the-data way. However, many would argue that NASA would have reached Mars a long time ago has the Space Race not ended with landing a man on the moon but continued on until they reach Mars back in the late-sixties. Back then, funding for NASA was enormous, compared to the small portion allocated to it today. With the extra funding, NASA would help us all reach a true galactic civilization in no time (ok, maybe not galactic civilization status just yet, but definitely a planetary colony status).
Space Launch Systems
What is so important about NASA’s current plans to the Journey to Mars? Why, Space Launch Systems, of course! The SLS, also known as NASA’s secret weapon for the Martian surface, is set to be tested as a proving ground to the journey when it launches in 2018. After all, you did know that we retired the Space Shuttle and are relying on others for delivering payloads and missions beyond Earth.
SLS is NASA’s comeback moment, housing the Orion spacecraft which will carry astronauts to asteroids and beyond. Furthermore, Solar Electric Propulsion is vital for continued cargo delivery to Mars. NASA, throughout its partnership with other countries and private space companies, will prove to be the main pioneer in reaching the Red Planet along with SpaceX.
NASA comes from a legacy of great men, from Buzz Aldrin all the way to Carl Sagan and so many more. Its expertise is unmatched among the arena, being a strong ally that any of the other Houses would be lucky to have.
Charlie Bolden addressing House of Congress
At the helm of the current NASA Administration is Charlie Bolden, who clearly understands the importance of Mars. Here’s an excerpt from his blog about why the Journey to Mars is important:
“NASA’s Journey to Mars is about more than sending American astronauts to the Red Planet in the 2030s; it’s about bringing people together here on Earth. It’s about strengthening the American economy and with it the economic security of families throughout our country. It’s also about strengthening our friendships across sectors and also across national borders. This is why I’m fond of reminding virtually every audience to whom I speak that sending humans to Mars requires all hands on deck – government, industry, academic and international partners and citizen scientists – we need everybody.”
- Charlie Bolden
It goes without saying that NASA will have a large, if not dominant presence, in the race to the Red Planet, and their future missions should be eyed closely, especially with the new updates on the Mars 2020 Rover.
SpaceX
SpaceX Droneship
If the land ever witnessed an Age of Heroes, it is because of SpaceX and the phoenix arising from the ashes to conquer the other houses. SpaceX might be but an infant compared to the might of NASA and the funding provided by other houses, but this private space company has proved time and again that having a big war chest is but a small factor in becoming a space entity.
In SpaceX, the land of the talented innovators, led by Elon Musk of Tesla and Paypal fame, they saw reaching Mars as a different approach than the rest. Mars was an important milestone to reach initially to get people to care about space travel and colonization. It all started with growing a plant on Mars, and a dream of reaching that goal. But then, it became apparent that leaving Earth wasn’t very sustainable, so they needed a new approach to get there. They started by bringing the cost down of a launch from Earth to orbit. Their solution? Reusable rockets, baby.
Let's take a step back to the early days of the company. SpaceX was founded in June 2002. When we talked about "growing plants" earlier, it's a little bit more than a symbolic endeavor. Initially, early on in 2001, Musk envisioned a “Mars Oasis”, a little experiment to get a mini greenhouse launched to Mars and having plants grow on Martian soil, to facilitate the growth of life there. It was then that he realized how ridiculously expensive going to Mars was, even if you had a shit load of money. Something needed to be done to bring the costs down. Off did our favorite entrepreneur travel to Russia, land of lost nukes and beautiful women, to buy a few ICBMs with Silicon Valley buds. The offer he received, about $8 million, was too ridiculously expensive, that he told the Commies to go eff themselves and decided to build a company to design and manufacture the rockets we need.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SpaceX.
Falcon 9 Rocket
If SpaceX had a sigil, I’d say it was the Falcon. The company has built several cost effective rockets of the Falcon family: Falcon 1, Falcon 9, and the Falcon Heavy. The company, along with the likes of Tesla, is really showing us a huge sneak peek into the what our future holds. All hail Musk, the Prince of Space Travel!
There are a lot of interesting things about the next steps for SpaceX. One is a planned unmanned launch to Mars, a mission that will be coordinated with NASA. The mission is known as the Red Dragon and will take place in 2018, so it’s gonna happen very soon! This will be the ultimate test for SpaceX, the culmination of Musk’s original unblogged SpaceX Master Plan, if you will, except here, we aren’t gonna be planting a greenhouse on the Red Planet, just actually landing there!
Another mission we need to look forward to is a crewed space launch to the International Space Station with a Dragon capsule as part of NASA’s offered contract for manned missions there. This will be another important milestone for SpaceX, as it will help them gather data and tests in preparation for a 2024 manned crew launch to Mars.
SpaceX Astronaut Suit concept
What I’m interested in is how the establishment of a Martian will happen under SpaceX, given that it’s a private company and not a state. One of the most likely allies it’ll have is a NASA colony, or if there would be a collaboration, and there’s no reason not to have one, then I forecast a joint venture between SpaceX, NASA, ESA and Roscosmos, being separated from the Chinese base (sigh). I really would like to see a unified Martian base contributed to by all the delegates, but I’m using the International Space Station as a benchmark for this “prediction”.
Chinese National Space Administration
Chinese Taikonaut Saluting
In the lands of the Far East, a dragon stirs, slowly waking up from its eternal slumber. A dynasty that will kiss the cosmos arises, at its helm the might and hunger of a military-led China.
While much of what most of you and I know about the CNSA stems from Andy Weir's The Martian, Neil deGrasse Tyson puts it best when he says that the biggest fantasy about the film is the U.S. and China collaborating on space together. This is because your friendly Congress has banned NASA from collaborating with the Chinese, in a move that it says would decrease the likelihood of espionage.
There’s a report prepared for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission titled “China Dream, Space Dream”, which is over a 100 pages report that I won’t be discussing here. What I’ll be talking about is the conclusion made by the report, which is super fucking interesting. Here’s a little excerpt from the conclusion:
“Even if U.S. space power continues to improve in absolute terms, China’s rapid advance in space technologies will result in relative gains that challenge the U.S. position in space. The real question concerning U.S. competitiveness may not be whether Chinese satellites and launchers are the equal of their U.S. competitors, but whether their products provide sufficient value. A Chinese industry that can offer moderately priced but sufficiently capable products may be able to compete effectively in the market. Similarly, a Chinese space program that can provide a good enough solution to deter or raise the costs of military intervention for an adversary may be all that is necessary. If the current trajectory of China’s space program continues, by 2030 the China will have a new line of advanced launch vehicles, a robust, space-based C4ISR network made up of imagery satellites with resolutions well below one meter, and more capable electronic intelligence communication satellites linked together by data-relay satellites, in addition to a global satellite-navigation system that may gradually approach current GPS standards. At this point, China could also likely have made operational a number of advanced counterspace capabilities, including kinetic-kill, directed-energy, and co-orbital ASAT capabilities as well as some form of missile defense system. In addition, China’s more capable satellites and launch vehicles could not only compete with U.S., European, and Russian industry but also provide new avenues for cooperation. This could be especially true if China were to conduct manned lunar missions.”
Let’s backpedal a bit on the Chinese space program. The CNSA was established in 1993, making it a relatively new program when you stack it up against the other big Houses. Chinese astronauts are called Taikonauts (yay for the many different terms for men in space). A lot of people had their eyes on China and its access to cheap resources and material, making it a player to fear.
That was until two things shook up its Mars mission and destroyed Chinese morale. The first was the Yinghuo-1 mission, which was going to be the first Chinese spacecraft to orbit and explore Mars. The plan was for a two year orbit of Mars, studying the atmosphere, ionosphere, and magnetic field, or what you’d call a mission to spy on American spacecraft technologies (kidding, China). The issue was that the Chinese contracted the Russians for the space launch at the time, right out of Kazakhstan.
The launch sequence got messed up, so the spacecraft never left Earth’s orbit, continuing on an orbital decay until it crashed into the Pacific Ocean. Lesson learned here? Maybe don’t rely so much on Soviet-era technology.
The next major Fuck-You the Chinese got was from the Indians and their successful launch of Mangalyaan (sanskrit for Marscraft), the first successful spacecraft launch by the Indian Space and Research Organization (ISRO) on their first attempt. What a blow it must have been for the Chinese, who probably saw the Indian space program as lacking the type of funding China got gather. It’s an interesting rivalry between the two most populous countries on Earth. The Chinese boasted that they’ll be the first nation to land men on Mars a while back, and now they’re hoping they can land a rover there.
Nevertheless, the Chinese, if they did successfully launch a spacecraft or lander to Mars, will pave the way to an interesting rivalry with the West, fueled by their military spending on a solely space endeavour. The Chinese are eyeing Mars, knowing it holds a strategic importance for the future. Their current plan is to launch a rover in 2020 (would be funny if their rover and NASA’s 2020 rover high fived each when they get there). Other aspects of the mission are a lander and a probe that will study the Martian atmosphere. If those go well by 2020, then we shall see a major Chinese comeback.
United Launch Alliance
Tory Bruno, CEO of ULA
Like a true company of sellswords, one can draw parallel similarities between the United Launch Alliance (ULA) and Martin’s Golden Company in A Song of Ice And Fire series. The United Launch Alliance is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin’s and Boeing’s space division. Historically, they controlled a tight monopoly on winning government contracts for space launches, until SpaceX came into the picture.
Let’s take a look at ULA’s resume. They boast over 100 launches with a perfect success rate, making them popular with NASA. However, the issue lies with their rocket, the Atlas V, which uses Russian RD-180 engines from Roscosmos. The main critic of the ULA’s purchasing of Russian engines has been John McCain, claiming that it feeds “Putin’s cronies” and that an American rocket replacement needs to be used instead. Sadly, the ULA has no such rocket at the moment. The issue isn’t the technology to build such a rocket but the time it takes to do so, which will really affect the timeline of space launch contracts awarded by NASA to the ULA.
Atlas V Rocket Launch
The challenge the ULA has is mainly from its competition with SpaceX, which has been able to decrease the cost of space launch dramatically by keeping the entire operations and manufacturing in house, compared to the contract deals ULA has on its technology. To paint a better picture, the ULA charges about 3 times the cost to launch a rocket to NASA compared to SpaceX, about $380 million to SpaceX’s $133 million, which is a huge fucking deal to the U.S. government and to NASA.
The cozy relationship the ULA enjoyed with the U.S. government is an interesting one of the military-industrial complex, where there’s a monopoly over the contracts awarded for space launch, and in return, many U.S. government officials can “retire” and work for ULA later on. As anyone can tell you about a monopoly, when you are the only player in town, there’s no need to improve yourself and bring costs down, so you end up being super comfortable with what you have.
SpaceX is just destroying that cozy relationship in the best most entrepreneurial way possible, by offering better technology that is made in the U.S.A. and that can be done at the fraction of the cost. Things also changed when SpaceX was awarded military space launch contracts, breaking the ULA monopoly (Oh snaps!). The ULA brought a new CEO, Tory Bruno, to fix their mess and restructure the company. To his credit, he did seek to decrease the costs of launching to space to directly compete better with SpaceX, yet realistically, ULA needs a miracle in order to actually compete on the same level. Nevertheless, because of their relationship with the U.S. government, they will remain a player in the game for a while, perhaps even aiding in launches to Mars in the future as they did in the past. However, unless they can decrease the costs down, SpaceX is likely to eat up most of the contracts in the years to come.
European Space Agency - Roscosmos
ESA and Roscosmos strike an agreement
Roscosmos, born out of the older Soviet Union Space Program, bears similarities to an older House, Targaryen if you will, or perhaps a lesser one such as Baratheon maybe, seeking glory, unseating kings every now and then, but always in need of help. That’s why the partnership between Europe’s ESA and Roscosmos is such an exciting endeavor, especially related to the ExoMars missions.
While at the moment, they are purely scientific missions, such as reading atmospheric gases and stuff, and it’s not very clear if they have plans to send humans to Mars in the future. The ESA-Roscosmos alliance, however, bears an interesting prospect, one of having their foot in the door and getting and securing a piece of the action in the long run, and potentially having colonies on Mars way after everyone else showed up.
The objective of the mission is the establishment of whether life existed on Mars, but if the program is a success, then there’s nothing stopping a larger ESA-Roscosmos alliance, especially on manned missions to Mars. Of course, I believe, they’d need to contract that deal with a company like SpaceX, or perhaps a future NASA Mars manned mission, where they’ll include the European astronauts and Russian cosmonauts (this different terminology for spacemen is annoying and politically inspired, just saying).
I think it is vital to see this alliance as a complimentary wing to any future Mars colony being established on the Red Planet, as they seem more of a support role than a leadership role, invested heavier on the scientific part of the mission (not that anyone else isn’t).
Whether we are going to see the revival of an age-old power or the support of a familiar ally in Euroscosmos, only time can tell on the race to Mars.
Indian Space Research Organization
ISRO assembly in a clean room
At the moment, the Indians are kicking some major Chinese ass by a long shot, and rightfully so. Consider this: India has reached Mars, has a spacecraft orbiting Mars, and is the first nation to ever do so on first attempt. China? Nowhere close. While we believe the Chinese will have a MAJOR role to play in the future of Mars, they are all just empty talk now and they won’t mean anything until China reaches Mars, even if it sends a spacecraft.
Mangalyaan, which is a cool way of saying Marscraft, is currently orbiting Mars as we speak, paving the way to newer missions like the Mangalyaan 2. The cost of the first mission sits at a cool $73 million, which is incredible. We really have to give it to the Indians for being able to reduce the complexity of the mission and the spacecraft, still be able to conduct scientific experiments, and be cost-effective at the same time.
The Mangalyaan 2, which currently has no updates, is planned to be launched in 2020, and will also be an orbiter, but it might also include a lander and a rover, so we will have to wait and see. What I’d like to see is if the Indians can get to Mars before China does in 2020, even if by a few days (hey, this is a race to Mars!) so willing to take bets if you are.
What I can foresee happening, based on a signed agreement between the French and the Indians on cooperation on space missions, is a potential collaboration with Euroscosmos in the future as an entity. It’s more of a wait and see thing, but India has proven already that it’s a big player in this game.
UAE Space Agency
UAE sets out the Mars Mission
Ah, the Emiratis. They’re interesting players in this game, not because of their financial resources (it dwarfs in comparison to NASA, let’s be real) but because of their intentions and plans. From the UAE Mars Mission website, we can tell that their Hope probe is a scientific research experiment to study Mars as it orbits it, which is generally a good thing, since that data will be shared with everyone.
One other aspect of this mission is that it’s the first Arabic and Islamic mission to Mars, and if you’ve read Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars like I’ve been telling you to, you’ll know that the Arabs on Mars are very influential players, so this really intrigues me. The Hope mission will be planned, managed, and executed inside the U.A.E., which is a smart move for them as it will leave behind more experienced personnel and grows talent.
What’s interesting about the Arabs, if we follow the assumption that the mission will be successful in 2021, is what are the next steps? They have the money to invest in the infrastructure to support a Mars colony, but will they do so in the later future? One can only guess at this point. For now, however, they should prove interesting to keep an eye on. Who knows, maybe they’ll build Mars’ largest aquarium a hundred years from now.
Looking Forward
A future Martian colony
What is important about the race to Mars and to claim the Martian throne is that it’ll fuel lots of development and technological growth among all the players, which always bodes well for our society. Sadly, the world will only look at the first House that arrives on Mars as the claimed victor, and not the many Houses that have helped pave the way for that goal.
Some of you might wonder why I haven’t included Mars One in this post, and I’d like to say that the only credit I can give them is helping reignite the interest in Mars. Other than that, I don’t like to deal in fantasy stories, so I decided to keep them out. Call me biased, but it’s my choice. I will however write at some point about Mars One and analyze all their claims, so stay tuned to that.
Looking back at the spacecraft missions to Mars, which you can read about in my other blog post, one has to admit that NASA has the biggest pressure to get to Mars, since it has pioneered a lot of the discovery of what we know about the planet. Look at Mariner-4 and how it gave us an idea of what Mars is.
While NASA seems like the most obvious winner, one must not underestimate the wild card that is China and what will happen in 2020. It will be a battle of science and glory till the bitter end. And that is only if SpaceX doesn’t swoop in and land on Mars first. I think most important takeaway is that, whoever wins the Game of Martian Thrones, Planet Earth will be the ultimate winner. But in case a social media raven hasn’t informed you already, a Martian winter is coming.What kind of creature can steal your money? Join Ethan and Emily Tuttle in their exciting third adventure, as they uncover the curious mystery of how a powerful creature is stealing their grandparents’ hard-earned savings, and how the twins are also being controlled by the same creature—without even knowing it!
The Tuttle Twins and the Creature from Jekyll is 58 pages long and full of fun, colorful illustrations. Recommended reading age: 5-11.
Everbody needs to know what the Fed has done to our money, and this includes children. In a remarkable feat of imaginative fiction, the Tuttle Twins present the machinations of the Fed as an adventure story. Children will be delighted and instructed, and anyone who reads the book will understand how we are manipulated and controlled by a malign monetary regime.Sumiteru Taniguchi, who campaigned for nuclear disarmament after experiencing the US atomic bomb, has died of cancer
A prominent nuclear disarmament campaigner who was delivering mail in Nagasaki when the US dropped an atomic bomb in 1945, has died at the age of 88.
Sumiteru Taniguchi, once considered a frontrunner for the Nobel peace prize, died of cancer at a hospital in the south-western Japanese city, according to Nihon Hidankyo, a group that represents survivors of the atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
The then postman, who was 16 when the attack happened, suffered horrific burns to his back and left arm that took years to heal properly.
He had been riding his bicycle 1.1 miles (1.8 kilometres) from the centre of the blast.
“All of a sudden, after seeing a rainbow-like light from the back, I was blown by a powerful blast and smashed to the ground,” he said at a Nagasaki bombing commemoration ceremony in 2015. “When I woke up, the skin of my left arm from the shoulder to the tip of my fingers was trailing like a rag. I put my hand to my back and found my clothing was gone, and there was slimy, burnt skin all over my hand.
“Bodies burned black, voices calling for help from collapsed buildings, people with flesh falling off and their guts falling out... This place became a sea of fire. It was hell.”
He became one of the few early faces of the bombing aftermath when US military pictures of him recovering in hospital, his entire back an agonising slab of melted flesh, were beamed around the world.
Taniguchi, who spent about three and a half years in hospital after the blast, went on to become a prominent disarmament campaigner, speaking in Japan and overseas about his experience.
“I fear that people, especially the younger generations, are beginning to lose interest,” he said in a 2003 interview with AFP. “I want the younger generations to remember that nuclear weapons will never save humanity. It is an illusion to believe that the nuclear umbrella will protect us.”
The US dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, killing about 140,000 people. The toll includes those who survived the explosion itself but died soon after from severe radiation exposure.
Three days later, the US dropped a plutonium bomb on the port city of Nagasaki, killing 74,000 people.Damascus, SANA – President Bashar al-Assad affirmed that the situation in Syria has improved dramatically because the terrorist groups, mainly ISIS and al-Nusra and like-minded groups who are Wahhabi terrorist extremist groups, are retreating.
In an interview given to India’s Wion TV, President al-Assad said that the situation on the ground, from a military point of view, is much better than before, but this is not the whole picture; as this is not only about military conflict, but is about different things including the ideology that the terrorists try to spread in our region, which is the most dangerous challenge that we may face in the near and long term.
“We respect a lot the Indian position, because first of all it’s based on the international law, it’s based on the charter of the United Nations, it’s based on the morals of the world, of the human civilizations first, and Indian civilization second, the Indian people’s morals,” President al-Assad said, noting that in spite all the Western pressure on every country including India to join the embargo against the Syrian people, India wouldn’t cease its relation with Syria.
Following is the full text of the interview:
Question 1: Welcome Mr. President, and thank you for speaking to Wion. I’d like to begin by asking you about the situation obtaining in Syria today. Now, by all accounts, Mr. President, it is the biggest humanitarian crisis of our time, and hundreds of thousands of people, including innocent people, have been killed in this war, in this conflict. So, how is this campaign of yours against terrorist groups such as the Islamic State progressing?
President Assad: Thank you for coming to Syria; and you come at a time when the situation has improved dramatically, let’s say, because the terrorist groups, mainly ISIS and al-Nusra and like-minded groups in Syria who are Wahhabi terrorist extremist groups, are retreating, or let’s say the area under their control has been shrinking. So, the situation on the ground, from a military point of view, is much better than before. But this is not the whole picture; it’s not only about military conflict, it’s about different things, about the ideology that they try to spread in our region, which is the most dangerous challenge that we may face in the near and long term.
Second, it’s about the support that those terrorist groups have been gaining from regional countries like Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, and European and Western countries like the United States, France, and UK, mainly, which mark a new era in the world where you can use terrorism, any kind of terrorism, to implement a political agenda. This is something more dangerous than any other danger that we may face in our modern world.
Question 2: Mr. President, you mentioned the names of some terrorist groups, you mentioned the names of some countries including Saudi Arabia and other countries, but if I were to ask you, Mr. President, who or what do you blame for the crisis in Syria today?
President Assad: If I want to be objective, we always say that if you don’t have your own, let’s say, defects in your society, in your country, the external factor would be minimal. So, we always talk about our mistakes or our loopholes or defects, but at the end, we didn’t bring the terrorists, we didn’t support the terrorists, we didn’t support this ideology. Mainly, who started this conflict was Qatar under the supervision and the endorsement of the Western countries, mainly France and UK, at the very beginning, but when you talk about France and UK, they wouldn’t do something without the permission of the United States. We all know that the real mentor is the United States, but they allow others to play different roles. So, if you want to blame about who supported the terrorists and who started this blood-letting and blood-shedding in Syria, it was the West and Qatar, and later Saudi Arabia, one year later joined the same effort, and of course Turkey, we wouldn’t forget Turkey which was the main player with the terrorists in Syria from the very, very beginning.
Question 3: Mr. President, you spoke about how to end this blood-letting. Would you be open for a negotiated political settlement going forward, maybe underwritten by Russia or some other members of the UN Security Council?
President Assad: Of course, we have already joined these efforts since Geneva in 2014, something like this, a few years ago, it’s not only about joining that effort; you need a real effort, you need a methodical effort that could produce something in reality that could be fruitful. Till this moment, we haven’t had any real political initiative that could produce something, although Astana has achieved, let’s say, partial results, through the recent de-escalation areas in Syria, which was positive in that regard, but you cannot call it a political solution till this moment. A political solution is when you have all the different aspects of the problem being tackled at the same time. So, we took the initiative in dealing directly with the terrorists in some areas in order to make reconciliation, where they can give up their armaments and we can give them amnesty, and that has worked in a very proper and good way in Syria.
Question 4: Mr. President, you mentioned about the United States. Now, we know that you had historical differences, if I can put it that way, with the American administrations, subsequent American administrations, but the US President Donald Trump has just completed his inaugural tour of West Asia, as it were, or the Middle East, as others call it. Is Donald Trump someone you think you can do business with?
President Assad: The problem in the United States is about the whole political system, it’s not about one person. Trump’s election has proven again, for us, again and again, that the president is only a performer, he’s not a decision-maker. He’s part of different lobbies and the deep state or the deep regime as we can call it, who implement and dictate on the president what should he be doing, and the proof to what I’m saying is that Trump after he became president, he swallowed most of the promises and the words that he was boasting during his campaign. He made a 180 turn in nearly every promise. So, why? Because the deep state wouldn’t allow him to go in a certain direction. That’s why for me dealing with him as a person, it could be, but can that person deliver? No. In the United States, the president cannot deliver, the whole state, the deep state only is the one who can deliver, and this is the problem. This deep state doesn’t accept partners around the world; they only accept puppets, and they only accept followers, they only accept proxies, that’s what they accept, and we’re not any of these.
Question 5: Mr. President, I want to draw your attention to the events of 4th of April, when the world was told about a so-called chemical attack or a chemical incident. Now, in your estimation – and you’ve been asked this question several times before – what is the truth behind the April 4 incident, and who do you think might be behind it?
President Assad: You know, every politician can say “no, we don’t do it,” morally or for any other reasons, and the viewers can say “no, no, he’s not honest.” I wouldn’t talk about this in that traditional way. I would say let’s ask the question: would it be logical to be used? If we have it. We don’t have chemical weapons, but if you have it, if you want to use it, why would you use it in that case? One week before that alleged incident, the terrorists were advancing, we didn’t use it. So, why to use it when the army was advancing and the terrorists were retreating? This is first.
Second, it was used – as they said, we don’t know if it’s true or not – against civilians in one of the cities. So, if the Syrian Army wanted to use those kinds of weapons, why doesn’t it use it against the terrorists who’ve been in the field, not against the civilians? So, all this story doesn’t have, let’s say, legs to stand on, it’s not realistic, it’s not logical. So, who’s behind it? It was very simply the United States and the Western intelligence with the terrorists. They staged this play just to have a pretext to attack Syria, and that’s what happened a few days later when they attacked our airport, and actually they supported the terrorists, because ISIS launched an attack the same day of the American attacks on our airbase. And they wanted to demonize again, to re-demonize the Syrian state and the Syrian President. So, this is the only headline that could capture the audience and the public opinion around the world.
Question 6: Mr. President, also you’ve been asked this question several times before, I’ll ask you one more time for the benefit of viewers who might be watching you from South Asia and around the world: does Syria have chemical weapons today? Have all your chemical weapons inventory been destroyed by the OPCW? Also, would Syria be holding on to some chemical weapons or hiding it? Your thoughts, Mr. President?
President Assad: Actually, they announced a few years ago that Syria is devoid of chemical weapons. Even John Kerry announced that Syria is free of any chemical weapons. They wouldn’t have done so if they weren’t sure about this. No, we don’t have, and we don’t have the facilities now, even if we wanted to do so.
Question 7: Mr. President, on that note I want to shift your focus away from domestic issues to Syria-India relations, and we know that Syria-India relations have stood the test of time. India in particular has taken a neutral, independent position. It is against foreign intervention of any sort in any domestic crisis around the world. It believes in having a non-violent solution to issues, so what do you make of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India |
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The PDF map and final details will be up next week!Mad Hatter is coming to Gotham this season, as teased late in season two, when Hugo Strange looked to stories he could use to "reprogram" some of his experiments, flashing an Alice in Wonderland book in the process. Actor Benedict Samuel, who guest-starred on The Walking Dead as one of the deadly Wolves, is playing the role, and FOX has released a first look of him in costume - complete with watch and hat, naturally, via EW.
In the comics (and other adaptations like Batman: The Animated Series), Mad Hatter uses technology to control people's minds. Here, though, like the rest of the villains on the show, he's being represented as a newcomer, and someone who's just coming into his own as a villain. Hence the watch: he'll use it as part of his hypnotic gimmick. FOX's official description of Mr. Jervis Tetch reads:
"Jervis Tetch is a talented hypnotist teetering on the edge of madness. He arrives in Gotham with an unwavering desire to find his sister, Alice, a young woman who went missing in the city years ago. It is anyone’s guess just how far down the rabbit hole he’s willing to go in order to find her." The big change here is that Jervis's "Alice" is his sister; typically it's been a random character he's kidnapped, or someone he's been obssessing over in previous incarnations. The description also makes it seem like Mad Hatter, despite the hints in season two, might not be one of Hugo Strange's experiments, after all. We'll find out soon.
Benedict Samuel has a recurring role for this season of Gotham, and will debut in the third episode of the season, which kicks off on September 19, 2016.
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Have you seen Suicide Squad yet? Want to win a Hot Toys Joker figure from the movie? All you have to do head on over to ComicBook.com's Movie Database or click the image above and rate the movie to enter! A winner will be chosen August 19th, 2016!America's gun problem isn't just America's — it also leaks over to Mexico, according to a new report from the US Government Accountability Office (GAO).
One chart that tells the story: 70 percent of guns seized in Mexico and traced by the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) from 2009 to 2014 came from the US:
As the GAO notes, these are only guns that are seized in Mexico and traced by the ATF, not all guns in the country. It is possible, perhaps likely, that the guns the ATF is tasked with tracing are predominantly from America. Still, 73,684 firearms is a lot of guns, so US weapons are definitely contributing to the tremendous levels of violence in Mexico.
The GAO also reported:
ATF data also show that these firearms were most often purchased in Southwest border states and that about half of them were long guns (rifles and shotguns). According to Mexican government officials, high caliber rifles are the preferred weapon used by drug trafficking organizations. According to ATF data, most were purchased legally in gun shops and at gun shows in the United States, and then trafficked illegally to Mexico.
The GAO noted that in addition to traditional trafficking, many guns are trafficked as different weapon parts that are put together once they're in Mexico. These guns are much more difficult — sometimes impossible — to track.
More broadly, the report shows the wider consequences of America's relaxed gun laws. The empirical research is clear that the abundant access to guns in the US leads to more gun deaths in the US. But it also apparently leads to more gun deaths in Mexico.
The lesson: Strict gun laws can't totally work if a neighboring government has lax laws
Mexico is one of the few countries that, like the US, guarantees the right to bear arms in its constitution. Still, Mexico maintains some fairly strict gun laws: All guns must be registered through the federal government, carrying a gun requires a license, sales are legally limited to one store in Mexico City, and carrying licenses can be taken away at the federal government's discretion.
The US, by comparison, doesn't have these standards, they can be bypassed, or they vary from state to state. (For more on US gun laws, and how they compare with those of other developed countries, read my explainer.)
So one way for Mexicans to get around their country's strict gun laws is to simply walk across the border. To visualize this problem, look at this map from MetricMaps, which shows just how many gun dealers are on the US side of the US–Mexico border, a sharp contrast to just one legal gun store in Mexico:
This is a problem we see in the US too: No matter how strict your gun laws are, it's going to be hard to stop the flow of guns if someone can simply go to a neighboring state or country and buy a gun easily. Christopher Ingraham at Wonkblog, for example, documented that many of the guns used in crimes in the US come from states with lax gun laws.
So while the research clearly shows that more guns mean more gun deaths — and less access to guns can reduce gun deaths — ultimately any impact gun control laws have will be diminished if a neighboring government doesn't enforce equal or stricter laws.
For Mexico, this has abhorrent consequences: The country's war on drugs has led to so much violence that men's life expectancy fell after its decades-long trend upward. But it seems gun policy, not just drug policy, played a role in worse levels of violence too.
Watch: America's biggest gun problem is the one we never talk aboutOlga Murra made two women she kept as slaves sleep on the floor, and fed them only bread and water.
Olga Murra warned one of the women she kept as a slave that if the woman disobeyed, immigration officials would come to Texas, kill her and bury her in a field "with other illegal aliens."
And the punishment wouldn't stop there.
For 14 years, Murra convinced two women that she was "the voice of God" - even making them listen to recordings of her reading Bible verses as they cleaned houses, sometimes seven days a week, court documents said.
If they didn't do as she said, Murra convinced the women, they would spend eternity in hell.
Last week, a jury convicted Murra, 64, of two counts of forced labor and two counts of "harbouring an illegal alien," according to a news release from the US Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The crimes were committed in Fort Worth and El Paso.
When she is sentenced in November, Murra faces 20 years in federal prison for each labor charge and 10 years apiece for the harbouring convictions, according to ICE.
Murra made the women sleep on the floor and ask permission to use the bathroom, court documents say.
They could only talk to Murra - not anyone else in the homes where they lived. She only fed them bread and water.
One woman told the FBI that Murra would hit her.
Another said she was allowed to sleep on the floor of a bedroom - but if either woman misbehaved, they were forced to sleep in the garage or the backyard.
Almost every day, they worked. The women cleaned "on average, three or four homes a day," according to court documents. They also cleaned Murra's house and prepared her meals.
All the while, the women were turning their money over to Murra from cleaning houses.
Murra also made them get jobs at McDonald's and Walmart using forged documents, according to court papers.
Murra was born in the United States, but lived in Mexico from shortly after her birth until September 1997, when she moved to Texas - first El Paso, then Fort Worth. She operated cleaning businesses in both cities, ICE said.
When Murra returned to the United States, she brought a 33-year-old Mexican woman with her.
A year later, she arranged for another woman, who was 21, to come to the United States, according to ICE.
The women would be her slaves for the next 14 years and endured a steady stream of abuse and indoctrination.
According to the indictment:
"[Murra] represented herself to (the victim) as the voice of God on earth, and caused (the victim) to believe (the victim) would go to hell if she did not obey the defendant.
"Approximately once or twice a week, the defendant required I.G. to attend religious instruction in the residence, during which the defendant preached for two to three hours. Additionally, the defendant required (the victim) to listen to religious recordings when she cleaned homes, which consisted of the defendant reading Bible verses and discussing their meaning.???
"Murra threatened at least one of the women that if she disobeyed her, she would contact immigration and the woman would be buried in a field with other illegal aliens."
The United Nations Polaris Project, which tracks human trafficking, estimates there are 20.9 million people across the globe who are slaves, trapped in jobs they cannot leave.
That's about three of every 1000 people in the workforce. Women make up 55 percent of the trafficked, according to the project:
"Although slavery is commonly thought to be a thing of the past, human traffickers generate hundreds of billions of dollars in profits by trapping millions of people in horrific situations around the world, including here in the U.S. Traffickers use violence, threats, deception, debt bondage, and other manipulative tactics to force people to engage in commercial sex or to provide labor or services against their will."
Homeland Security agents investigated Murra's case, but it's unclear how the slaves came to the attention of authorities.Oct 18, 2011
What formed this unusual structure on Mars?
Mars is the topic of a video from the Thunderbolts Project called The Lightning-Scarred Planet Mars. In it, Electric Universe advocate Dave Talbott explains how the Red Planet was probably the scene of tremendous plasma discharge events in the recent past. The various formations, as well as the overall topography, indicate something other than flowing water or blowing wind sculpted Mars.
Since erosion is a blurring and rounding process, the sharp peaks, steep valleys, and clean craters suggest that little erosion has taken place. If Mars once possessed a warmer, wetter environment in the past, then the layers of water-soluble olivine in vast deposits should not exist they should have dissolved eons ago.
In the image at the top of the page, a dry lake bed is one of the speculations for the strange shape of the “crater.” The Orcus Patera depression is approximately 380 kilometers long and 140 kilometers wide. Its rim is 1800 meters above the surrounding terrain, but its flat floor lies 600 meters below the surroundings. A lake bed would not have an upraised rim.
The presence of “graben” (rift-like valleys) that cut across its rim supposedly point to faulting from tectonic movement in the Red Planet’s crust. Volcanism has therefore been suggested as a possible source for the crater, as well as for the almost three-kilometer-wide graben found only on the rim and nearby.
Another poorly thought-out option is that a glancing blow from an asteroid scooped out the crater before its shallow attack angle sent it back into space. There are no ejecta anywhere near Orcus Patera, particularly outside of its long axis boundary, so where is the debris from the impact? Besides, the ability of an object to survive the energies involved with a high-velocity asteroid strike and then escape back to space is questionable.
Other elongated craters exist in the Solar System. There are several on the Moon, and others on Mars. They all share common characteristics: flat floors, steep walls, lack of impact ejecta, and a fresh appearance. If those criteria are applied to other structures, then Wilpena Pound in the Flinders Range near Adelaide, Australia could be part of that family.
Conventional viewpoints see the Flinders Range forming as sediments 650 million years ago in a now extinct ocean. Tectonic forces pushed the materials upward into a dome shape that has been subsequently worn down by wind and water. Over the millennia, the surrounding peaks have diminished and the hills and valleys have vanished into the dust and sand of the great desert.
As the standard theory goes, although Wilpena Pound appears to be the remains of a meteor impact, the overall shape and the stratigraphic composition do not support that idea. As has been pointed out in the past, erosion does not possess the all-encompassing power for change that modern geology asserts.
When lightning strikes Earth, multiple leader strokes descend from the clouds, while similar, less visible potential contacts rise from the ground. Once the circuit closes, electrical energy stored in the cloud-to-ground capacitor discharges, drawing current from several square kilometers.
A lightning stroke is accompanied by transverse or “corona” discharges at right angles to the main channel. They appear to be “tributaries” joining the primary discharge, just like those connecting to the Orcus Patera depression. Surface lightning forces close tributaries to be parallel because of the electromagnetic force between them.
Lightning bolts orders of magnitude more powerful than anything seen today could have created the topography on the Sun’s family of planets and moons. As the Electric Universe theory explains, Mars has been subjected to electrical jolts that etched its surface with “skylights”, deep canyons with multiple side branches at right angles to the main channel, dry falls, terraces, and other features that can be found on Earth.
Due to their close resemblance to terrestrial physiography, the Martian formations are thought to be extremely old and cut by water millions of years ago. Electricity is never part of the equation when geological theories are presented. Failing to consider it, NASA scientists have missed a vital clue in the search for answers to the puzzles of planetary scarring.
Stephen Smith
Hat tip to Bernhard Kraker
Now Available – Stars in an Electric Universe DVD
This outstanding lecture delivered by Wallace Thornhill at the NPA 2011 Conference is now out on DVD!
See our resources page for more information.This article is over 3 years old
Swedish men say they were posing for a photograph with their club’s black flag when they were taken for militants
A club of bearded men posing for a photograph in the Swedish countryside with their black flag was mistaken for Islamic State militants, prompting a visit by the police, a club member has said.
Andreas Fransson was with his friends on Saturday outside the ruins of Brahehus castle in southern Sweden when two police officers turned up.
“They told us that a motorist thought he had seen a gathering of Isis terrorists,” said Fransson, whose Bearded Villains organisation does charity work.
On grasping the situation, the two officers “had a good laugh” and got back in their patrol car “with smiles on their faces”, said Fransson who works in public relations.
Six things hipsters have ruined Read more
He acknowledged that the club’s flag – two crossed sabres on a black background – could easily be confused with that of the militant group.
“We belong to a club that is part of an association created in the United States, called the Bearded Villains and which fights against injustice, homophobia, racism and oppression,” he said.
“The flag gets passed from club to club around the world and we take pictures with the flag to show our community,” he said.
“It was a funny incident but it’s a shame to be associated with Isis given our charity work.”
Last week, an engineering school in southern France called Isis ran into trouble with Canadian customs agents worried over a possible link to the jihadist group.Two people die from drug-related causes in Ireland every day.
Drug services group Merchants Quay is calling for urgent action to be taken as new figures show 697 people died of drug-related deaths in 2014.
The Health Research Board (HRB) is issuing a report today which shows Ireland continues to have one of the highest drug mortality rates across the European Union.
The drug-related death toll in Ireland in 2014 outstripped the numbers killed on the roads by more than three to one, figures from the HRB show.
And of the 697 who died, half were aged 39 or younger. Three in four of all deaths were males.
While 13 people on average died each week as a result of a drug-related death in 2014 — 697 in total — 193 people, more than three a week, lost their lives on the roads the same year.
Three in every four deaths where drugs were implicated involved prescription drugs, most commonly diazepam (Valium).
The HRB figures represent a huge surge over the past decade; in 2004, when the first index report was published, the number of drug related deaths was 431. Now, it is 62% higher.
HRB chief executive Dr Graham Love said prescription drugs and drug cocktails were increasingly playing a role in the rise of drug-related deaths.
“It is not just illicit drugs that are resulting in death. Over time we are seeing a rise in the number of deaths involving prescription drugs and cocktails of different drugs. Alcohol is also implicated in one in three deaths. Mixing drugs increases the risk of death, which is clearly reflected in these figures,” said Dr Love.Have you ever had a cherished piece of gaming memorabilia stolen from you? A couple years back I used to rent a house with 3 other guys my age (I was 18 at the time, terrible, terrible idea in retrospect.) and my little carrying case with my original DS and all my pokemon games went missing. I had nearly seven years worth of pokemon collecting ripped from me in an instant. And I never found out what happened to them or where they went. I had pokemon all the way back from Ruby version when I was 10 years old. My lvl 100 Swampert, and all my event legendaries like Jirachi and Deoxys were all lost. I remember one summer I spent nearly two months EV training a team for a pokemon tournament, all perfectly bred with beneficial natures and everything. My favorite pokepal was my Salamence, Ryuu. I remember I was so excited when Heart Gold and Soul Silver came out so I could actually walk around with him :D. If anything that’s one thing about Pokemon that I don’t know of a whole lot of games replicating very well. That bond you make with friends that’s so strong you actually almost feel an emotional connection to them. I guess what I’m saying is always be thankful for what you’ve got, and don’t take anything for granted.Whether it be video games, pokemon, or a relationship, because you never know when you may not have it anymore.As you may know, if you've been reading Southern In-Law for some time, I have many, many, many food allergies and intolerances - and I know that dozens of Southern In-Law readers also have the same issues. But the biggest issue of all? Lack of awareness of others so I'm going to tell you what it's like... in the funniest way I know how..
Let's take a walk in someone elses shoes - someone who food hates....
When everyone else is eating at a restaurant and you just sit there.... eating air...
You, reading ingredients lists at the grocery store
When someone asks you how you cannot possibly eat so many foods
When your doctor doesn't even know how it's possible
When you find a food that you can actually eat (and it tastes good!)
What you should do when someone says your food issues are ridiculous
What you want to do when someone says your food issues are ridiculous
What you really do when someone says your food issues are ridiculous
When someone moans and groans about their delicious food that you can't eat
When people drag on and on about how weird it is that you can't eat anything
When you have delicious food that you can eat... and someone asks for a bite.
When you discover you have yet another allergy/intolerance
When you create a new combination of foods you can eat - and it tastes good!
When you go and buy "your" food at the grocery store
When you meet someone else food hates
But tell me, does food hate you too?
All GIFs from GIFsee
Don't worry that Google Reader is closed, follow Southern In-Law on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Bloglovin and Feedly. You can also sign up to Southern In-Law's Weekly Newsletter here.The upcoming public hearing at the Court of Justice of the European Union in the case of 29 journalists (from every EU member state) against the European Parliament will take place on October 19, 2017 in Luxembourg. This important case relates to twenty-nine journalists who have filed 27 complaints with the European Court of Justice against the European Parliament which refused to give information on how members of the European Parliament (MEP) spend their allowances. The journalists asked for documents regarding the money MEPs receive on top of their salaries, including a general allowance, travel allowance, daily subsistence and funds for staffing, but the Parliament refused to open these expenditures to public scrutiny because of privacy concerns.
The monthly pre-tax salary of MEPs is €8,484 which is the equivalent of an annual gross salary of €101,808 (since July 2016). The cost is met from the European Parliament’s budget and is subject to an EU tax and accident insurance contribution, after which the monthly salary is €6,611. Journalists are not asking questions on these salaries but on extra. MEP allowance for office costs (called “general expenditures”) of €4,299 per month and for 2017 this allowance increased to €4,342 per month. MEPs have also monthly allowance of €24,164 to pay their assistants. The European Parliament’s total budget represents about 1% of all EU expenditure. About one fifth of that 1% is allocated to MEPs’ total expenditure at present.
“The European Federation of Journalists is supporting European journalists’ request for more transparency, accountability and they do it for the public right to access information on tax related issues which deserves our biggest attention”, said Mogens Blicher Bjerregard, EFJ President.
Photo Credit : Cédric Puisney / Wikimedia(The Real Agenda News) Negotiations ignore the recent Paris agreement to reduce CO2 emissions and label high regulations on pesticides and GMOs as “barriers to trade”.
Our suspicions have come true. United States is pressing European negotiators to significantly reduce regulation levels in some of the thorniest issues of the trade agreement known as the TTIP.
A leaked document, which we have gained access to, reveals the American position for the first time, on black and white. The document shows the enormous influence of European and American lobbies on the negotiators of the agreement.
Basically, according to the leaked document, Washington is trying to modify the legislative process in the EU. In some of the most controversial issues related to the environment and health, the United States aims to reduce the standards of European regulation.
The cosmetics industry and the use of pesticides in the agricultural industry are two of the most obvious examples. That is the US position in the negotiations on food, agriculture, trade barriers and environmental protection and health of consumers.
Greenpeace Netherlands was handed a juicy document last April, just at the beginning of the last round of talks in New York.
The draft, 248 pages long, provides substantial information on the European position and especially the US position, which has been kept secret until today at the express wish of the Administration of Barack Obama.
In his recent visit to Europe, Obama and Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed the need to accelerate negotiations. In view of the positions of both parties, the agreement will not be closed this year.
The growing rejection in public opinion in several countries and even between government parties as the French Socialists or Austrian ultras, emphatic winners in the last election are examples of the great differences that are exhibited by the two negotiating teams.
Although Europe has been very conciliatory in public, the text includes details on “very difficult discussions” on many issues, including those related to the cosmetics industry.
In the United States authorities allow the use of animals in laboratory tests; Europe rejects such practices. The European side sees “a very limited ability to set a common position” about it.
Obama and Merkel conspired to close the negotiations this year, but the document shows that this is only possible if Europe significantly lowers measures to ensure consumer protection and regulatory standards.
Negotiating worse health and environmental issues is hard enough and if the current political mess is added to the mix, it is likely that lobbyists will have to battle much longer before reaching an agreement. In both Europe, mainly France and Germany, and the United States, political groups and their candidates are forcefully rejecting TTIP.
The same thing happens in the US, where both liberals and conservatives have shown their opposition to both the TPP and the TTIP.
In the political campaign, Donald Trump has been clear about his intention not to enter agreements that steal America’s right to decide for itself, while Bernie Sanders has also spoke in opposition to the corporate take-over.
The two great critics in Europe have so far been the lack of transparency and the suspicions that the agreement may lead to a reduction of the normative standards of the Union.
Two and a half years ago, at the beginning of the negotiations, Europe and the United States put the emphasis on the economic benefits of the agreement, describing how the TTIP would increase GDP and create tens of thousands of jobs.
These benefits have been proven increasingly uncertain, which has forced both sides to find another narrative: the possibility that the TTIP allows the powers that sign the TTIP to dictate regulatory standards to the rest of the world.
The leaked document makes clear the US position on the matter, with some surprising details: the European Commission considers that the US federal government is the only relevant Administration to set regulatory standards while Washington sets the European partners -the European Commission and national governments as such. The text also sheds some light on suspicions of lack of transparency.
These are some of the most important aspects.
In the document, there are continual references to consultations with big companies and employers, to the point that on sensitive issues such as agriculture and the chemical industry negotiators come to admit that they can not make a decision without consulting with industry.
“The United States says that its position has to consult the rates on chemicals with the chemical industry,” says the document. Europe goes further: sometimes presents offers and counter offers “based on the joint position of European and American industries” in the agricultural negotiations. NGOs and trade unions have repeatedly complained that their access to the negotiators is much more limited.
The document also reveals the creation of numerous committees, formed by officials, who in regulation may condition the ensuing discussion, according to Greenpeace. “The business sector has opportunities to participate in decision-making to intervene in the early stages of the process,” says the environmental organisation.
The great value of the leaked document is that for the first time it makes clear the US position on key aspects of the agreement. Washington wants direct access to decision-making in Europe on the regulatory aspects.
In European debates on the standardisation process regarding regulation, the US experts will dominate, “with no guarantee of reciprocity”. Washington insists again and again on confidentiality when sharing information from companies in all matters relating to chemicals.
Overall, the EU has the highest standards in environmental and health protection, although the application is not always as strict, as shown by the Volkswagen scandal. Europe does not allow imports of US beef treated with hormones, due to its links to cancer and other health concerns.
The EU also has stricter rules in the chemical sector, pesticides or anything concerning genetically modified organisms GMOs, which in the document is labeled as Modern Agriculture Technology.
The US State Department sees those rules on agriculture, pesticides, chemicals meat or treated with hormones as “barriers to trade”..
The leaked document reveals a reduction in environmental protection by both parties. It ignores the recent Paris agreement to reduce CO2 emissions.
Additionally, the position of the negotiators also overlooks the exceptions permitted by the World Trade Organization for a country to restrict trade relations “to protect the life or health of humans, animals and plants” or to “conserve natural resources”.
Both the environmental and consumer protection aspects of the text is inconclusive, but there is a clear bias in US contributions, always in the direction of a kind of competition imposed on downward agreed standards and not to implement new regulations unless strictly necessary and only if there is a prior cost-benefit analysis.
As many NGOs and opposition groups had suspected, the TTIP puts corporate interests at the heart of political decision-making, in detriment of the environment and consumer protections.
We knew that the starting position of Europe was poor, with few or no red lines. We now know that the US position is even worse and that it does not respect those lines.
The Union and the United States give different treatments to the same products. This happens, for example with glyphosate. The entry of pesticides and herbicides in the Union is subject to approval by the European Commission.
On April 13, the European Parliament proposed major hindrance to glyphosate herbicide, which despite having been scientifically proven to cause cancer, it is strongly defended by the US administration.
The WHO itself believes that it may be carcinogenic. The recent ruling of the European parliament calls for a ban on its use outside “professional” application.
Authorities have asked for vetoing glyphosate near schools and playgrounds, public parks, but the Parliament’s recommendation is just that, a recommendation.
The TTIP agreement aims to promote the business of European companies across the Atlantic and vice versa. To solve possible disputes that companies may find on one side with the authorities on the other side, the pact sets a dispute resolution agreement with a technical arbitration to avoid the courts.
After a formidable public objection, Brussels has proposed a panel of judges. In the filtered version of the text there is not a single reference to it from the part of the US. The feasibility of this proposal, therefore, is even more doubtful than ever before.As part of our countdown to Super Bowl 50, SI.com is rolling out a series focusing on the overlooked, forgotten or just plain strange history of football's biggest game. From commercials to Super Bowl parties, we'll cover it all, with new stories published every Wednesday (or, in this case, Tuesday) here.
Men were peeing on the Super Bowl.
Well, not literally on it, but on a hill behind the bleachers at Stanford Stadium, a venue that had no business hosting America’s premier sporting event in 1985. But here we were nonetheless.
NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle had wanted a Super Bowl in Northern California, and San Francisco’s Candlestick Park was too small. The league went instead with the 64-year-old college venue, with its capacity of more than 84,000, and spent $2.3 million on upgrades. The stadium’s bench seats were covered with seat cushions, courtesy of a rising Silicon Valley company called Apple. The week before that 19th Super Bowl, between Dan Marino’s Dolphins and Joe Montana’s 49ers, the league installed two large Diamond Vision scoreboards. Temporary lights were brought in.
Organizers even figured out how to provide light inside those port-a-potties. But few fans wanted to wait in line, and by the time the U.S. Air Force completed its halftime show, “The World of Children’s Dreams,” some attendees were simply urinating wherever they wanted.
It’s easy to imagine Miami’s general manager on that hill, relieving himself. Michael Robbie may have been the most eccentric person in the league. He would walk into his team’s draft room, roll a piece of paper into a telescope and survey the draft board like a pirate scouring the open sea. But that didn’t really matter. Michael’s title, GM, was misleading. He didn’t draft players or make trades. Coach Don Shula did all that.
Michael’s father, Joe, owned the Dolphins; Michael just helped run the business. Tall and gaunt, with a beard, and often decked out in an ill-fitting black suit with a white shirt, Michael resembled Abe Lincoln, people said. Still, he was the Dolphins’ GM, and you expect a GM to do certain things.
Like show up when his team is in the Super Bowl. But Michael Robbie was nowhere to be seen. He had vanished without warning.
Fellow NFL execs had an idea that something was wrong after the Dolphins whipped the Steelers in the AFC Championship Game two weeks earlier. When a team reached that point, someone in the front office typically called the league to talk big-game logistics. Then they sent someone to the Super Bowl site to scope out team headquarters, practice facilities, overflow hotel-room sites. But the Dolphins never called. That would have been Michael’s job, and Michael was gone.
Back at Stanford, as his Dolphins fell into a 28-16 first-half hole, Joe Robbie sat with his daughter, Deborah, who joked that she was rooting for a fog to roll in. That was Miami’s only chance to stop Montana.
The Dolphins lost, 38-16. Joe flew home knowing that he owned the second-best team in football, and not knowing where his son was. But he had something else on his mind, too. It was a billion-dollar idea.
*****
Joe Robbie knew a lousy stadium when he sat in one. His Dolphins had played in the Orange Bowl since their inception in the AFL, in 1966. That venue had since hosted five of the first 13 Super Bowls, and Miami city officials believed it could host more.
Robbie disagreed. For years he’d asked the city to pay for stadium improvements, and repeatedly he was declined. In 1984, when Miami tried to rope in its sixth Super Bowl, Robbie finally stood up in an owners’ meeting and said that he would not support the bid. The Orange Bowl, he said, was not worthy of a Super Bowl.
Joe Robbie was used to pissing people off. He frequently berated employees—sometimes in person, sometimes in memos. People called him a tyrant. Others mocked him for having the tightest fist in the NFL. Dolphins employees understood: You did not so much as order a box of paper clips without Robbie’s approval. The owner once blanched at a $110 bill for press-box food, then fired the caterer and reduced the fare to hot dogs. When the city of Miami refused to pay for tank repairs for the Dolphins’ live mascot, Flipper, he got rid of Flipper too. Oftentimes, somebody sent Robbie a check to sign, and he returned it with notes on it, determined to negotiate better terms.
Robbie could be argumentative and nasty, even when he was sober, which often he was not. The man could out-drink a small Irish town. Sometimes at dinner he would pass out drunk, then pop up 15 minutes later and rejoin the conversation as if nothing had ever happened.
At road games, a Dolphins employee would bring a fifth of Wild Turkey bourbon (Joe’s favorite) and a fifth of vodka (his wife Elizabeth’s preference) to Robbie’s booth in the press box, along with some cups and ice. By the end of the game, both bottles would be empty. But Robbie was not done. On the plane ride home he would settle into seat 2B, with miniature bottles of alcohol stuffed into the seat pocket in front of him. Eventually he would pass out with his drinking glass resting on his chest, and no matter the turbulence, that glass stayed there, like it was attached to his body.
One young Miami player once saw his owner looking catatonic and asked, “Is something wrong with Mr. Robbie?” To which Shula muttered, “F------ rookies. They all have to learn, don’t they?”
Tyrant, tightwad, drunkard.... People called Joe Robbie a lot of things. This is what he called himself: “The idiot who hired all the geniuses.”
He would never get credit for it, but he was one of the smartest men in American sports. Following the Dolphins’ 1969 AFL season, Robbie made one of the boldest and wisest moves in pro football history, luring coach Shula away from the NFL’s Baltimore Colts at the cost of one first-round draft pick. (When Miami’s front office first called Shula, the coach responded, “I can’t talk now”—two Colts assistants were engaged in a fistfight on his front lawn, and Shula had to break it up.)
Robbie and Shula were never close friends. They nearly came to blows once, at a banquet where both men had been drinking. But Shula understood that he had a great owner. Joe would spend on players, and he never meddled with his coach. He rarely even attended practice.
In Shula’s first 15 years in Miami, the Dolphins made it to five Super Bowls, winning two. And yet Robbie’s most incredible achievement was not his hiring of Shula. Or winning those championship rings. It was the fact that he owned the team at all.
Robbie got his very first piece of the Dolphins, essentially, as a finder’s fee for putting together the ownership group that bought Miami’s AFL expansion franchise. He put up just $100,000 of the $7.5 million expansion fee himself; other investors, like comedian Danny Thomas, paid far more. But Robbie, then a trial lawyer, was the one who drew up the paperwork, which gave him the right to run the team for 20 years. At 49, he moved from Minnesota to Miami and went to work.
When the Dolphins started winning, they made money, but Robbie declined to pay dividends to people who owned shares. Instead, he invested that money in the team, or used it to buy out the other owners. Sometimes he cajoled banks into lending him money, against their better judgment.
By 1985, Robbie had parlayed his initial $100,000 investment into sole ownership of the franchise. He was still not a terribly rich man outside of football: He owned a nice house but not a mansion; he rode around in a Lincoln Town Car. (Because of his drinking, his family insisted that he stop driving himself.) He flew commercial until, years later, he finally bought a private plane.
All of which made Robbie’s billion-dollar idea so absurd. His plan: Build a new stadium himself |
that point.
How does all of that affect US-Russian relations?
As President Trump said to President Putin in Hamburg at the G20 summit, a failure to resolve the Ukraine conflict is going to continue to be an obstacle to the improvement of US-Russian relations. So to the extent that US-Russia relations are important (and we believe they are, I think Russia does too), then the Ukraine issue is important, and needs to be addressed. So I think those sorts of things add to the considerations that Russia should have, in thinking about whether it's time to withdraw its forces and look for another solution to providing security in Ukraine and seeing the political parts of Minsk implemented.
Clearly, there's a lot on the plate right now in terms of international unrest. But where does solving Ukrainian conflict stand on the list of US administration priorities? What are the criteria for success there?
There are lots of other things in the bilateral US-Russian relationship that are important - everything from the expulsion of our diplomats to Russia's role in the INF treaty. We have international issues like Syria and North Korea. So they're all important, but Ukraine is important as well. And in terms of what would be a success: I think Secretary Tillerson and Secretary [of Defense James] Mattis have both defined it very clearly: success is the restoration of Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty as well as security for all of Ukraine's citizens.
Ambassador Kurt Volker serves as executive director of the McCain Institute for International Leadership at Arizona State University, based in Washington, D.C. In July 2017, Volker was named United States Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations by Secretary of State Tillerson. This is a voluntary role he has assumed as he continues to lead the Institute.
This interview was conducted by Dmytro Kaniewski.Increased noise pollution in the oceans is confusing fish and compromising their ability to recognise and avoid predators.
Adverse effects
Researchers at Newcastle University found that European sea bass experienced higher stress levels when exposed to the types of piling and drilling sounds made during the construction of offshore structures.
The fish also showed signs of being confused when they encountered a potential predator while exposed to these underwater noises. When researchers played recordings of piling sounds and mimicked an approaching predator, the seabass made more turns and failed to move away from the predator.
When exposed to drilling sounds the sea bass actively avoided these areas, spending more time in what the research team called the ‘safe zone’.
The fish also took longer to recover from exposure to the underwater sounds.
Lead researcher Ilaria Spiga explained: “Over the last few decades, the sea has become a very noisy place. The effects we saw were subtle changes, which may well have the potential to disrupt the seabass’s ability to remain ‘in tune’ with its environment.
“Sea bass, along with other bony fishes, rely on a characteristic ‘startle and response’ mechanism to get away from predators. Exposure to underwater noises can make it harder for fishes to detect and react to predators. It could also impair their own ability to detect food.
“Man-made marine noise could potentially have an adverse effect on reproduction also. If fishes actively avoid areas where these sounds are present it could prevent them from entering spawning grounds, or affect communication between individuals.”The last Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was released almost ten years ago but that hasn't stopped author J.K. Rowling from continuing to write about the world of magic and wizardry. In a new short story that the author posted on Pottermore, Rowling introduces fans to an entirely new hero; an Irish girl named Isolt Sayre who helped found the North American equivalent of Hogwarts, Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
The short story — which, ironically — is pretty lengthy, feels like the closest fans will get to a new Harry Potter-style journey. It has betrayal, drama, friendship and, of course, love. It also sets the stage for a longer exploration of the character if Rowling was interested in pursuing a new series. There are some throwbacks to the original Harry Potter series, including the wand of Slytherin and a main character named James — of course — but it mostly stands on its own two feet.
The short story is the second in Rowling's new series about magic in North America, which she started as a way to continue writing about magic while exploring the role North America's wizard community plays in the upcoming film adaptation of her novel, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The newest short story does focus quite a bit on magical creatures and the various species that inspired the four houses within Ilvermory. Those looking for a quick introduction to the story without having to read through it can catch up in the video above.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which stars Eddie Redmayne, hits theaters Nov. 18.FILE - In this Jan. 20, 2015 file photo, a plume of steam billows from the coal-fired Merrimack Station in Bow, N.H. A global health commission organized by the prestigious British medical journal Lancet recommended in a report published Monday, June 22, 2015, substituting cleaner energy worldwide for coal will reduce air pollution and give Earth a better chance at avoiding dangerous climate change. (AP Photo/Jim Cole, File)
The U.S. election system is absurd. The UK runs the whole thing in weeks, but our 2016 election season has begun in earnest 15 months early, with the first debate tonight (or what might better be described as seemingly dozens of people on stage trying to say the most outrageous thing). This could be the election where climate change moves front and center -- but only if big business, with its influence and deep pockets, demands it.
In previous election cycles, climate change was like the crazy uncle you hide from company -- vaguely referred to but mostly ignored. It will be different this time. As the New York Times Coral Davenport wrote this week, since President Obama seems intent on making climate one of his big legacy issues, it will be hard for candidates to ignore it. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton is saying a great deal about climate and renewables (half a billion solar panels!), and Bernie Sanders is calling climate change the planet's greatest threat.
Unfortunately, on the Republican side, it's a very different story. Four years ago, candidate Jon Huntsman made the mistake of saying that the GOP couldn't be anti-science (and that he believed in both evolution and climate science)... and he promptly disappeared from serious consideration.
This time around, the candidates won't make the same mistake of abundant rationality - even with overwhelming science and new, powerful voices in favor of bold action, from the Pope to financial world bigwigs like Michael Bloomberg and Hank Paulson. Across the 97 or so Republican candidates, there's no real difference in position.
Jeb Bush flounders around saying there is warming, but that people are 'arrogant' for accepting the science. Most others, like Marco Rubio, play the "I'm not a scientist" card or make the specious claim that climate action will be really expensive (it won't). And then there are those like Ted Cruz that go the full-blown denial route, telling the Koch brothers and other walking money piles that climate change is basically a liberal plot not supported by facts.
So is there anything that can change this march toward absurdity and, one can hope, irrelevance (two-thirds of the general population, including about half of Republicans, say they're less likely to vote for someone who denies climate change)? Maybe the general election next year will move the Republican candidate toward the center, but I'm hoping for another force to nudge them into the mainstream -- big business.
In the run-up to the global negotiations in Paris later this year, a large and growing group of very powerful companies are making seismic commitments to climate-related action. Thirteen big brands stood with the President last week to commit $140 billion of investment in the clean economy. My own database of the world's largest companies' sustainability goals shows that more than three-quarters of the Fortune Global 250 have climate, energy, or renewables goals in place -- and over a quarter have an aggressive carbon reduction target in line with what science says we need to do.
Many large companies are signing onto public agreements demanding action on climate (like Ceres climate declaration) and even, more specifically and aggressively, a price on carbon (see this World Bank call for action).
As more companies publicly commit to real action, how long can the disconnect between their own operational goals and their lobbying/political positions go on? (Or how long can their trade groups and chambers of commerce fight climate action?). These companies are going to need a predictable and supportive regulatory regime to hit big goals like 100 percent renewable energy.
I can't say with a straight face that Republican candidates won't get business support solely due to their archaic climate change views, and yet...
You never know what will happen on topics that move in public consciousness quickly. Consider gay rights. A few months ago, Arkansas was considering an Indiana-like law allowing companies to not serve gay couples (the famous wedding cake baker scenario). In response, Doug McMillon, the CEO of the most mainstream company in America (and Arkansas' largest employer), Walmart, tweeted that he wanted the governor to veto the law. If I had suggested, just a few years ago, that companies could publicly lead change on gay rights, it would've seemed naive.
Fifteen months is a long time in politics, science and climate belief. What might happen between now and then to bring businesses further along the climate action spectrum How bad will the water situation in California get? Will there be more droughts or storms at the scale of Hurricane Sandy to raise awareness? What will the world's leaders agree to in Paris?The popular "S-Town" podcast character who was charged with stealing items from his deceased friend's property pleaded guilty Monday.
Tyler Goodson, 26, pleaded guilty to three charges in Bibb County Circuit Judge Donald McMillian's courtroom. He was indicted on 20 counts over the summer, and was set to face a trial on the charges this week.
He pleaded guilty Monday to third-degree burglary, third-degree theft of property, and third-degree criminal trespassing. The burglary charge is a felony.
Following his plea, Goodson received a suspended 10-year sentence with five years of probation. A restitution hearing will be held at a later date.
Goodson and the small Bibb County town of Woodstock were featured in the hit podcast "S-Town," from the makers of "Serial" and "This American Life." The podcast was downloaded 40 million times worldwide within a month of its March release.
"Of course we're glad this case is wrapped up and we got a conviction on a case that received such notoriety," District Attorney Michael Jackson said.
"S-Town" focused on a man who lived in Woodstock named John B. McLemore. Podcast host Brian Reed begins the podcast to investigate a murder, but the story changes when McLemore dies instead. McLemore and Goodson were close friends, and are described in the podcast as having a father-son relationship.
Goodson was re-indicted in June on 20 counts: one count of theft of property first degree of theft; four counts of first-degree theft of a motor vehicle; three counts of second-degree possession of forged instrument; one count of second-degree criminal trespassing; two counts of third-degree burglary; one count of second-degree theft of property; and eight counts of second-degree criminal trespass. The charges are related to allegations that Goodson stole property from McLemore's land after McLemore's death in 2015.
Goodson said in the podcast that McLemore promised him, in the event of his death, McLemore's land and custody of his mother Mary Grace; however, McLemore did not leave a will and the estate went to his mother. Mary Grace was eventually placed in the care of McLemore's cousin, and Goodson was warned by law enforcement not to go back onto the property without permission. However, Goodson said he went back to the property numerous times and took several items he claimed were his.
J.D. Terry, one of Goodson's attorneys, has previously defended Goodson as being a good person and McLemore's friend, stating he only took the items because he was promised them. He said Goodson did not do anything with criminal intent.
In the Bessemer division of Jefferson County, Goodson was previously charged with second-degree domestic violence, first-degree burglary, and endangering the welfare of a child. That trial was scheduled to begin last month, but the victim in the case did not want to go forward with prosecution and all charges were dismissed.
Charges dropped in Bessemer case for 'S-Town' character The three charges in the Bessemer division were dismissed this morning by a Jefferson County judge.
Terry did not respond to request for comment before this article was published. This post will be updated.MSNBC's Brzezinski asked if McCain is "the perfect candidate" w/out disclosing that her brother advises him
From: Taylor <taylor1@xxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 13:50:53 -0800 (PST)
From the February 7 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe:
MSNBC's Brzezinski asked if McCain is "the perfect candidate" withoutdisclosing that her brother advises himOn the February 7 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, co-host MikaBrzezinski asked presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin: "[A]tthis moment in history, isn't [Sen.] John McCain [R-AZ] the perfectcandidate to deal with what challenges we face as a country, and giventhe presidency that is just coming to a close right now?" At no pointduring the segment, however, did Brzezinski disclose that her brotheris a McCain adviser.Brzezinski has previously informed viewers that her brother Ian worksfor the McCain campaign and that her father, former national securityadviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, and another brother, Mark, adviseDemocratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (IL). On theJanuary 3 edition of Morning Joe, after co-host Joe Scarborough said,"And by the way, your dad involved, once again, very much so, in theObama campaign," Brzezinski responded, "And my other brother anadviser to McCain. I feel like I need to say that." On December 21,2007, after an appearance on Morning Joe by Obama, Brzezinski said, "Ijust always have to point out when we have Senator Barack Obama onthat my father and my brother advise him on foreign policy. And forthe record, I have another brother who works for McCain."BRZEZINSKI: All right, Doris, so here's my thing. I just -- I still --I understand the parts about John McCain that some of the conservativebase may have a problem with. At the same time -- and this is aquestion that's perfect for you -- at this moment in history, isn'tJohn McCain the perfect candidate to deal with what challenges we faceas a country, and given the presidency that is just coming to a closeright now?Cue the “pass this law, we must” jokes. On Wednesday, lawmakers reintroduced the “You Own Devices Act” (YODA) to make sure that manufacturers can’t use copyright mind tricks to prevent consumers from selling or giving away the connected devices they own.
The need for YODA comes about because of the fact that we typically don’t own software. Instead, we simply license it pursuant to terms handed down by a company via the internet — that’s why many people are surprised to learn they don’t actually own the iTunes songs or Kindle books they buy, but are instead using them at the pleasure of Apple and Amazon.
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While this licensing quirk often doesn’t matter for practical purposes, it does when you die and can’t pass on your books or music collection.
But more importantly, the potential scope for companies to make mischief is getting much bigger as many more devices come with software inside: cars, coffee makers and even clothes are getting connected to the internet, which provides that many more opportunities for abusive licensing.
Consider, for instance, the connected bra that detects cancer. In the (admittedly unlikely) event that its owner chose to sell or give it away, the bra maker could claim that doing so violated their resale right in the copyrighted code inside it, and sue the bra’s original owner for copyright infringement.
That’s why Representatives Blake Farenthold (R-Tx) and Jared Polis (D-Co) are pushing the YODA bill as a way to put such worries to rest. What the bill would do is amend the Copyright Act, by adding a provision that includes the text:
if a computer program enables any part of a machine or other product to operate, the owner of the machine or other product is entitled to transfer an authorized copy of the computer program, or the right to obtain such copy, when the owner sells, leases, or otherwise transfers the machine
Though there’s no word if this bill is going anywhere (last year’s version died quietly), the underlying idea is a good one, and one that other politicians can embrace as a way to show they understand the connected world.
For more on the bill and the underlying IP issues, Professor Dennis Crouch had a good rundown in September on PatentlyO.Dutch people eager to dissociate themselves from the anti-Quran film Fitna have taken to the web to apologize for the controversial video.
Hundreds of Dutch citizens have uploaded videos to YouTube showing themselves holding signs with apologies for the film. In other anti-Fitna clips, the subjects simply say the words, "I'm sorry."
Fitna, a 17-minute film by Dutch politician Geert Wilders, juxtaposes passages from the Islamic holy book with graphic footage of terrorist attacks in the United States and Europe.
In one scene, the sound of paper ripping can be seen as a reader pages through the Quran.
A website called Sorry for the Film encourages users to upload photos of themselves to indicate they do not support the views propagated in Fitna. Mediamatic, a technology collective based in Amsterdam, posted instructions for making "Sorry Fitna" videos.
Fitna, which was posted Thursday to LiveLeak, received more than 3 million views before the video-hosting site removed it Friday. The film subsequently appeared on Google Video and YouTube. LiveLeak restored the video Sunday, with a note reading: "We have decided to once more make this video live on our site. We will not be pressured into censoring material which is legal and within our rules."
After its release, the film drew condemnation from Arabs and a call for a boycott of the Netherlands. Wilders said Monday he would cut a controversial cartoon by Danish artist Kurt Westergaard from the film to avoid a lawsuit by the Danish Union of Journalists. The cartoon, which depicts the prophet Muhammad with a bomb-shaped turban, sparked protests in 2006.
See also:The House oversight committee is ramping up pressure on anyone who had access to Hillary Clinton's personal server and classified files -- including her lawyers and aides who may not have had sufficient clearance.
Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, requested new details on who had access in a letter sent Monday to FBI Director James Comey and reviewed by Fox News.
In his letter, Chaffetz asks Comey if the FBI ever investigated the possibility that Clinton's classified emails were improperly stored or accessed by her personal representatives or by anyone at the law firm Williams & Connolly LLP, including on "any unauthorized electronic devices or media, such as desktops or servers."
He also asks for the FBI's conclusion if it did investigate that.
Additionally, Chaffetz asks for "the manner in which Clinton's personal representatives and individuals at Williams & Connolly stored any electronic devices and media and physical documents" containing any classified emails, in addition to the FBI's "assessment of whether that met applicable security requirements."
During his testimony on July 7, Comey was asked if Clinton gave people without a security clearance access to classified information, to which he replied, "Yes, yes."
He also said that Clinton's attorneys did not have necessary security clearances, and when asked further if it concerned him, Comey replied, "Oh yeah, sure."
Comey said that between 2 and 10 people had access to the servers without appropriate clearance. Clinton used non-government IT management companies such as Colorado-based Platte River Networks.
When asked during his testimony if there was any consequence to an attorney looking through emails without a proper security clearance, Comey said while there were "not necessarily criminal consequences, but there's a great deal of concern about an uncleared person, not subject to the requirements we talked about in the read-in documents, potentially having access."
"That's why it's very, very important for us to recover everything we can back from attorneys," Comey told the committee.
Fox News' Catherine Herridge contributed to this report.This is Peter Hitchens's Mail on Sunday column
I don’t think the British or American governments really want to fight the Islamic State. They just want to look as if they are doing so.
I judge these people by what they do, not by what they say. And in recent months I have noticed them doing – and not doing – some very interesting things.
The White House and Downing Street both seethe with genuine outrage about Russia’s bombing raids on Syria.
Yet the people Vladimir Putin bombed have views and aims that would get them rounded up as dangerous Islamist extremists if they turned up in Manchester. So why do British politicians call them ‘moderates’ when Russia bombs them?
It’s not as if London or Washington can claim to be squeamish about bombing as a method of war. We have done our fair share of it in Belgrade, Baghdad and Tripoli, where our bombs certainly (if unintentionally) killed innocent civilians, including small children.
Then there’s the curious case of Turkey. Rather like Russia, Turkey suddenly announced last summer that it was sending its bombers in to fight against the Islamic State.
But in fact Turkey barely bothered to attack IS at all. It has spent most of the past few months blasting the daylights out of the Kurdish militias, a policy that Turkey’s President Erdogan has selfish reasons for following.
Yet the Kurds, alongside the Syrian army, have been by far the most effective resistance to IS on the ground. Why then does a key member of the alleged anti-IS coalition go to war against them?
Turkey, a Nato member, is not criticised for this behaviour by Western politicians or by the feeble, slavish Western media. These geniuses never attack our foreign policy mistakes while we are making them. They wait until they have actually ended in disaster. Then they pretend to have been against them all along.While the media has focused on the Republican presidential primaries, offstage the greatest revolution in American foreign policy in a generation has occurred, with little discussion or debate surrounding its announcement last week by President Obama.
The relative lack of controversy marks a contrast with the last great transformation of American foreign policy, which took place at the end of the Cold War. Even before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, it was clear that the Soviet-American conflict that had structured U.S. foreign policy since the late 1940s was coming to an end. For several years there was a vigorous debate in the mainstream media as well as expert circles about what should replace the Cold War strategy of containment of communism as the basis of American grand strategy.
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Isolationism was championed by some like the conservative commentator Patrick Buchanan. Another alternative, championed by scholars like Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, was “realism” — a policy of selective engagement of the world that emphasized the national interest and minimized attempts by the U.S. and other outsiders to remake foreign societies. Yet a third alternative was liberal internationalism, a strategy founded on an attempt to realize Woodrow Wilson’s dreams of collective security based on international institutions like the United Nations and NATO. The fourth alternative has been described as “hegemony” or “empire” — a policy of indefinite American global military domination. This view was backed most vigorously by the neoconservative pundit Charles Krauthammer and William Kristol’s the Weekly Standard.
The post-Cold War debate was vigorous and did not necessarily follow party lines. The right, for example, was divided among hegemonists, realists and isolationists, while progressive views on American strategy ranged from neo-isolationism to versions of American hegemony.
The great debate about American strategy came to an abrupt end with the Gulf War in early 1991. The ease with which America’s armed forces defeated the regime of Saddam Hussein, who was left in power and contained in part of his territory, convinced America’s foreign policy establishment that the benefits of America’s global hegemony as the “sole remaining superpower” were great while the costs were extremely low. The new bipartisan consensus was consolidated during the Wars of the Yugoslav Succession, when triumphant “humanitarian hawks” insisted that anyone who opposed U.S./Nato intervention in the Balkan wars was an immoral appeaser of Nazi-like evil.
On 9/11/2001 the al-Qaida attacks cemented the consensus even further. Until then, the maintenance of a U.S. military that had been only moderately downsized from its Cold War proportions had been justified by the grossly exaggerated threats alleged to have been posed by “rogue states” like Iraq and North Korea and Iran. Now there was a new enemy to justify a huge, global U.S. military: stateless terrorism. Absurdly, many American statesmen and foreign policy experts treated jihadists not as criminal gangs comparable to the mafia and drug cartels but as soldiers of a virtual superpower, comparable somehow to Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. Post-9/11 panic, cynically stoked by conservatives for electoral purposes, added layer on layer to a clumsy, labyrinthine homeland security bureaucracy while justifying spending on Pentagon weapons systems whose usefulness in fighting jihadists was slight or nonexistent. The neoconservative scholar Eliot Cohen and the neoconservative editor Norman Podhoretz declared that the U.S. was engaged in “World War IV” (World War III having been the Cold War). Others called it the Long War.
Well, World War IV is now over, according to President Obama. The Long War turned out not to be all that long.
In announcing the new orientation of American security strategy last week, the president emphasized that the U.S. will maintain its position as the leading military power in the world; no president, in this generation, could do otherwise. What is striking, however, is the speed with which the Obama administration has not only wound down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but repudiated the post-1989 consensus.
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According to the new vision of American defense, the U.S. will reorient itself from fighting wars of nation-building and counterinsurgency in the Muslim world to focusing on balancing the power of rising states in East Asia (read China). This reflects the classic logic of realpolitik, not neoconservative hegemonism or neoliberal Wilsonianism. The shift in emphasis from quasi-colonial nation-building, which requires many American boots on the ground, to strategies that rely more on local allies, special forces and the (morally and legally problematic, it should be said) use of drones represents another break with the strategy of the Bush/Cheney years.
Needless to say, this is not enough of a change for isolationists on both sides of the spectrum who would not be satisfied unless the U.S. ended its participation in power politics beyond its borders and reduced the Navy to the Coast Guard. And it may very well be that some of the proponents of the new strategy themselves think that it can achieve what the scholar David Calleo has called “hegemony on the cheap.”
But hegemony on the cheap is not hegemony. Those of us who criticized the hegemony strategy from the late 1980s argued that, while in theory the U.S. might be able to create something like a global empire, the American people would not be willing to pay the required price in blood and treasure. The relative swiftness with which the public turned against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though the fatalities were far lower than those in Korea and Vietnam that ultimately undermined public support for those earlier wars, proved that the American people never bought the “World War IV’ scenario. Notwithstanding the horror of 9/11, Americans considered the stakes of the misnamed “war on terrorism” to be relatively low, and so they were willing to pay relatively little (by historical standards; for service members killed or maimed in these recent wars and their families, the costs could not have been higher).
While it marks a great improvement over the semi-imperial hegemony strategy embraced in the 1990s and 2000s by neoconservatives and neoliberals, the neo-realist strategy of the Obama administration can be criticized. For example, the idea that China can be contained by U.S. forces prepositioned in Japan and South Korea and Australia (Australia?) just seems silly, as well as needlessly provocative. There is really no parallel between U.S. troops stationed in a divided Europe to deter the Red Army and American naval and Marine bases scattered around Asia and the Pacific.
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If, God forbid, there were a Sino-American Cold War II, it is extremely unlikely that it would escalate into Sino-American naval clashes in the South China Sea or the Straits of Molucca — to name only two implausible scenarios used sometimes to justify spending on old-fashioned surface fleets. More likely, conventional as well as nuclear deterrence would prevent direct conflict among the great powers, whose competition instead would take the form of low-level proxy wars in war-torn countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, with the rival great powers arming and supplying opposing sides. Fantasies of a replay of the duels in World War I of the Japanese and American navies, with a future Chinese fleet replacing Japan’s, are just fantasies.
American strategy is a work in progress, and the ultimate shape of America’s next national security policy will result from struggles in Congress and the courts as well as this and future presidential administrations. But Barack Obama deserves credit for quietly bringing to a close the misguided bid for quasi-imperial hegemony that led America astray into the sands of Iraq and Afghanistan.
As I have argued elsewhere, Obama is an Eisenhower Democrat, owing more to an older generation of moderate Eisenhower or Rockefeller Republicans than to New Deal Democrats like Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. In domestic policy, this is a flaw, inasmuch as Obama is drawn to the traditional moderate Republican obsessions with balanced budgets and privatized provision of public goods. But in foreign policy, the Modern Republican legacy of Dwight Eisenhower, who sought a low-cost “New Look” strategy in the Cold War, and Richard Nixon, who sought to cut America’s losses in Indochina and to base American strategy on realpolitik, is of more relevance to today’s world than the kind of overcommitment symbolized by John F. Kennedy’s grandiloquent boast in his first inaugural address that Americans would “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” Even before the Great Recession, Americans were unwilling to pay any price and bear any burden to ensure a global Pax Americana. That may explain why, outside of the neoconservative circles, criticism of the Obama Doctrine has been so limited. The American people are tired of foreign wars and ready for nation-building at home.When told of Mr Trump's remarks, My Shorten said "well I don't agree" and then added that "they seem to do politics differently in America to Australia". Opposition Leader Bill Shorten Credit:Alex Ellinghausen "I think there is a well-understood convention in Australia that when you've had a tragedy of this level where people have been murdered in a cowardly fashion, what we do is we let the families grieve. What we also do is we let the law enforcement authorities understand what's happened so they can prevent it again," he said. "But I do not equate demonising a whole group of people - a billion people - based on faith with the acts of stupid, random, terror events such as this." Mr Shorten has previously described Mr Trump's ideas as "barking mad" - a remark that itself breaches the convention on commenting on other countries' internal politics but distils a view widely held in foreign policy circles.
Mr Trump, the presumptive nominee for the Republican party in November's presidential election, tweeted after the shooting: "What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning. Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough." Donald Trump responded to Orlando shooting by saying he was right about radical Islamic terrorism. Credit:AP He has previously called for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration. The shooter, Omar Mateen, was reportedly a US citizen, the son of Afghan immigrants to the US. When asked about Mr Trump's tweet, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said: "I'm not going to buy into commenting on American politics. I would simply say that we stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States."
Mr Shorten said the killing of 50 people and wounding of 53 more at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, reflected "a deep-seated fear of freedom" "And because this attack took place in a gay nightclub, I particularly want to extend my sympathy to people in the LGBTI [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersex] community who might be feeling additional pain," he said. "It was an attack on our humanity. It was an attack on all of us. It was an attack on the right to be proud of who you are and who you love. I extend the deepest sympathy and sorrow to people of the United States for this brutal terror attack and I think it does speak volumes about the strength of our democracy that all Australians, regardless of their political views, are united in their sympathy for the citizens of the United States of America." Follow us on TwitterSen. Dianne Feinstein Dianne Emiel FeinsteinSenate confirms Trump court pick despite missing two 'blue slips' Hillicon Valley: Senators urge Trump to bar Huawei products from electric grid | Ex-security officials condemn Trump emergency declaration | New malicious cyber tool found | Facebook faces questions on treatment of moderators Ocasio-Cortez adviser says Sunrise confrontation with 'old-timer' Feinstein'sad' MORE (D-Calif.) said she was flattered by rumors that first lady Michelle Obama Michelle LeVaughn Robinson ObamaChicago's next mayor will be a black woman Obama portraits brought more than 1 million visitors to National Portrait Gallery in first year Barack and Michelle Obama announce new heads of their production company MORE wants to run for her seat if she were to retire in 2018.
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"I'm flattered, if that should be true. Somehow, I do not believe it is true, but I would be flattered if it were," she said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."
Orb Magazine published an article Thursday suggesting Michelle Obama was being courted to run for Feinstein's seat.
“Barack could golf year-round and Michelle could emerge from his shadow after 20 years and retake control of her own life,” said a "person familiar with their thinking" in the article.
“Remember, Michelle is a Harvard-educated lawyer whose career was more robust than Barack’s was when they met," the unidentified person said.
Feinstein said she has "no idea" what she will be doing in 2018, adding she would make a decision "in due time."
"That's four years from now, and that's one of the nice things of a six-year term," she said. "I've served two years of my term, and you know, I'll make a decision in due time."
Feinstein, California's senior senator, did sneak in another endorsement during her CNN interview, for the San Francisco Giants, who are playing the Kansas City Royals in the World Series
"Go Giants! I got it in! I got it in!" she said gleefully.(Reuters) - Monsanto MON.N has ruled out raising its non-binding $45 billion offer for Swiss rival Syngenta SYNN.VX unless the target company gives it access to business data.
Agrochemicals maker Syngenta's logo is seen in front of the company's headquarters in Basel February 6, 2013. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann
Monsanto is hosting meetings across Europe this week to woo Syngenta investors, and two Monsanto top executives said in one of these gatherings that only a due diligence assessment of Syngenta’s operations could tell whether there was room for a higher offer than the 449 Swiss francs per share proposed so far, a person with knowledge of the meeting said on Wednesday.
Syngenta confirmed it had not granted the suitor access to privileged business data.
“Monsanto is a competitor to many aspects of Syngenta’s business. It would be madness to let a company see Syngenta’s books without adequate assurance on the considerable regulatory risks, and with an offer price which is clearly unacceptable,” a spokesman said.
A Monsanto spokesperson said, “based on public information, our proposal of 449 CHF per share represents full and compelling value for Syngenta. If Syngenta can provide us access to due diligence as to its strategic plans and other non-public information, and if that information shows results or synergy potential that exceeds what we and investors have assumed based on public information, we would consider that new information in order to refine our view on value.”
Separately, Monsanto executive Scott Partridge on National Public Radio on Tuesday said there was no going beyond the 43 percent premium the suitor was prepared to pay, when compared to the stock price before media reports of an approach emerged.
“We’re not preparing to make another bid. We believe the bid we’ve made is more than generous,” Partridge said.
Monsanto’s initial approach was rebuffed by Syngenta in May partly on the grounds that the deal would not get past antitrust regulators.
The U.S. agrochemicals firm said on Sunday it had offered to pay Syngenta $2 billion if the merger failed to get approval from regulators, but this was rejected as “wholly inadequate”.
The meetings with Syngenta shareholders being arranged by Monsanto are scheduled for this week in London, Zurich and other European cities, people familiar with the matter have said.
In a June 6 letter to Syngenta management published by Monsanto, the U.S. company’s Chief Executive Hugh Grant expressed “disappointment with the pace of progress” of exploratory talks.
The stock market has been dubious about the likelihood of a deal succeeding, with shares of Syngenta trading at 404.8 Swiss francs Wednesday, 10 percent below Monsanto’s 449 francs proposal.
Syngenta has been dismissive of Monsanto’s second approach which added the $2 billion regulatory break-up fee proposal to the original offer terms.As the old saying goes, it was like deja vu all over again.
The Seattle |
. Community organizations formally presented their requests to the council for purposes related to promoting tourism, conventions, historical restoration and improvement of the arts.
Organizations are requesting a total of about $580,000 for the 2016 fiscal year, about $117,000 more than the previous year. Since the proposed amount available is $300,000 — which could change in the budget process — some organizations may not receive their full requests.
Unlike in year’s past, however, the council will decide on project requests by piecemeal grants rather than determining a total amount to award to each organization.
This year 12 organizations are asking for funding, compared to 15 that applied last year.
The requests for specific projects are as follows: Bastrop Chamber of Commerce: $56,840 for the chamber’s visitor center operations; $6,400 for the Patriotic Festival; $5,000 for River of Lights, holiday tourism and street decoration; $1,200 for tours to familiarize business owners with Bastrop’s assetsBastrop County Historical Society: $20,000 for promotion of the museum and historic preservation; $10,000 for museum and historic district toursBastrop Family Crisis Center: $1,800 for Pedal Thru the Pines fundraising bike rideBastrop Downtown Business Alliance: $29,000 for Lost Pines Christmas; $55,000 for downtown marketing campaignBastrop Homecoming Committee: $60,000 for the Bastrop Homecoming & RodeoBastrop Juneteenth Committee: $5,000 for annual Juneteenth eventBastrop Old Town Visitor Center: $118,800 for operationsBastrop Opera House: $57,000 for Halloweenfest event and three fall plays ("Season of the Phoenix: the Old made New again!); $35,000 for Yesterfest 2016: Return to the RiverFriends of Fairview Cemetery: $1,500 to repair three broken historical headstonesTough Mudder: $58,000 for 2016 event to be held in SmithvilleUpstart Inc.: $25,000 for the Bastrop Film and Music Festival; $24,800 for "Passport to Fun" tourism websiteYMCA of Austin Bastrop Branch: $10,000 for the Burning Pine Run, an event celebrating the survival and comeback of the Bastrop County community after the 2011 wildfires
The council will make its preliminary decisions on the requests at its Aug. 11 meeting, with final determinations in October once the fiscal year begins, according to the council’s hotel occupancy tax funding calendar.Hindu right-wing activists belonging to a cow protection group allegedly assaulted a Muslim couple on a train in Madhya Pradesh on the suspicion of carrying beef, which was in fact buffalo meat found in another passenger’s luggage.
Police said that a laboratory test confirmed it was not beef but buffalo meat and the bag containing the “suspected item” didn’t belong to the couple — Mohammed Husain and wife Naseema Bi who were travelling on Wednesday from Khandwa to hometown Harda on the Kushinagar Express.
When they reached Khirkiya railway station, about 150km south of Bhopal and about 35km from the couple’s destination, the activists boarded the train and demanded to search their luggage for beef.
The activists turned violent and started to kick and punch when the couple protested and denied carrying beef. They also started throwing their luggage onto the platform, police said quoting witnesses. In the process, bags of some other passengers were thrown out too.
This led to a two-hour altercation and the activists were “taught a lesson” by a group of people who had gathered at the railway station after hearing the commotion.
“About four men boarded our coach fist and others joined them later. They started pushing and manhandling passengers, including my husband sitting next to the door. They pushed me as well when I objected. We told them we were not carrying beef or any meat and knew nothing if something else did. Still they threw out our bags. We were very scared,” Naseema told Hindustan Times.
Watch | Woman who was assaulted speaks out
Husain alleged that the activists assaulted him.
The couple said they were on their way to Harda from Hyderabad but stayed overnight at a relative’s place in Khandwa.
Police have picked up nine people, including some men who fought with the activists, but the owner of the bag containing the meat has escaped.
Additional superintendent of police Kiranlata Kerketta said two FIRs were lodged against two groups that scuffled at the station while a third FIR was lodged against “unknown persons” carrying the buffalo meat.
According to Madhya Pradesh law, cow slaughter can lead an offender to seven years in jail but there is no ban on the killing of buffaloes.
Hoshangabad inspector general of police Satish Saxena advised people to exercise caution because such flare-ups could lead to riots. “The activists as well as passengers could have taken police help. Police were there and took action against people who entered the compartment and indulged in excesses.”
The incident was reminiscent of the growing intolerance in the country over people’s food habits, especially beef, which manifested in the lynching of a Muslim man in Uttar Pradesh over suspected cow slaughter last September.
First Published: Jan 15, 2016 13:56 ISTDwayne “The Rock” Johnson is no stranger to setting huge records, but this time he might have outdone himself.
With the help of Seven Bucks Digital Studios, co-founded by The Rock and his manager and production partner Dany Garcia, Guinness World Records can officially confirm they have achieved the record for the Largest layered dip, weighing in at colossal 540 pounds!
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Taking over 5 hours and 4 people to prep and construct, the massive version of a classic 7 Layer Fiesta Dip was prepared in a 100 gallon fish tank at Seven Bucks Digital Studios in Los Angeles, California.
So what exactly goes in to gigantic version of a classic Super Bowl snack? Here’s the breakdown: 153.6 pounds of refried beans, 76.8 quarts sour cream with 9.6 pounds of seasoning mixed in, 76.8 pounds of cheese, 38.4 quarts of guacamole, 38.4 quarts tomatoes, 19.2 quarts green onions, and 37.2 quarts of black olives to top it off.
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Regarding the amazing and mouth-watering accomplishment, Guinness World Records Adjudicator, Hannah Ortman, said, “It was exciting to see the passion that went into creating something so fun and extraordinary. I’m delighted to welcome Seven Bucks Digital Studios to the Guinness World Records family.”
Far surpassing the minimum requirement of 440.925 pounds, Seven Bucks Digital Studios is the first to achieve this brand new Guinness World Records title.
The dip was so delicious, it couldn’t go to waste- following the attempt, the record-breaking dip was donated to the Midnight Mission Homeless Shelter in Los Angeles, California.Ha'Malach
Item #: SCP-XXXX
Object Class: Keter
Apollyon? Thaumiel? Who knows.
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-XXXX is contained at Area-02 in a windowless 7mx7mx7m chamber comprised of Vantablack carbon nano-tubing, coated in no less than 3 cm of cadmium. Weekly checks for any cracks or holes in this coating are mandatory. No video surveillance or optical tools of any kind are allowed in SCP-XXXX's containment chamber.
In the event of a containment breach, a full-site lockdown must be initiated, and all non-essential lighting fixtures must be extinguished until SCP-XXXX has been recontained to ensure that SCP-XXXX can be located quickly. In the event of encountering SCP-XXXX outside its containment cell, all personnel must ensure they maintain a distance of at least 6m from SCP-XXXX at all times. Violence is not to be used against SCP-XXXX under any circumstances.
A maximum of fourteen personnel are to be assigned to SCP-XXXX at a given time, at least four of whom must be assigned to communicating with SCP-XXXX. Following Incident SCP-XXXX-1, personnel assigned to SCP-XXXX must be rotated biweekly. Personnel of an observant religious persuasion are forbidden from assignment to SCP-XXXX.
Description: SCP-XXXX is a sapient humanoid entity, featuring a number of avian-esque wing-like appendages. An accurate count for these appendages has never been established. Limited X-Ray observation of SCP-XXXX revealed these appendages contain a bone structure most similar to that of Streptopelia decaocto. These wings veil SCP-XXXX's entire body, withthe exception of its arms and feet, which remain permanently uncovered. A number of these wings have been directly observed to be emerging from the shoulders, back and temples of the entity. SCP-XXXX is also covered with what appear to be human eyes.
SCP-XXXX emits an intense orange macroscopic electromagnetic field, producing light measuring more than 100,000lm of luminous flux. SCP-XXXX's light field exhibits destructive properties, causing degradation of all forms of solid matter, at the rate which depends on the strength of the material in question. Use of standard metals and alloys such as titanium or steel are effective in withstanding SCP-XXXX's, but are by no means completely invulnerable to its effects. The use of Vantablack brand carbon nano-tubing seems to be capable of containing SCP-XXXX, thanks in part to both its strength and proficiency in absorbing light. The brightness of SCP-XXXX's emission makes it impossible to directly observe SCP-XXXX through any medium for a prolonged amount of time, and causes blindness in cases of direct human observation. The use of anti-reflective coating to photograph SCP-XXXX does little to obviate this issue.
SCP-XXXX exhibits the ability to influence physical systems without the need for physical interaction, once demonstrated by SCP-XXXX disassembling an M1 Abrams Tank from a distance of more than 50m.
Despite the minatory nature of its abilities, SCP-XXXX is ordinarily quite restrained and will only attack or actively harm living beings if provoked or presented with what it considers to be a considerable danger.
SCP-XXXX has shown to also possess the ability to change size and appearance at will. While currently standing at a height of five meters, SCP-XXXX reached a height of approximately 1690km during recovery from [REDACTED].
Recovered with SCP-XXXX was a sword, designated SCP-XXXX-1, comprised of a beryllium bronze alloy, which seemed to have'shrunk' with it during subsequent containment. SCP-XXXX was complacent in relinquishing SCP-XXXX-1 to Foundation researchers following its capture. Inscribed on the hilt of the sword is an inscription written in ██████, translating to [DATA EXPUNGED]. Given the extent of the damage done to Area-02 by uttering this phrase, SCP-XXXX-1 is currently housed in an off-site protected reliquary facility.
Despite the pressing dangers posed by sustained human interaction, SCP-XXXX is amicable and sociable. SCP-XXXX enjoys speaking with people, and seems to have a knowledge of all topics. SCP-XXXX speaks in three distinct voices in unison, belonging to an adult woman, a young child, and an elderly man. Conversations with SCP-XXXX have proven to be informative, researchers have learned various details about other SCP objects (including SCP-███) and history in general.
Pressure sensors inside SCP-XXXX's cell indicates it spends most of the day pacing by the eastern wall, stopping its routine three times each day, once at dawn, once at midday, and once at sunset. During these pauses, SCP-XXXX can be heard chanting, humming, and singing in what sounds to be Aramaic and Tiberian Hebrew. At the end of each week, SCP-XXXX moves to the center of its cell and ceases all movement for approximately 25 hours.
SCP-XXXX is generally content to remain in its containment, as long as it is provided with entertainment in the form of regular conversation. Otherwise, SCP-XXXX will exit its containment cell through unknown means and wander the facility until being recontained. Despite being capable of escaping unassisted, SCP-XXXX often attempts to deceive personnel into releasing it. To date, none of these escape attempts have been successful.
SCP-XXXX is capable of manipulating matter on an atomic scale. Despite the complex nuclear reactions that are needed to execute synthesis, SCP-XXXX's process is capable of essentially ignoring any circumstances that would normally render the completion of chemical reactions impossible. While proficient in the creation of elements and basic compounds, complex structures such as organic molecules seem to confuse SCP-XXXX and deter it from constructing them.
Interview Log XXXX:
+ Interview Log XXXX-1 - Interview Log XXXX-1 Interview conducted after recovery of SCP-XXXX aboard the SCPS Uppsala: <Begin Log> SCP-XXXX: For the waywardness of the thoughtless shall slay them…and the confidence of fools shall destroy them…but whoso hearken unto me shall dwell securely…and shall be quiet without fear of evil. Interviewer: Hello? Can you understand me? SCP-XXXX: Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you will revive me…you will stretch forth your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and your right hand will save me! Interviewer: What is your name? SCP-XXXX: Yetzirael, m'sharet shel hashalit. I will lift up mine eyes unto the mountains… Interviewer: Where are you from? SCP-XXXX: Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight. Interviewer: Please cooperate with me. We need to find out where you came from, so we might be able to figure out how you got here and possibly come up with a way to get you back. SCP-XXXX: Do not lie to me, ish. I am no stranger to your kind's work. You are going to keep me forever. You and I both know this. Interviewer: Fine, I won't lie to you. Yes, you will probably spend the rest of your life in a facility, but it doesn't have to be entirely miserable. We can help you. SCP-XXXX: You cannot help me. Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to act. Interviewer: Try me. SCP-XXXX: Lean not on your own understanding. Interviewer: Enough. Where are you from? SCP-XXXX: You persist? Alright, I am from shama…between the folds of time and space and worlds and light and dark, founded upon the mountains as on pillars sunk into the waters of the earth. Interviewer: Where is this "shama"? SCP-XXXX: Where things should not be. No physical contradistinction. For man lives in the night and I come from the day. Outside the limits of what can be perceived. Interviewer: One last question, you've expressed interest in returning to your place of origin. If this is the case, why did you allow us to contain you? SCP-XXXX: I did not recognize your people, at first. Once I realized who you were, it was too late. It's not that bad, I suppose. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out…He that breatheth forth truth uttereth righteousness, but a false witness uttereth deceit. Interviewer: Interesting bravado. So, which are you? He that breatheth forth truth, or the false witness?
SCP-XXXX: Oh. The thoughtless believeth every word…but the prudent man looketh well to his going. <End Log>
Incident XXXX-1: On ██/██/██, Junior Researcher Hersh Litman, having previous worked with SCP-XXXX, reportedly entered a crazed religious mania and breached containment of SCP-XXXX with the use of SCP-████. Following entry to SCP-XXXX's compromised chamber, Litman was evidently vaporized by SCP-XXXX's aura. As the incident progressed, SCP-XXXX repeatedly attempted to flee security teams, resulting in the destruction of a sizable portion of Security Wing C and the deaths of █ personnel. What little remained of recordings made by SCP-XXXX's observation equipment during the incident is transcribed as follows.
SCP-XXXX: Please, keep away from me! Litman: Come ov[DATA LOST] I need to feel you! [scuttling implying Litman is now chasing SCP-XXXX around its damaged chamber] Litman: It's so bright, it's so bright! I [DATA LOST] Why can't I see? SCP-XXXX: Please stay away from m[DATA LOST] I don't want to [DATA LOST] SCP-XXXX: Oh my God!
It was later determined that Litman's particular religious lifestyle lead to his taking offense to the containment of SCP-XXXX, and was the cause of his psychosis. Litman had been removed from his previous assignment to SCP-XXXX for attempting to enter restricted areas within the containment area to more closely access SCP-XXXX and it is assumed he was attempting to achieve this again in order to breach SCP-XXXX.
This incident presents many new concerning situations that could arise should SCP-XXXX have indeed
breached containment completely. It's bad enough dealing with this thing when it leaves on it's own, but now there's the added danger of personnel being driven by obsession to free this thing. It is imperative to be better equipped for a possible Class C containment failure event,
so that SCP-XXXX is at the very least prevented from making contact with a civilian center of any kind. Failure to do so may very well end in a BK-class end-of-the-world scenario. ~ Dr. █████ StanfordAnyone who dialogues with abortion rights supporters has heard it many times: “Nobody is pro-abortion. We’re pro-choice.”
One problem: it’s demonstrably false.
Below are ten essays and blog posts (including in major outlets like Salon and Mic) whose authors avow they are pro-abortion. They support not just women’s legal right to the procedure, but abortion itself – which they call a “positive social good” and even a “blessing.”
If you’re pro-choice and believe nobody is pro-abortion, you won’t – you can’t –if you dare read the next few hundred words, click a few of the links, and examine the comments sections of these pro-abortion articles and blogs.
And if you’re pro-life, the next time you hear someone deny the existence of pro-abortion Americans, you can refer them to this page (use this handy address: tinyurl.com/ProAbortion ) and demolish their claim.
Of course, many pro-choice activists don’t agree with these writers. They might even argue that when these essays are analyzed properly, the writers aren’t really pro-abortion after all but pro-choice just like they are. But these activists would never call a transgender woman by a pronoun she rejects, and some of them bristle when called a “liberal” instead of a “progressive.”
In fact, this very conversation is about pro-choicers rejecting a label (pro-abortion) someone else is trying to assign them. How can the same people then tell pro-abortion Americans that they have a false consciousness and should stop using an improper term to describe their actual, pro-choice beliefs?
It is never OK to try to quash the voices of a group of Americans because their beliefs are not politically convenient to your own ideology.
(A clarification: like most Americans, I’m in the middle on abortion. It’s not an issue I’m particularly passionate about – or at least not the issue itself. I do object to the substantial dishonesty and inconsistency on both sides of the debate, and have not hesitated to criticize pro-life discourse.)
I don’t expect anyone to switch sides on abortion after reading the testimony below, from ten Americans who are unambiguously pro-abortion. But it ought to help us have a more honest and inclusive conversation about this most divisive topic:
1. “I am pro-abortion, not just pro-choice: 10 reasons why we must support the procedure and the choice” by Valerie Tarico in Salon
Excerpt: “I believe that abortion care is a positive social good. I suspect that a lot of other people secretly believe the same thing. And I think it’s time we said so.”
2. “Yes, I am pro-abortion” by ProChoiceGal in Her Authority
Excerpt: “Anti-choicers have shamed us into avoiding the a-word. It’s time to reclaim the word. It’s time to make it our own again. In order to remove the stigma attached to having an abortion, we have to first remove the stigma attached to the word in our own statements. It’s time to accept that abortion isn’t terrible. Abortion is a blessing.
3. “Pro-abortion, but not pro-choice about life in general” by Anonymous, Enjoyment and Contemplation blog
Excerpt: “Let me call myself not just pro-choice, but pro-abortion. Abortion is a social good (I’m not the first to make this point) because control of your own body is control of your own destiny.”
4. “Yes, I’m pro-abortion” by Lauren Rankin in Mic
Excerpt: “The statement that ‘I’m not pro-abortion, I’m pro-choice’ is inherently defensive. Rather than embracing abortion as a viable and respected choice, it sidelines abortion; it delegitimizes that valid choice.”
5. “Why I am pro-abortion” by Madison Hampton in Eagle News – Florida Gulf Coast University
Excerpt: “I am pro-abortion because children deserve to be wanted and well supported in their homes.”
6. “Why I’m pro-abortion” by L. Kate Nelson in Rethink the Rant – blog
Excerpt: “I’m pro-abortion because women uninterested in being mothers tend to make pretty terrible parents, and I think children deserve a better life than that.”
7. I’m not just pro-choice, I’m also pro-abortion” by Aimee Ogden in Mommyish parenting site
Excerpt: “I am pro-choice, no contradictory clauses necessary. I trust people to make the right decisions for their own bodies. And I, for one, am unabashedly pro-abortion.”
8. “I am pro-abortion, not pro-choice” by Rachel McCarthy James in Deeply Problematic: Feminism, and Stuff
Excerpt: “I am for abortions. I am for aborting fetuses. This does not imply that I am for aborting all fetuses, any more than folks who say anti-choice are saying that anti-abortion rights folks are against all choices, ever.”
9. “Pro-choice? Pro-abortion” by Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser in The Abortioneers
Excerpt: “I didn’t bargain on negative comments, which were along these lines: abortion is not to be defended with zeal. At best, it’s a necessary evil. I strongly disagree.”
10. “Abortion disconnect” by Laura Kaplan in the National Women’s Health Network Newsletter
Excerpt: “Whenever I hear a pro-choice politician say, ‘No one is pro-abortion,’ I want to shout, ‘Excuse me but I’m pro-abortion, and I am not alone.’ I’m pro-abortion in the same way I’m pro-organ transplant or any other medical procedure: when you need one, you should be able to get one.”
Quod Erat Demonstrandum.
David Benkof is Senior Political Analyst for The Daily Caller. Follow him on Twitter (@DavidBenkof) or E-mail him at DavidBenkof@gmail.com.Prometheus is going to be a controversial film. As a prequel to Alien, and a “summer” movie, it has a certain suspense / horror / sci-fi pedigree that generally belies serious conversation. There’s no particular reason Prometheus should have “big” themes running through it, any more than Battleship or MIB 3 would, except for the salient fact that we believe director Ridley Scott has embedded some interesting nuggets throughout, much as he did with Blade Runner.
So what are these “big” ideas? What are the questions and themes Prometheus tackles throughout its two-hour running time? We’ll start with the easy ones, and then progress toward the more philosophical questions.
Note: Massive thematic SPOILERS follow, naturally.
#1 Always Wear a Helmet and Proceed with Caution
After watching Prometheus you’ll quickly come to the conclusion that many of the calamities that befell the intrepid explorers could have been avoided, merely with stronger safety protocols. Who takes their helmet off approximately 45 seconds after arriving on an alien planet? And why did the humans continually think, “Hmmm, I should probably touch this crazy looking snake animal”? Let’s just reflect on the replete failure of the Prometheus crew to maintain even a modicum of discipline while studying a COMPLETELY NEW world. I mean, c’mon people, let’s all act like we’ve been there before, even if we haven’t.
#2 The Visual Eye of Masters
Ridley Scott isn’t afraid of depth of field, which is something many younger filmmakers seem to be missing. (Well, with the exception of Tarsem.) Even a cursory look at the more interesting films of 2011, Drive, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Bellflower, Shame, Attack the Block, and The Descendants reveals that they were all filmed really intimately, and up close. Much of this is good old-fashioned budgetary constraint. It’s become (relatively) easy to pull together enough financing to make a legit drama, but getting risky with really wide shots still scares off the new guard. Not so for Ridley, as Prometheus continually takes a good long meandering look at its surroundings. If he did make the film for the reported $130m production budget then 20th Century Fox got a nice product for far less than Battleship cost. Win.
Regardless of budget, Mr. Scott wants you to have a God’s eye view, and he’s willing to give it to you on the regular. It’s a wonderful technique, full of artful force, a quality I hope inspires bigger thinking from our current crop of directors. There’s also a possibility that this “God’s eye view” was more than a filming technique, as the majority of the film deals with Gods and monsters. If Prometheus is a treatise on the nature of divinity, then it makes total sense to make it as big and grand as possible. Big things may indeed have “small beginnings,” but films about the quixotic nature of humanity should have big surroundings, right?
While we’re on the subject of big thinking …
#3 The Mapping Tech
Thankfully, we’re getting as much sci-fi into cinemas as we ever have, but we’re sadly seeing less and less innovation. Films like In Time show off a future that looks very much like ours, only with more roadblocks. Tron Legacy looks like a video game, but it held very little in the way of imagination where future tech was concerned (though I’ll admit the outfits were quite snazzy). Movies such as Minority Report and the original Total Recall remain interesting even today because they took innovative risks with tech trends.
Prometheus is (mostly) set 80 years forward from now, but Ridley Scott has done a serviceable job at predicting how things might work. The mapping robots make sense given current nano-abilities, plus they show a bit of art and imagination. While watching the mapping scene it was easy to think “Why don’t other directors try to make a guess as to where everything is headed?” Even James Cameron’s Aliens figured cameras would still be huge in size and scanning technologies would still be clunky. The lesson: It’s better to take a chance on futurism and be way off as opposed to simply making things a little shinier than they are today.
That said, it should be noted that Prometheus completely swings and misses on the idea of DVRs, as Fifield and Millburn are flat-out murdered while Captain Janek (Idris Elba) takes a sex break. He gets back to the control room and is all “Hmmm, wonder where those dudes are at.” He should be saying, “Run that tape back. Whoa! Them fellas got totes eaten!!” Ah well. At least the mapping droids were cool. A point for Ridley there.
While we’re on the subject of tech, let’s get into the most prominent tech (and character arc) of Prometheus …Higgly Hen by Axel Scheffler
Imagine if everyone you knew, everyone you considered a friend, immediately became a prime suspect in the brutal kidnapping of your own unborn children? Where would you turn? Who would you trust?
This is the harrowing scene conjured by the dark mind of Scheffler in this pulse-pounding, spine-chilling, ‘whodunit’ psychological thriller, set on an unassuming rural farm that, as we later discover, may hold secrets yet to be unearthed by one of its inhabitants.
Scheffler sets the scene early, playing on the single most heart wrenching fear of any parent. Our protagonist, Higgly Hen, discovers that her precious eggs are missing. Snatched from right, quite literally, under her. The farm, the only world she’s ever known, her sanctuary, immediately becomes a hotbed of paranoia. Who can she trust? If anyone at all?
Was it the cows? Was it the pig? The horse? Scheffler bends and twists his readers, guiding their accusatory finger at each and every one without ever pointing it directly at any character in particular.
The suspense builds to an inevitable climax when Higgly reaches the barn. The barnyard cat offers to help Higgly search, but his motives are never quite clear, and immediately arouse suspicion.
This is where a writer like Scheffler weaves his magic. The reader is bound by the very same mental anguish and emotional torment that our protagonist, Higgly Hen, experiences. He is the M. Night Shyamalan of barnyard suspense. Twist after twist after twist is layered in such a way that one can never quite stop second guessing themselves.
This is his “what’s in the box?” moment.
The barnyard cat, who we immediately suspect to be of ill nature, reveals that Higgly’s eggs were not stolen at all…
… they had, unbeknownst to her, hatched. And the chicks had wandered into the barn.
Rather than eat them, like any barnyard cat would, he had kept them safe and sound.
In a bundle of hay.
Under his watch.
And all this time, we, through the eyes of Higgly, have accused and blamed everyone we loved for what is essentially our own horrific lapse in judgement.
Which leaves us all to ponder… who is the real monster?
Who, indeed.Parents are claiming classism in a Florida school cafeteria.
A letter sent home with a Florida school's orientation packet asks for PTSA donations and offers children a pass to the front of the lunch line if they donate a certain amount. With the recent rise in awareness over lunch shaming, this pay-to-play arrangement caught the attention -- and ire -- of several parents.
A spokesperson for Lawton Chiles Middle Academy in Polk County said the whole thing was a mistake.
The letter appears to offer the lunch line pass in exchange for a $100 donation, among other tiers of donation rewards.
“You got those who can pay, and those who cannot,” said Christ Stephenson, the father of a student at the academy.
Attending middle school is rough enough, Stephenson said, so when he saw the form in his sixth grader’s orientation packet, he went red.
“'Hey, my dad has more money than you, I get to eat first. You have to wait, you have to wait,'” said Stephenson, imitating the possible teasing and bullying that could come from the fundraising idea.
Stephenson and other parents were outraged. Many reached out directly to the principal of the academy, who said he didn’t sign off on the paperwork.
“This definitely hits home for me, and I am very upset about it,” said Brian Andrews, principal of Lawton Chiles Middle Academy.
Andrews has been with the middle school four years. Since he’s arrived, he said he has changed many things to be as inclusive as possible.
“Nobody is a second-class citizen here, and I would encourage anybody to speak to parents that have been here,” Andrews said.
A statement from the PTSA addresses the issue:
“We look to strive to look for new and innovative fundraising ideas to enhance the school experience for our students. We offer a variety of fundraising options for our students and families to choose from each year. This Family and Business Sponsorship program was explored but we decided not to implement. Due to a clerical error, the form was inadvertently included in the Orientation packets. Our families have been notified this program is not being offered. The intent of our PTSA is to always do the best for our students and families.”
“Where were the checkpoints missed," said Stephenson. "Who allowed and approved documents to be distributed to 300 some-odd students without having read it?"
The principal told Tampa-based WFTS that he never saw the form and would have never included it in the packet.
“What we do behind these walls, I truly believe we are for all kids, and we will continue to do that,” said Andrews.The signposts are freshly painted—NO TPP; BREXIT; CALEXIT—but the road turning off from globalization is a well-known one. The Trump Administration and Republican Congress are going down it at a steady, accelerating pace.
The signposts up ahead also point to recognizable danger. The next epoch in a cycle that recorded civilization has followed predictably for at least five thousand years is tribal savagery, also known as wars of identity.
What indicates that we are doomed to repeat the tragedy of decline and fall of global comity? The examples are like clues to an Agatha Christie whodunit wherein everyone turns out to be guilty.
Begin with the domestic expressions of “America First” in the Trump White House. The administration communicates correctly that it was elected on the promise of ending arguably unfair trade treaties not only with adversaries such as China but also with allies such as Canada, Japan, Australia, and Mexico.
The administration is also following through on its promise to close the U.S. gates to a list of untrusted identities. The nationalities include unstable suspects from the Muslim world, but the logic of raising a drawbridge points to the list’s growing to include everyone who cannot prove a negative, that his or her origins are riskless.
Also, the rhetorical contest over who pays for building a wall along the Mexican border is an expression of extreme distrust toward the non-English-speaking regions of the New World.
Surprisingly, the Democratic and Progressive opposition to the Trump Administration’s Republican-endorsed anti-globalization policies looks a lot like identity conflict within the U.S. borders.
California’s Secretary of State has ruled that the “Yes California” group can gather signatures to present a 2018 ballot that will start the “CALEXIT” process of allowing the whole state to vote to leave the union. This is overt secession as well as another version of closing borders, raising barriers, fearing outside identities. Polling says that 1 in 3 Californians supports departure.
CALEXIT is also a philosophical rejection of the written Constitution of the world’s oldest democracy. The ballot will ask for endorsement to remove the guarantee in the California Constitution that the state is “an inseparable part of the United States of America, and the United States Constitution is the supreme law of the land.”
Long before possible secession, just achieving the ballot with the fact of the necessary half a million signatures will communicate that the vineyard of liberty is withering along the Pacific.
The sanctuary cities phenomenon is another domestic illustration of identity separatism within these still somewhat United States.
The Trump administration has declared that it will deny critical funding—a siege tactic—to any municipality that defies national policy on undocumented immigrants.
New York’s Mayor Bill de Blasio responded as if wearing armor atop the walls of his fortress, “We’re going to defend all of our people regardless of where they come from, regardless of their immigration status.”
Boston’s Mayor Martin Walsh sang out the romance of religious sanctuary. “To anyone who feels threatened today, or vulnerable, you are safe in Boston.” Walsh then constructed a last redoubt of the imagination against Washington, “If necessary, we will use City Hall itself to shelter and protect anyone who’s targeted unjustly.”
Overseas, the end of this current globalization epoch—dating from the 1945 UN, the 1947 GATT, the 1948 NATO, the 1949 Marshall Plan, the 1950 UN war in Korea—is starkly obvious in Europe and Asia. The beggaring of the European Union and the rusting of NATO are symptoms, not causes, of anti-globalization.
BREXIT has restored the island of Great Britain to its natural defenses to be surrounded by the legendary wall of oak of the Royal Navy. Prime Minister Theresa May is openly searching for a restoration of the special relationship with the U.S., perhaps to reawaken the long dreamed about Anglosphere league of well-armed and prickly democracies.
Continental Europe is fragmenting into national and cultural identities that can appear to be a recapitulation of the last four centuries of imperial mayhem.
France’s anti-globalization trend likely dissuaded the socialist François Hollande from even running for re-election and now has raised the possibility of that nation electing Front National Marine Le Pen and her nationalist slogan, “Au nom du people” (in the name of the people).
Germany’s pending election puts Chancellor Angela Merkel under extreme pressure to demonstrate gate-keeping by reversing her unpopular order to usher in Middle Eastern and African refugees. Merkel is also squeezed between the Trump Administration’s demand for trade balance with the heavily exporting Germany and the Kremlin’s demand that Germany agree to an end to sanctions over the annexation of Crimea.
There is no better European example of the old ways of tribal ferocity than in the endlessly hostile Balkans, where Serbia, humiliated by NATO in 1998, is now provoking Kosovo in what looks to be a campaign to reclaim its lost province with the battle flag, “Kosovo Is Serbia.”
In Asia, the People’s Republic of China practices teeth-bared annexation in the South China Sea while denouncing the U.S. as an outside aggressor and warning Taiwan that the day of reconquest is closer if it continues to treat with Trump.
As Japan rearms, its response to China’s militarizing islands in the South China Sea is to distribute Coast Guard vessels to Vietnam and to welcome the forward basing of America’s fifth generation F-35 warplane along with the overtasked but dominating firepower of the Pacific Fleet.
The clearest example of the end of globalization in Asia is that the PRC, while claiming fair trade, is freshly defeating longstanding methods to bypass the Great Firewall, thus cutting off China’s markets and entrepreneurs from information and trade. As China closes down access to foreign investors and enterprises, Chinese capital flight accelerates to dollar havens in North America.
What is the worst-case scenario of the present rush away from globalization and toward the violence of the supremacy of identity?
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waste of agents' time and money makes her feel less safe.
Patricia Castro said she was "appalled" by the treatment of her husband. Castro himself told the Republic he was "not thrilled" by the incident but said he did not file a complaint because the agents were doing their job.
The Border Patrol said agents are required to find the source of all detected radiation. The agency said Castro was not held for as long as he said and was on his way in 10 minutes.For the past year, the Malaysian government has said a company called Good Star Ltd, which received US$1.03 billion from the scandal-hit 1MDB investment fund, was owned by the fund's joint venture partner, PetroSaudi International Ltd.
Now, an official with knowledge of a regulatory investigation, has confirmed what Malaysia's central bank has recently asserted: Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho was the sole owner of Good Star during its five years as a company.
"What I can say for sure is that Jho Low is the exclusive beneficial owner of Good Star," the official said.
According to a registration document seen by Reuters, Good Star was incorporated in the Seychelles on May 18, 2009, four months before the initial payment to PetroSaudi. It was dissolved five years later, on May 2, 2014.
Low, who is most often referred to as Jho Low, was the owner of Good Star throughout those five years, the official said.
Both Jho Low, and the government have denied he had anything to do with 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), a fund Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak founded in September 2009 to invest in strategic property and energy projects.
Malaysian companies and banks linked to 1MDB are at the centre of corruption and money laundering probes that have led investigators to look at transactions and financial relationships across the globe - from Malaysia to Singapore and the Seychelles, from Abu Dhabi to offshore companies in the Caribbean, and from the United States to Switzerland.
Investigations are being conducted by authorities in the United States, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.
Energy investment?
Unravelling the status of Good Star's ownership is important, investigators say, because it will help determine whether 1MDB's funds were misappropriated or used for legitimate investments, as the government maintains.
If Jho Low is the sole owner of Good Star, it could indicate that 1MDB funds were not directed to an energy project investment with PetroSaudi but for another purpose,
investigators say.
The 34-year-old Jho Low has not been charged with any offence in the investigations into 1MDB. He did not reply to requests for comment that were directed to his private equity and advisory firm in Hong Kong, Jynwel Capital, and his whereabouts could not be determined.
Najib, who was the chairperson of 1MDB's advisory board until recently, has denied any wrongdoing.
The Prime Minister's Office did not respond to requests for comment about Good Star for this article. 1MDB and the Finance Ministry, which is the sole shareholder of the fund, declined to comment.
PetroSaudi was founded in 2005 by Saudi businessman Tarek Essam Ahmad Obaid, a graduate of Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, the company's website says.
PetroSaudi and Obaid did not respond directly when asked if the firm owned Good Star.
The London-based law firm of Carter-Ruck, speaking on behalf of PetroSaudi, said in an emailed statement: "Our clients categorically deny any wrongdoing in relation to the Joint Venture with 1MDB, and they have made clear that all funds invested by 1MDB in the Joint Venture were returned, with profits."
Bank Negara letter
Good Star's ownership continues to be a matter of debate in Malaysia.
The head of Malaysia's parliamentary inquiry into 1MDB last month denied Jho Low was the owner of Good Star. He did so in explaining why he rejected a letter from Malaysia's central bank, Bank Negara, saying that Jho Low, indeed, was the owner.
The parliamentary Public Accounts Committee inquiry chief, Hasan Arifin, who is from Najib's ruling party Umno, said he did not include the confidential letter in his final report on 1MDB because the bank's source of information was "intelligence grade", which "may be prejudiced against various parties".
Hasan declined to comment to Reuters. Bank Negara too did not respond to requests for comment.
The former chief executive of 1MDB, Shahrol Halmi, told the inquiry that Good Star was a subsidiary of PetroSaudi, according to the PAC report.
1MDB made two payments to Good Star, in 2009 and 2011, totalling US$1.03 billion (RM4.156 billion at current rates). What happened to the money after that could not be determined because the inquiry panel was not given information on 1MDB's foreign banking transactions, according to PAC member Tony Pua, who is from the opposition.
The Wall Street Journal on July 3 of last year reported that global investigators believed that US$700 million (RM2.824 billion at current rates) in cash moved through banks and companies linked to 1MDB before eventually going into Najib's personal bank accounts.
None of the investigations across the world into 1MDB have shown any connection between any alleged misappropriation of money linked to 1MDB and the prime minister.
Malaysia's attorney-general Mohamed Apandi Ali cleared Najib in January of any corruption or criminal offences. Apandi said that US$681 million, deposited into Najib's personal account in March 2013 before a Malaysian general election, was a gift from a member of Saudi Arabia's royal family and most of it was returned.
Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told reporters in April the funds wired into Najib's account from an unspecified Saudi source were "a genuine donation" with no obligations attached.
- ReutersPeople’s Pint celebrates homebrewing, first-ever homebrew pub
Toronto, ON – The People’s Pint Brewing Collective this week announced its first Artisanal Beer Tasting Event celebrating the art of homebrewing, spearheaded by Beer Sommelier Doug Appeldoorn, co-founder of now defunct Brauhaus.
Hosted Friday May 29, 2015 at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto, the People’s Pint Brewing Collective brings together beer from 16 local homebrewers including a Coffee Blonde, Dry Hopped German Pilsner, Coconut Brown Ale, Belgian Tripel with Honey & Camomile, Brett Saison, White IPA, Mayan Chocolate Rum Porter and more.
The $40 membership to attend includes entry, specialty glass, at least 8 beer samples, food and music.
Brewer-Owned Brewing System at the Gladstone Hotel
Based upon the success of the events and a coming Kickstarter campaign, Appeldoorn says the collective plans to launch a brewer-owned 2 hectolitre brewing system at the Gladstone Hotel.
“The system will be staffed by a rotating roster of some of the best home brewers in the city,” explains Appeldoorn.
“It’ll be the world’s first home brew pub!”
Buy tickets here.Coverage of the Brit Awards 2014 begins on ITV at 8pm on Wednesday night. The following bands and singers have been confirmed to perform during the ceremony at London's O2 Arena, hosted by James Corden.
The Sheffield quartet are nominated for two Brit Awards: British Group and MasterCard British Album of the Year. The band headlined Glastonbury for the second time last summer and released AM, their fifth consecutive number one UK album.
READ: Arctic Monkeys: 'We've raised the bar as a live band'
Arctic Monkeys tickets at Telegraph Tickets
Bastille
Nominated for an impressive four Brit Awards, Bastille's brand of inoffensive indie-pop has earned them an army of committed fans. Their debut album, Bad Blood, was the UK's biggest-selling digital album of 2013.
Reluctant star: Bastille's Dan Smith
READ: Neil McCormick talks to Bastille's Dan Smith
Bastille tickets at Telegraph Tickets
Bruno Mars
Nominated in the International Male Solo Artist category, the American singer-songwriter has sold some 10 million albums worldwide and has a reputation for putting on an impressive live show.
Hats off: Bruno Mars has a reputation for impressive live shows
READ: Bruno Mars rescues Super Bowl 2014 half-time show
Disclosure
Surrey brothers Disclosure have been hailed in some quarters as the saviours of British dance music.
Disclosure: the saviours of British dance music?
READ: Disclosure, Setlle, review
Ellie Goulding
Fast becoming a global superstar, Ellie Goulding is nominated for British Female Solo Artist.
Ellie Goulding
READ: Ellie Goulding interview - 'I do have a dark side'
Ellie Goulding tickets at Telegraph Tickets
Katy Perry
Katy Perry's fourth album, Prism, was released last year to critical acclaim and topped both the US and UK album charts. She is nominated for International Female Solo Artist.
READ: Katy Perry, Prism, review
Katy Perry tickets at Telegraph Tickets
Lorde
Nominated for International Female Solo Artist, New Zealand teenager Lorde, has been hailed as the antidote to superficial pop music.
READ: Lorde interview
Pharrell Williams
The 40-year-old producer and rapper has been making headlines recently with his absurdly tall choice of headwear, but he also had a memorable 2013 with his music, featuring on Daft Punk's Random Access Memories album, which won Album of the Year at the Grammys last month. Daft Punk are nominated in the International Group category at the Brit Awards.
Daft punk? Pharrell Williams showing off some big headwear (AFP)
Rudimental
This Hackney-born dance group have three Brit Awards 2014 nominations: British Group, British Single of the Year and MasterCard British Album of the Year. Their album, Home, went straight to the top of the UK charts when it was released in April last year.
Talent seekers: Rudimental members Piers Agget, Amir Amor, Leon Rolle and Kesi Dryden
READ: Bernadette McNulty talks to Rudimental
Rudimental tickets at Telegraph Tickets
Follow @TeleMusicNewsPhoto credit: Venex_jpb
After several decades of Lrapid rise in world grain yields, it is now becoming more difficult to raise land productivity fast enough to keep up with the demands of a growing, increasingly affluent, population.
From 1950 to 1990, world grainland productivity increased by 2.2 percent per year, but from 1990 until 2009 it went up by only 1.3 percent annually. Despite some impressive local advances, the global loss of momentum in expanding food production is forcing us to think more seriously about reducing demand by stabilizing population, moving down the food chain, and reducing the use of grain to fuel cars.
Challenges of Population and Affluence
Photo credit: Hamed Saber
One of the key components of Plan B, the Earth Policy Institute's ambitious strategy to save civilization, is to halt world population growth at no more than 8 billion by 2040. This will require an all-out population education effort to help people everywhere understand how fast the relationship between us and our natural support systems is deteriorating. It also means that we need a crash program to get reproductive health care and birth control services to the more than 200 million women today who want to plan their families but lack access to the means to do so.
While the effect of population growth on the demand for grain is rather clear, that of rising affluence is much less so. One of the questions I am often asked is, "How many people can the earth support?" I answer with another question: "At what level of food consumption?"
Using round numbers, at the U.S. level of 800 kilograms of grain per person annually for food and feed, the 2-billion-ton annual world harvest of grain would support 2.5 billion people. At the Italian level of consumption of close to 400 kilograms, the current harvest would support 5 billion people. At the 200 kilograms of grain consumed by the average Indian, it would support 10 billion.
Of the roughly 800 kilograms of grain consumed per person each year in the United States, about 100 kilograms is eaten directly as bread, pasta, and breakfast cereals, while the bulk of the grain is consumed indirectly in the form of livestock and poultry products. By contrast, in India, where people consume just under 200 kilograms of grain per year, or roughly a pound per day, nearly all grain is eaten directly to satisfy basic food energy needs. Little is available for conversion into livestock products.
Health and the Food Chain
Among the United States, Italy, and India, life expectancy is highest in Italy even though U.S. medical expenditures per person are much higher. People who live very low or very high on the food chain do not live as long as those at an intermediate level. People consuming a Mediterranean-type diet that includes meat, cheese, and seafood, but all in moderation, are healthier and live longer. People living high on the food chain can improve their health by moving down the food chain. For those who live in low-income countries like India, where a starchy staple such as rice can supply 60 percent or more of total caloric intake, eating more protein-rich foods can improve health and raise life expectancy.
Although we seldom consider the climate effect of various dietary options, they are substantial, to say the least. Gidon Eshel and Pamela A. Martin of the University of Chicago have studied this issue. They begin by noting that for Americans the energy used to provide the typical diet and that used for personal transportation are roughly the same. They calculate that the range between the more and less carbon-intensive transportation options and dietary options is each about four to one.
The Toyota Prius, for instance, uses roughly one fourth as much fuel as a Chevrolet Suburban SUV. Similarly with diets, a plant-based diet requires roughly one fourth as much energy as a diet rich in red meat. Shifting from the latter to a plant-based diet cuts greenhouse gas emissions almost as much as shifting from a Suburban to a Prius would.
Diet and Climate
Photo credit: jon smith
Shifting from the more grain-intensive to the less grain-intensive forms of animal protein can also reduce pressure on the earth's land and water resources. For example, shifting from grain-fed beef that requires roughly 7 pounds of grain concentrate for each additional pound of live weight to poultry or catfish, which require roughly 2 pounds of grain per pound of live weight, substantially reduces grain use.
When considering how much animal protein to consume, it is useful to distinguish between grass-fed and grain-fed products. For example, most of the world's beef is produced with grass. Even in the United States, with an abundance of feedlots, over half of all beef cattle weight gain comes from grass rather than grain. The global area of grasslands, which is easily double the world cropland area and which is usually too steeply sloping or too arid to plow, can contribute to the food supply only if it is used for grazing to produce meat, milk, and cheese.
Beyond the role of grass in providing high-quality protein in our diets, it is sometimes assumed that we can increase the efficiency of land and water use by shifting from animal protein to high-quality plant protein, such as that from soybeans. It turns out, however, that since corn yields in the U.S. Midwest are three to four times those of soybeans, it may be more resource-efficient to produce corn and convert it into poultry or catfish at a ratio of two to one than to have everyone heavily reliant on soy.
Although population growth has been a source of growing demand ever since agriculture began, the large-scale conversion of grain into animal protein emerged only after World War II. The massive conversion of grain into fuel for cars began just a few years ago. If we are to reverse the spread of hunger, we will almost certainly have to reduce the latter use of grain. For perspective, the estimated 114 million tons of grain used to produce ethanol in 2009 in the United States is the food supply for 370 million people at average world grain consumption levels.
Quickly shifting to smaller families, moving down the food chain either by consuming less animal protein or by turning to more grain-efficient animal protein sources, and removing the incentives for converting food into fuel will help ensure that everyone has enough to eat. It will also lessen the pressures that lead to overpumping of groundwater and the clearing of tropical rainforests, two additional trends that threaten the viability of our global civilization.
Adapted from Chapter 9, "Feeding Eight Billion People Well," in Lester R. Brown, Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), available online at www.earth-policy.org/books/pb4
Additional data and information sources at www.earth-policy.org
Read more about grain production:
Rethinking Food Production For A World Of Eight Billion
Food Shortages Drive Global Prices to Record Highs
Rising Temperatures, Rising Food PricesThe Next Web reviews 5 major web apps, essential for tracking the UK’s closest General Election in years.
Great Britain is in the midst of its most closely fought General Election Campaign for several decades. For the first time ever, live TV debates featuring the three main party leaders are being used… and what an impact the first one has had!
The latest web apps from some of the UK’s leading news websites are a great way to keep up to speed with a political landscape which changes on a daily basis.
Here, The Next Web gives its verdict on some of the latest mapping and analysis tools available in the run up to elction day on May 6th, having already taken a look at some of the latest Election-related iPhone apps.
Each of the 5 useful tools reviewed here offers something a little different for readers looking to keep abreast of developments in the 2010 Election campaign.
The latest interactive offerings from the BBC, The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian and Yahoo! are reviewed after the jump:
1. The Guardian
The Guardian’s Election map uses simple Tetris-like blocks to build up an abstract picture of Britain, although an alternative zoomable, geographical view is also available from the menu, as is an animated bar-chart view.
Regional breakdowns are accessible via an alphabetical list and hovering over each constituency’s ‘block’ reveals snapshot details of the current majority and 2005 election results. Specific constituencies can also be searched for by name.
To the right of the map is a pie chart of concentric circles, showing the relationships between the three main parties.
The centre of the circle can be grabbed on a mouse-click and pulled in, out and around each of the three coloured segments, with the resulting moves in any of the parties’ favour being instantly reflected on the map itself, whether in ‘Tetris’, geographical or bar-chart mode.
The Next Web Verdict – The Guardian: Votes For: Simple, flexible and fast-loading with well executed animations. Votes Against: No opinion poll updates. Spoiled Papers: Constituency details open up a separate web page.
2. The Telegraph
The Telegraph has deployed an abstract honeycomb map with each cell representing a constituency, the name of which appears using ‘hover’.
When a constituency is selected an arrow appears over the cell and a popup window quickly appears with the results of the 2005 election, with a second tab providing access to public service statistics for the area, including health, education and crime.
Within the popup window there’s also a pane dedicated to related articles and links eg the current MP’s voting record in the House of Commons, via theyworkforyou.com.
Back in the main map view, there are quick links to the very latest opinion polls, the results of which are displayed on the map, along with details of all seats that would change hands.
There’s also a simple swingometer tool which lets you see the impact of voting swings between the parties on the map.
The Next Web Verdict – The Telegraph: Votes For: Fast loading popups with related info. Votes Against: No geographical map, abstract honeycomb only. Spoiled Papers: Tool could be larger, but it does pack a punch for its size.
3. The Times
The Times Election Map lets you zoom in gracefully by region and by individual constituency, quickly pulling up a graphical and percentage breakdown of the selected seat as well as brief details of the area. Searching can be done by postcode too.
The zoom function is super-quick and the details of each constituency provide links to ‘Who Will Win?’ prediction maps which draw up forecasts from Ladbrokes and Finktank.
The Times map was created in conjunction with Shift Control, based in Copenhagen, which specialises in data visualisation tools.
The Next Web Verdict – The Times: Votes For: Graceful animation and integrated Who Will Win? tool. Votes Against: No mechanism to adjust possible election results and view impact on map. Spoiled Papers: Huge interface stands apart from The Times main election website.
4. Yahoo!
Yahoo’s interactive election map looks a little dull compared the red, yellow and blue of the others reviewed here. However, it actually performs pretty well. It also looks like it is ready to start changing colour, region by region, as election results begin to roll in on May 6th and 7th.
Select a region and it immediately offers up an animated zoom to a close up map of the region over which you can hover to choose a specific constituency or select from the alphabetical list which appears.
On selecting a constituency, an information panel pops up with brief details around the status of the seat and the candidates, although no forecasts regarding potential results are available.
The Next Web Verdict – Yahoo: Votes For: Simple, responsive app. Votes Against: Looks dowdy. Spoiled Papers: Far fewer ‘toys’ (eg swingometers, polls, etc) included than the other apps reviewed.
5. BBC
The BBC’s Election seat calculator takes several of the tools deployed by the other apps reviewed here and makes them available in a single view.
The relationship between the main parties can be adjusted by ‘grabbing’ handles on the colour wheel and changing the size of each segment to see the impact on a honeycomb map similar to that used by The Telegraph and a bar chart much like that of The Guardian’s app.
The results of all previous elections and their impact on the map are also available on a mouse-click, right back to 1974.
Unlike the other maps reviewed here, details of individual constituencies cannot be accessed from the election seat calculator. Instead a separate map is available via the menu which can be navigated by text search or by zooming into regions and then constituencies where details of candidates, previous results and local information can be found.
Aside from being a standalone tool, this map is colourless and very slow to load compared to some of the other apps reviewed here.
As well as the constituency map and the election seat calculator, the BBC has also created an interactive version of its famous Swingometer as used in its election night TV broadcasts. This is where most of the election app development budget has gone and perhaps explains why what other media producers have achieved in single apps, is split out into separate tools by the BBC.
The Swingometer is, however, implemented fairly well. It is delivered via flash and includes an overlayed video of Jeremy Vine explaining just how it works. His instructions can be interrupted to drag the pointer left and right in order to see the impact of swings between any two of the major parties on the list of constituencies displayed alongside.
Unfortunately, the results cannot be seen on a map, so whilst the Swingometer tool looks slick, the much simpler implementations built into The Telegraph and Guardian tools and even the BBC’s own Election seat calculator app can actually deliver greater visual impact.
The Next Web Verdict – BBC: Votes For: Comprehensive Election Seat Calculator. Votes Against: Overly Flashy Swingometer. Spoiled papers: Slow-loading constituency map not integrated.
So, that’s about all for this round-up from The Next Web. Doubtless, there are other interesting Election apps and tools out there. Tell us about your favourite in the Comments.
Read next: Last.fm scrobbles 40 Billionth track, doubles US trafficThe U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that as the third season of dredging draws to a close later this week, a total of more than 1.3 million cubic yards of sediment contaminated with PCBs will have been removed from the Hudson River.
Since dredging began on May 9, 2012, about 650,000 cubic yards of sediment were dredged from a three-mile section of the river south of the village of Fort Edward, New York, exceeding the season goal of dredging 350,000 cubic yards. With the third season of dredging nearly complete, the EPA is almost half way toward its goal of removing 2.65 million cubic yards of contaminated sediment from a 40-mile stretch of the upper Hudson River. The dredging project also created 500 jobs and additional economic benefits for the area.
All of the EPA-required limits on the amount of sediment stirred up and resuspended during the dredging and the amount of area that can be capped were met. Over the next several weeks, clean material will be placed over the areas that were dredged.
“With the third season of dredging nearly complete, the EPA is approximately half way toward its goal of a cleaner Hudson River,” said Judith A. Enck, EPA Regional Administrator. “With each successful dredging season, we draw closer to a healthier Hudson River and to the day when we can restore this historic river to its former glory.”
PCBs are likely cancer-causing chemicals and can cause neurological damage, especially in children. They build up in the fatty tissue of fish and other animals. The primary health risk to people is from eating contaminated fish.
Over a 30-year period, ending in the late 1970’s, an estimated 1.3 million pounds of PCBs entered the river from two General Electric capacitor manufacturing plants located in Fort Edward and Hudson Falls, New York. The EPA is overseeing the dredging project that is being conducted by General Electric under the terms of a 2006 legal agreement.
During dredging, the EPA required extensive monitoring to ensure that the amount of sediment drifting downriver during the operation was within acceptable limits. The EPA also set a requirement that no more than two percent of the total amount of PCBs actually removed from the river could be stirred up and resuspended in the water, as measured at Schuylerville, which was the monitoring station nearest to where dredging occurred in 2012. The requirement for Waterford, the farthest downstream monitoring station in the upper Hudson River, was no more than one percent of the amount removed. Both of these requirements were met during the 2012 dredging season. The requirement that capping not exceed 11% of the total project area was met with less than 5% of the area being capped, not counting those areas where capping is unavoidable, was also met.
The EPA also required monitoring to gauge impacts on surrounding communities, such as noise and air quality. Operational changes, which included keeping dredged sediment in barges covered with water and prioritizing the transport and processing of the most contaminated sediment first, reduced air quality and noise impacts during the 2012 season.
In the coming months the EPA will determine what changes, if any, are needed for the next season of dredging set to begin next spring. The shipment of dredged sediment to permitted out-of-state disposal facilities will continue this calendar year until all dredged sediment remaining at the Fort Edward processing facility has been transported off-site by train.
During the initial years of the project, the areas targeted for dredging were close together and generally extended from shoreline to shoreline. In future years, as the project continues to move southward towards Troy, the dredging areas will be further apart. Several areas will also need to dredged that are logistically challenging, including those near dams, shallow areas behind islands and the landlocked section of river located between the Thompson Island Dam and Fort Miller Dam. The rest of the cleanup is expected to take three to five more years to complete.
Press Release, November 14, 2012Uncle Cracker's got some plans for America... and it involves a shit-load of camping!... Internment camps, reeducation camps, prison camps, labor camps.Join Tea Party Presidential Candidate, Grady Warren, as he describes the Utopian world that he would transform America into if he were King.... an America that combines down-home southern racism with the clinical efficiency of Hitler's Third Reich and just a dash of Apartheid Era segregation.Take a stroll with President Grady as he escorts you past the dusky rabble, now safely contained in their tent cities and labor camps... and into the bright, shining streets of New America's Negro-Free zones!* Disclaimer:Not all streets may be bright and shiny.Constitutional Rights may be void where prohibited.Not responsible for race wars, civil wars, insurrections, martial law, jihads, terrorist attacks, looting, mayhem, murder, rape, lynchings, assassinations, military coups or any other negative situation that may occur as a result of President Grady's "Final Solution."Sarah Palin, Fantasy Wife, not included.-EventHorizon2012-Two Colorado Democrats targeted for recall elections for supporting the state's new gun control laws were pursuing legal challenges to avoid going back to the ballot this year after failing to have the recall efforts thrown out.
Sen. Angela Giron, D-Pueblo, on Tuesday failed in her effort to have the recall petition against her thrown out because it was improperly worded. Democratic Senate President John Morse of Colorado Springs lost an identical argument last week.
Both senators are being targeted for recalls because of their support for new gun control laws, especially an ammunition magazine limit and a measure expanding background checks. Opponents say the gun controls violate Second Amendment rights.
KDVR.com reported that Democratic lawyer Mark Grueskin filed a lawsuit Tuesday appealing the Morse decision, arguing that the petition should be thrown out because it failed to include language informing signers that a recall election would be held to appoint a successor.
"A petition form must inform unsophisticated as well as sophisticated voters who are considering whether or not to sign the petition," Grueskin argued in his appeal. An appeal from Giron supporters was imminent.
Deputy Secretary of State Suzanne Staiert said in both decisions that recall elections are "a fundamental right" and that the petition questions were enough to meet the legal threshold for valid recalls.
Unless a judge steps in, the senators would face recall elections between early August and early September — the first legislative recalls in Colorado history. Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper must set the date.
The special election must be held within 60 days of Hickenlooper receiving certification paperwork on the recall petitions from the secretary of state, which was submitted Monday, according to The Denver Post.
"Every day of delay in setting the election restricts the voting opportunities of Colorado citizens," Wayne Williams, the Republican El Paso county clerk and recorder, told the newspaper.
A spokeswoman for Hickenlooper said this week that the governor's office is consulting with local officials about the best date for recalls. Sources told KDVR.com that a possible date has already been determined.
In El Paso County, Republicans chose former Colorado Springs City Councilman Bernie Herpin in a nonbinding straw poll Tuesday to challenge Morse if that recall election is held.
The gun controls sparked intense opposition during this year's legislative session, and they've brought election-year intensity to a typically ho-hum time of year in Colorado politics. A lawsuit brought by a majority of Colorado sheriffs opposed to the gun controls was due for a court hearing Wednesday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Click here for more from The Denver Post.
Click here for more from KDVR.com.Todd Lussier/Zuffa LLC/Getty Images
Fighters and their fights rightfully dominate the MMA news cycle.
It's not often their coaches make headlines unless they're being interviewed during fight week about the game plan for one of their fighters. But when one of the top coaches in the sport leaves the gym they've been affiliated with for years, it's certainly newsworthy.
Veteran MMA coach Robert Follis parted ways with Xtreme Couture, the Las Vegas-based MMA gym owned by UFC Hall of Famer Randy Couture, on Monday. He notified Bleacher Report by phone Tuesday.
Follis ran daily MMA and grappling classes for the professional fighters at the gym along with serving as head coach for some of its top fighters like Kevin Lee, Bryan Caraway and Tim Elliott, as well as former women's bantamweight champion Miesha Tate.
Follis was with the gym for just over four years. Prior to his time at Xtreme Couture, he was the head coach and co-owner of Team Quest in Portland, Oregon.
"I'd like to thank Randy [Couture] for bringing me on when the gym was going through some struggles. Having the opportunity to build it back up to a world-class level has been one of the great experiences of my professional career," Follis said in a statement to Bleacher Report. "At the time there was not a Brazilian jiu-jitsu program in place for non-fighters to come in for, so to see it take off and flourish was a great accomplishment. I'm really excited about some big possibilities that are currently sitting in front of me and I'm looking forward to watching these things unfold soon. I'm so grateful to everyone that partnered with me over the years to get the gym and the Brazilian jiu-jitsu program to where it is."
Given Follis’ track record thus far, he’ll no doubt find success in whatever venture he chooses next.A pair of slave shackles on display in the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture (AFP Photo/Chip Somodevilla)
Geneva (AFP) - The United States should give African Americans reparations for slavery, UN experts said Tuesday, warning that the country had not yet confronted its legacy of "racial terrorism."
Amid a presidential election campaign in which racial rhetoric has played a central role, the UN working group on people of African descent warned that blacks in the US were facing a "human rights crisis."
This has largely been fuelled by impunity for police officers who have killed a series of black men -- many of them unarmed -- across the country in recent months, the working group's report said.
Those killings "and the trauma they create are reminiscent of the past racial terror of lynchings," said the report, which was presented to the United Nations Human Rights Council on Monday.
Addressing the deeper causes of America's racial tensions, the experts voiced concern over the unresolved "legacy of colonial history, enslavement, racial subordination and segregation, racial terrorism and racial inequality."
"There has been no real commitment to reparations and to truth and reconciliation for people of African descent," the report said.
Working group chairman Ricardo A. Sunga told reporters that the panel believed several models of reparations could work in the US context, including "elements of apology" and a form of "debt relief" to the descendants of enslaved people.
Asked about the campaign and accusations that Republican nominee Donald Trump has made racially inflammatory remarks, Sunga voiced alarm over "hate speech...xenophobia (and) Afrophobia."
"We are very troubled that these are on the rise," he added, without naming Trump specifically but calling on officials and "even candidates" to watch their words.
Trump and his camp have denied all racism charges.
In the campaign's first debate on Monday, Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton accused Trump of launching his campaign on the "racist lie" that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.
The UN working group visited the several US states in January before producing their final report.An early-morning fire at a City of Toronto building in Scarborough Tuesday has caused an estimated $5-million to $10-million worth of damage. Toronto Fire crews were called to Ellesmere Yard, a multi-building complex at Midland Ave. and Ellesmere Rd., at 1.54 a.m. Tuesday. The call was made after an employee filling a fuel tank heard popping sounds coming from inside the building at 1050 Ellesmere Rd., and saw flames.
Toronto firefighters battled a major fire at a City of Toronto building in Scarborough March 15. ( Steve Russell / Toronto Star )
The call to was quickly upgraded to a two-alarm, with 12 fire trucks and 45 firefighters bringing the blaze under control by 3:15 a.m. Crews remained at the scene well into the morning rush hour, putting out hot spots on the tar roof. The affected building, which is near a refueling station used by City of Toronto vehicles as well as Toronto Fire, houses eight large hangars used to store city vehicles including garbage and dump trucks, a Toronto Fire spokesperson said. The fire appears to have started in one of the vehicles and then spread, although the cause of the fire hasn’t been determined yet.
Article Continued Below
There is heavy damage to the roof of the building, parts of which have caved in. Toronto Fire also said that at least one city pickup truck and one dump truck are “write-offs,” and that several other vehicles have been partially damaged by smoke or flames. There were no reports of serious injuries. One firefighter suffered a minor back strain but continued working.Posted September 27, 2017 at 1:00 am
I didn't want to just put Nanase in another striped t-shirt and such, so I wound up looking up various clothing items that appeal to me and came up with... Something. I'm not sure what exactly you'd call that outfit, other than BRILLIANT.
Anyway, her jacket is inspired by letterman jackets, her shirt is inspired by the fact that everyone is dressed for warm weather so it needed to be light to justfy the jacket, and the jean shorts are a result of me wanting to try out waist high 80s jeans on a character. The wrist bands are completely nonsensical and me being me, and the hair is what seemed to fit after everything else was thrown together.
If I do the outfit again, I MIGHT lengthen the shirt and lower the waistband of the shorts? Maybe? I'm not sure. Science must be done. In any case, I've decided I need to browse through old fashion trends and recklessly make use of them more often.
Multiple Choice
I thought of three outcomes for the last panel, and put them to a vote. In addition to "Mrs. Kitsune becomes Nanase's age", there was "Mrs. Kitsune becomes even younger so Nanase can carry her out", and "Nanase becomes Akiko's age". In the end, Mrs. Kitsune becoming Nanase's age won by a fairly large margin, with Nanase becoming Akiko's age in second place.
As such, I must apologize to those who voted for Mrs. Kitsune becoming Nanase's age. They undoubtedly didn't expect her clothing to wind up so small on her, and definitely would not have voted for it if they knew that |
Choice America. “Women make decisions for all sorts of reasons, and no one walks in their shoes but them. At the end of the day, we could litigate every individual case, but that undercuts the core value that’s at stake, which is that we live in a country that prizes autonomy and information.”
Embedded in the calls for re-examining abortion policies as Zika looms is the assumption that aborting a fetus with microcephaly is ethical and that women will want and should have the right to ability-selective abortions. There’s little room, in the usual pro-choice argument, for the notion that that disabled child has the right to exist, or for questioning the notion that life with a disability is inherently worse than life without one. That having a child with a disability is undesirable is usually taken as a given, not just by pro-choice advocates, but by much of U.S. society.
Somehow, what got written into the idea of reproductive choice and freedom is the assumption no woman is prepared or would want to parent a child with a disability. Rosemarie Garland-Thompson
Disability rights advocates argue otherwise. "Somehow, what got written into the idea of reproductive choice and freedom and self determination for women is the assumption that no woman is prepared or would want to parent a child with a disability," Garland-Thomson said.
She acknowledges that there are very real challenges involved in parenting a child with disabilities. Raising special needs children can be enormously resource-intensive, and is often done with limited government or other structural support. The same states that are narrowing abortion access “also offer almost no support for women who need quality care for special needs children,” Hogue observed.
Nicole Cliffe, editor of The Toast and the mother of a special needs child, expressed her frustration this week in a series of tweets. “We fail so terribly not just at providing disability resources, but for providing parents (esp[ecially] ESL parents) with the info to ACCESS them," she wrote. "My child needs such minor support and I do not know how people without money and/or education navigate the paperwork and services and hoops."
"It's days off work, it's out-of-pocket therapies until diagnoses kick in, it's fighting your insurance, it's becoming a full-time advocate," she continued. "A kid with disabilities born into poverty should be able to receive adequate support and care, and we just do not provide that.”
How is it just, abortion rights advocates rightly ask, that the government force women to bring children with disabilities into the world under these circumstances? Garland-Thomson isn’t unsympathetic to this argument, but she notes that it wouldn’t hold water were we to substitute race of gender for disability.
She blames the lack of public knowledge about the lives of people with disabilities for the widespread belief that ability-selective abortions are normal, desirable and ethical.
“Reproductive self-determination is understood as a kind of carte blanche for women to exercise basically a kind of set of discriminatory attitudes and practices,” she said.
To allow reproductive justice and disability justice to coexist more harmoniously, Garland-Thomson doesn’t advocate restricting reproductive rights any further than they’ve been curtailed. "I think what we have to do is rescript the story: the story of disability is almost always a grim one, particularly in terms of prognosis,” she says. The solution, she argues, is to expand reproductive choices, “but we expand them in a deliberative way. I don’t think we should have a no-questions-asked abortion policy -- we should have a lot of questions asked after viability.” The decision to terminate a pregnancy, she said, “should be a very deliberative process where there is full consideration of all the possible vectors of consideration for women, rather than just “holy shit, I don’t want to have a disabled kid.’”
Felipe Dana/ASSOCIATED PRESS Daniele Ferreira dos Santos holds her son Juan Pedro, who was born with microcephaly, outside her house in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil.
It’s hard to imagine, in the current political climate, how American states might enact policies to genuinely encourage that deliberative process. Disguising hurdles to abortion access as a way of ensuring that women carefully consider their choices -- making them look at the ultrasound image, explaining to them what the fetus looks like -- is a favored tactic of the anti-abortion movement. The result, as Davis says, is that “abortion access has been shrunken down to the size of a postage stamp.” Garland-Thomson is calling for a genuine, non-coercive version of that process, but in the U.S. in 2016, it’s hard to imagine how to protect it from anti-abortion hijacking. She also calls for new policies and systems that will allow all parents, regardless of means and the abilities of their children to flourish.
While that sounds intensely desirable -- as a long-term societal project -- it doesn’t suggest an answer to the fiercely urgent question: what do we do now? What do we do if a few months from now, when mosquito season arrives, hundreds or thousands of low-income women in Texas and Florida find themselves pregnant with fetuses that show severe brain damage? What does ethical behavior look like in the here and now, in this political reality?
As is often the case when it comes to abortion, the stakes are high -- and there are no easy answers.
Also on HuffPost:Getty Images/iStockphoto
A man from Hyattsville, Maryland, was charged with attempting to aid the Islamic State group in connection with an attack on military personnel, according to a document from the United States District Court.
Nelash Mohamed Das, 24, faces federal charges of attempting to provide material support and resources to the foreign terrorist organization ISIS, also known as ISIL, in connection with a plan to attack a U.S. military member. He was arrested on Sept. 30 and was ordered held, pending a detention hearing scheduled for Oct. 6.
“Nelash Mohamed Das is alleged to have plotted to kill a U.S. service member on behalf of ISIL,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John P. Carlin said. “Individuals intent on carrying out violence in the name of foreign terrorist organizations pose one of the most concerning threats that law enforcement faces today, and stopping these offenders before they are able to act is our highest priority.”
According to an affidavit filed in support of the criminal complaint, Das, a citizen of Bangladesh, was admitted to the United States in 1995 and is a legal permanent resident. From Sept. 28, 2015, to early 2016, Das allegedly used social media to express support and attempting to inspire violence against a member of the U.S. military.
Between May and September, Das met a confidential source working for the FBI. During that time, Das told the source he wanted to kill a military member who lived in Prince George’s County.
On Sept. 30, Das and the FBI source traveled to the target’s address with weapons that had been rendered useless by the FBI, according to the affidavit. As they got out of the car, FBI agents approached, pursued and captured Das a short distance away from the vehicle.
He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. It wasn't immediately clear if he had an attorney.When Christen Braun decided it was time to learn more about the presidential candidates, the 28-year-old high school teacher from suburban Pittsburgh turned to Google -- right where Sen. Barack Obama's campaign was waiting for her.
Her search triggered an ad for Obama's Web site, which prompted Braun, a Republican, to sign up for the Democratic senator's e-mail list -- and then to make her first political contribution, for $25.
Such transactions help illustrate how Obama has shattered fundraising records and challenged ideas about the way presidential bids are financed. While past campaigns have relied largely on support from small circles of wealthy and well-connected patrons, Obama has received contributions from more than 1 million donors. He raised $91 million in the first two months of 2008 alone, most of it in small amounts over the Internet.
Obama's unprecedented online fundraising success is often depicted as a spontaneous reaction to a charismatic candidate, particularly by young, Internet-savvy supporters. But it is the result of an elaborate marketing effort that has left Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, his rival for the Democratic nomination, and Sen. John McCain, the presumed Republican nominee, struggling to catch up.
Obama aides say their goal has been to "build an online relationship" with supporters who will not only give money but also knock on doors and help register voters for the candidate. To do so, they have spent heavily on Internet ads -- $2.6 million in February alone, more than 10 times as much as Clinton and more than 20 times as much as McCain.
Ads for Obama pop up on political Web sites, such as the left-leaning blog Daily Kos, and on more general ones, such as those of newspapers. Anyone visiting the Dallas Morning News in the weeks before the Texas primary, for instance, was likely to see an Obama appeal stretched along one edge of the screen. The campaign has also attached ads to certain search terms, such as "Iowa caucus locations" or "Ohio primary," on Yahoo, Google and Microsoft search engines.
Obama has targeted unlikely sites, such as the conservative Washington Times, where an ad for the candidate appeared yesterday on the same page as a story about an economic speech he gave that morning. But a click on the ad did not lead to a request for donations; instead, it took users to a page where they could sign up for invitations to campaign events.
This approach -- not directly asking for donations -- has been part of the campaign's strategy of slow-walking its way into supporters' wallets. Newcomers are led to a blog and an online store and are offered a chance to join local Obama groups.
Zack Exley, a campaign consultant who oversaw Internet fundraising for Sen. John F. Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign, said Obama's e-mails to potential donors stand in stark contrast to those sent by the Clinton campaign.
One recent e-mail, from former president Bill Clinton, was blunt: "Any donation, even as little as $5, can make a difference in this campaign. If you haven't given online yet, now is the time."
Exley said that while the Clinton team has been "really aggressive," the Obama campaign has taken more time to build a rapport with potential donors.
"If you just look at the e-mails and the rhythm -- the Obama campaign has not asked for money every time they could have," Exley said. "They've tried to really show people that they're not just after your money. They're not treating you like an ATM."Pro Mazda championship leader Neil Alberico added his third win of the season in the second race of the Barber Motorsports Park round.
Starting in fourth, Alberico was up to second early on and, after inheriting the lead, would prove unstoppable, surviving two restarts along the way to the checkered flag.
Race one winner Weiron Tan kept the lead from pole on the opening lap, but not before forcing off Timothe Buret at the start-finish line, with the Frenchman ending up down in P12.
When the full-course yellow came out for pitlane entry cones knocked onto the track, Tan was swiftly penalised and sent to the back of the grid.
Alberico, who passed Santiago Urrutia at the start, was into first and comfortably led the short first green flag period, which was over when Expert class driver Jay Horak went off.
The race restarted again at halfway point and saw Alberico storm off into the distance. He quickly built up a solid lead over Urrutia and eventually was four seconds in the clear.
Within the pack, Buret was up to eighth, passing teammate Jose Gutierrez. Tan was shortly on the Mexican’s rear wing and soon ended up hitting Gutierrez out of the race.
The subsequent safety car ended the race, with Alberico taking the win ahead of Urrutia and last year’s race winner Garrett Grist, who claimed his first podium of the 2015 regular season.
Grist’s teammate Will Owen took fourth, while reigning USF2000 champion Florian Latorre passed Dalton Kellett to claim fifth.
Patricio O’Ward finished seventh ahead of Buret, Kyle Connery and Daniel Burkett.
Race results
Pos. Driver Team Time/Gap 1 Neil Alberico Cape Motorsports w/WTR 17 laps in 30:22.174 2 Santiago Urrutia Team Pelfrey 1.913 3 Garett Grist Juncos Racing 2.397 4 Will Owen Juncos Racing 2.881 5 Florian Latorre Cape Motorsports w/WTR 3.594 6 Dalton Kellett Andretti Autosport 3.889 7 Pato O’Ward Team Pelfrey 4.791 8 Timothe Buret Juncos Racing 5.999 9 Kyle Connery JDC MotorSports 6.500 10 Daniel Burkett Cape Motorsports w/WTR 6.867 11 Alessandro Latif World Speed Motorsports 7.514 12 Parker Nicklin JDC MotorSports 7.989 13 Weiron Tan Andretti Autosport 8.336 14 Bobby Eberle World Speed Motorsports 8.979 15 Raoul Owens JDC MotorSports +1 lap 16 Jose Gutierrez Juncos Racing +4 laps 17 Jay Horak M1 Racing +11 lapsWith great conscience - I concur regarding David Wilcock’s dream interpretations & assessment of these current times, as well as acknowledge-
ment of some of what Preston James & Gordon Duff are saying. It is with great personal experience & insight into the ‘inner workings’ of the global financial ‘world’, and very recent meetings I’ve had on the Andromeda Council primary biosphere, I can tell you that change is happening, more changes are coming… and benevolent ET assistance, on the part of many people who hold a variety of roles including within the security & defense structure of the Andromeda Council... continues to happen.
Ridding the Earth of some really bad human ‘lieutenants’ at the top of the power structure [of a Reptilian ruled & operated “Cabal”] is a top priority. It is also part of the higher frequency decision making & evolvement of Earth’s people. For why this information is all relevant, please see the web link - “ The Hard Reality & A Difficult Truth ”… especially the part of this white paper titled – “ The complete infiltration, infestation, corruption & control of our global society ” - to learn about the global Reptilian infestation, manipulation, power control and abuse of the people of this planet.
Because of my own professional work in the 2000’s, I learned first hand about the kind of gross misconduct, lies, fraud, deceit, outright manipulation & theft of clients money by top global banking institutions [where Reptilian dominance of money, power & greed has had what is likely the worst effect among all top global industries] that has existed at the top levels of the global banking industry for years. You’ve likely read about this kind of malevolent behavior verified over the past couple of years, including very recently, on the part of the top global banks with them incurring hundreds of millions & billions of dollars in fines due to their extensive, pervasive, corrupt business practices… practices that are mostly hidden in multiple layers of bureaucracy, foolhardy massive leveraging, highly complex trading algorithms, programs & schemes, “dark pools”, toxic securities… and the list goes on. And, because of my personal career exposure to this corrupt mess, and my own ‘high level’ contacts… I have some considerable amount of insight into what is happening right now.
With the coordinated efforts of some aligned, very smart people in developing countries… people who want to help their own people & change the way things are done around the planet… people who are in positions of power around the globe who also recognize the need for change at the top of the power structure of the financial world; because of these people & their commitment - these changes are happening at a incredible pace… faster than can be imagined in the past… as evidenced by the recent founding of the BRICS Development Bank, now formally named the: “ New Development Bank ”. This new bank is an alternative to the World Bank / IMF / BIS ‘system’ whose obstructionist policies & protocols have dominated interna-tional banking for years… giving the U.S dollar a preeminent role, a hegemony, in monopolizing global money supply, oil & natural gas transactions… creating interest [profit] for & lining the pockets of people at the very top of the global power structure… when money could have & should have been used to help people in developing countries where money is so desperately needed for infrastructure development [ie. new electric/power sources & grids, clean alternative fuels, clean water, sanitation, roads, housing, schools, etc.]
It is believed that the organization of this alternative development bank is in fact a step forward in creating far greater balance in global finance… in saying ‘no more’ to the corrupt ‘powers that be/were’… who have so dominated global banking for years… where they actually restricted & retarded the growth of the very people they are supposed to serve. The creation of this development bank is just one more step marking the decline of the power of… the Cabal… who was not able to stop the establishment of this new bank… an alternative to the corrupt World Bank / IMF / BIS system.
As David Wilcock said, “ …I do believe some form of divine intervention is required to actually clean up this mess due to how entrenched the power structure truly is. …The Cabal banked for a long time (literally and figuratively) on the idea that ETs will only watch what happens but are forbidden to intervene. That may have been true in the past, but the rules changed as of late 2011 when the ETs started portaling out a total of 28 underground facilities that we know of."
David also said, “…So according to [Preston] James and [Gordon] Duffs’ [of Veteran’s Today] sources, the ETs have given the Cabal a final ultimatum. On the physical level I believe the creation of the BRICS bank not only creates an alternative infrastructure if the Cabal tries to torch the financial system — it also creates consent, on a spiritual level, for the ETs to intervene much more.”
“ The ETs need our free-will permission to act. Until we were brave enough as a planet to step up and fight, and do something as tangible as to create this alternative financial infrastructure, the ETs couldn’t intervene as strongly as they can now that we’ve done the work. …It may still be some time before we understand the degree to which our extended family has assisted us through this whole process.”
Based on my own prior, very detailed reports beginning in the late summer of 2011 –
I first reported the destruction of a lattice networked underground base in the greater Washington D.C area [recorded as an earthquake on August 23, 2011] where the people of the Procyon star system, a senior member of the Andromeda Council, used pinpointed, highly focused, low frequency, sonic compression wave technology to collapse and destroy this underground base lattice networked facility.
Further, I also reported in great detail direct efforts by the people of the Andromeda Council [each time, days ahead of when each action took place] to clear out, shutter, seal &/or destroy, at minimum fifteen (15) major facilities, large scale, Draco & Hydra Reptilian undersea bases. There were other minor ones included in these 15 that were shut down as well. As a result – specifically with the last base that was destroyed, tens of thousands of Draco soldiers, and over 2,000 high ranking military officers & officials were captured & sent off planet to face an intergalactic Criminal Tribunal on the primary Andromeda Council biosphere for crimes against humanity of Earth… crimes for which they were found guilty, and punished.
So has there already been on-going benevolent ET ‘intervention’ -
directly addressing the problem at the very top of the “ Cabal ” hierarchy. But those actions were specifically directed at the Reptilian's communications, operations & infrastructure… undersea bases with a military hierarchy & high level officials,
Not human, Reptilian. And the good news is - it had the net effect of ‘cutting off of the head of the snake’… which created a
power vacuum, loss of leadership and extensive in-fighting. This was the beginning of the Cabal’s collapse.
These actions on the part of the people of the Andromeda Council were allowable because it was a direct effort to remove an alien species [Reptilian] – its intrusion, interference, manipulation, control & abuse of the human race on planet Earth… which is a clear violation of all universal spiritual laws. The Reptilian actions are especially heinous because they have repeatedly, going back 1,000s of years, interfered with the natural evolution of humanity on this planet.
The remaining problem now is with certain ‘lieutenants ’ for the Reptilians – Humans, and/or human/reptilian hybrids who for all purposes look human, who have globally held positions of great power in all major sectors of our society, especially in finance, government & media… for years… likely hundreds &/or thousands of years.
However, now in 2014, things are changing. Finally. Brave humans, employing their own free will, have decided that the long standing corruption of the Cabal run global banking system & the infrastructure that has supported it, needs change, an alternative, as evidenced by the establishment of this new development bank.
Yes, David Wilcock is correct in his assessment & dream interpretations. And, it is likely we will need continued help [intervention] from a benevolent, higher, "divine power"... to rid ourselves, to clean our global society, from years of an entrenched, malevolent power structure.
Even so, much is still yet to be accomplished. We as a society must continue to push forward. We must do more. We must take added responsibility, initiative & actions to reclaim our freedom, our lives & our planet... for our people, our children & our future. We must do these things if we are to evolve in a healthy balanced manner in all areas of our lives. And we must do these things... so that we may from a perspective of maturity & responsibly... be able to join a greater, intergalactic community of brothers & sisters across the cosmos. Ultimately, it is up to us. It is our choice, each & every one of us. What will you do?
So, for now, please pay close attention to many other aspects of our global society... as major changes continue to happen across our world, our home planet. Earth.
--
TolecWhile malware on Android isn’t exactly unheard of, it looks like there’s more than meets the eye. A Microsoft researcher recently came across some interesting spam emails that were delivered via Yahoo! Mail servers. In addition to being sent from their servers, he noticed that the emails also originated from Android devices. With this info, he came to the conclusion that a spammer has control of a botnet that lives on Android devices.
For those of you who don’t know what a Botnet is, it is a collection of compromised computers connected to the internet. In this case – the infected Android devices are the computers. The controller of these computers (bots) can use them to do his bidding i.e. send out spam email or launch denial-of-service attacks.
While the researcher doesn’t mention what apps are causing these Android devices to be compromised, he assumes that they’re probably cracked or hacked versions of legitimate apps that users have resorted to installing to avoid paying premium for a proper version of the app on the Google Play Store. So for those of you who refuse to pay for legitimate apps, be careful of what you install on your Android device in the future (while the Play Store isn’t 100% free of malware, the chances of picking one up are lower if you get your apps there as opposed to some warez site).
Filed in. Read more about Android, Apps and Malware.Eating in a meat-free restaurant the other day made me realise why I hate vegetarians. The food, unlike the tasteless, bland rubbish often served up in such places, was delicious. Unusually for meatless cuisine, it had flavour and texture, and had even been seasoned. What was unpalatable were the customers and waiting staff, all of whom seemed to believe that what they were eating made them superior. They all looked smug and self-satisfied. It brought it home to me that most vegetarians - and I am largely excluding those who eschew meat for religious and cultural reasons - give themselves a bad name. They are better than you, don’t you know? The atmosphere in the restaurant was one of pompous aloofness. I left with indigestion.
People often assume I don’t eat meat, because I am a feminist and vaguely of the left. I have turned up at dinner parties to find the host has assumed that at least one guest would be vegetarian, and served undercooked baked potatoes. What an atrocity! Why can they not put a chicken in the oven at the same time? Or is the sight of meat so offensive to veggies that they would pass out at the table?
Recent converts can be the worst. I have lost friends to the cult who, once they get fed the mantra from the militants, become something akin to ex-smokers. I am tired of feeling self-conscious in restaurants when ordering meat in front of them. No one should deny that factory-farmed animals are kept in the most appalling conditions, and that eating too much meat is bad for you. But look at their claims. Crusaders promote vegetarianism not only as healthy but as a solution to world hunger and a safeguard of the planet.
Do not assume living without animal products is always a positive, healthy choice. A vegan couple in American have recently been charged with child abuse for malnourishing their three small children. They had been brought up on a vegan diet from birth. There have been similar cases where children, who cannot choose what they eat, have had their health severely damaged because of their parents’ principles. They are putting the welfare of animals before that of their children. Giving up meat and dairy has been linked to anorexia and other eating disorders in teenage girls. Lack of vitamin B12, found mainly in meats, eggs, dairy and fish, can cause brain damage. Most vegans, and some non-meat-eaters, have to supplement their diet with pills. In the developed world, vegetarianism is a privileged choice. How many working-class vegetarians do you know? It is not an option for most poor people in this country.
A veggie colleague once said of a woman with her three young children in a supermarket, “Have you seen those cheap beefburgers and pies she’s feeding them? Why does she not go to the market, buy some fresh vegetables and make them all some nice, healthy soup?” Again that assumption that vegetarian and vegan foods are cheaper, which they are not, and that the mother had all the time in the world to prepare food from scratch.
Let’s get our priorities right. People who put foxes and lambs before people do not have my vote. Animal liberationists blowing up scientists for conducting experiments that might lead to a cure for cancer are odious. There are more refuge spaces for cats than there are for women and their children fleeing domestic violence. While rape crisis centres are closing due to lack of funds, animal charities are raking it in.
Although vegetarianism is often seen as a “women’s issue”, there is a nasty, misogynistic wing that relies on sexist images and messages to convince people that meat is murder. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) are the worst offenders. One of their early adverts features a woman dragging a fur coat behind her. She is captioned as a “dumb animal”. Another has a woman having her fur coat ripped off in the street and clubbed to death by a man, to make the point that it is not nice to be killed for your coat. The actor who played Lolita in the 1997 remake became “the youngest star to pose naked for Peta’s anti-fur campaign”. The message is: treat women, not animals, like meat.
Those who think we should not eat meat because all life is sacred are naive. Would they be happy allowing mosquitoes to spread malaria, or having rats run loose in their home? Not all creatures are equal. There are natural hierarchies in the food chain.
People should be allowed to make their own choices and not be bullied or frightened into giving up meat. In the US recently, children in a secondary school were taken by their teachers to a slaughterhouse to show them how animals are killed for food. This tactic is a form of mind control, as unethical as discouraging young girls from having sex by making them watch a difficult childbirth.
I may hate vegetarians because they make me feel guilty, or because, meat being so delicious, they must have lots of willpower. But as an animal lover who agrees in principle with most reasons for giving up meat, I would rather not join that band of humourless, judgmental souls. It would seem that you are indeed what you eat.
· Julie Bindel is the founder of Justice for WomenIn this issue:
ATC Corporatization at the ATCA Annual
With corporatization of the air traffic control system still being fiercely debated, I wondered how the subject would be dealt with at the Air Traffic Control Association’s big annual conference, which took place last month at its usual venue, the conference center at the Gaylord hotel in National Harbor, MD, across the river from DC. The subject came up in four sessions, two general and two breakouts.
The first general session featured an address by FAA Administrator Michael Huerta, whose five-year term expires at year-end. He said that the ATC reform conversation is a good thing, and noted that there had been about 40 stop-gap extensions of FAA funding in the past 10 years, “which is not a good way to run any business.” He also noted that fuel taxes are becoming a declining source of revenue over time, affecting all modes of transportation, so we need serious conversations about how to pay for transportation services, including ATC.
The next day’s “fireside chat” by ATCA President Pete Dumont with new Deputy Administrator Dan Elwell was far more explicit. In response to Dumont’s question about the funding challenge for ATC, Elwell cited both the President’s ATC reform principles and the pending House bill as providing the funding solution: the same kind of ICAO-compliant ATC charges used everywhere else in the world. And he explained that a user-based revenue stream would enable the ATC corporation to issue revenue bonds to finance large-scale capital investment in facilities and equipment. Alluding to the stakeholder board, he noted that the corporation would put users in charge of decision-making. In response to an audience question, Elwell said there is no Plan B if corporatization does not pass—the alternative is the status quo. Asked about the length of the transition, he noted the three-year period set forth in the House bill, but also reminded everyone that on Day 1 of the cutover, everyone now working at the Air Traffic Organization would be in place, doing their jobs.
In marked contrast was the first day’s opening panel of aviation stakeholders, innocuously titled “ATC: Be All You Can Be.” With corporatization supporter David Grizzle as moderator, and panelists from stakeholders A4A, AOPA, NBAA, RTCA, and AirMap, I’m sure I was not alone in expecting pro/con ATC corporation fireworks. But the session turned out very bland, with the only substantive discussion of corporatization coming from Klaus-Dieter Scheurle, CEO of Germany’s DFS (corporatized since 1993). I was told by two knowledgeable people why U.S. ATC corporatization was largely absent from this panel: a condition for NBAA to participate was that the panel not be a debate over this subject. The only consolation for audience members expecting this topic to be discussed came from DFS’s Scheurle, who matter-of-factly pointed out that at DFS, all investment decisions are made by them, not by politicians; that they have successful commercial operations in consulting, software, and contract operation of other ANSPs’ control towers; and that their first remote tower project will be under way next year. These points highlighted differences from the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization. Scheurle also noted that in the near future, the company will likely charge ATC fees to operators of commercial drones.
The most substantive panel on corporatization at ATCA Annual was a breakout session on transition issues (see story below).
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Would Corporatization Trigger a Budget Sequester?
You’ve got to hand it to Rep. Peter DeFazio (D, OR), Ranking Democrat on the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, who keeps trying to erect roadblocks to ATC corporatization. First it was that corporatization would be unconstitutional, based on a tortured reading of a Congressional Research Service report he’d requested (and which concluded there is no real problem). Then it was that corporatization would increase the federal budget deficit by some $98 billion over a 10-year period, based on a ridiculous budget “score” by the Congressional Budget Office. His latest claim is that this alleged budget deficit would trigger an automatic budget sequester, based on a carefully hedged memo he requested from CRS.
This latest claim—amplified by DeFazio to say that it would “cause billions of dollars of cuts to Medicare over the next decade”—rests entirely on the previously debunked CBO budget score. If (and only if) that $98.5 billion deficit increase were real, then it’s true that under current PAYGO budget rules, this would trigger offsetting cuts in portions of the federal budget that Congress has not exempted (exemptions include Social Security and Medicaid but not Medicare).
The best assessment of the fallacy in DeFazio’s argument comes from long-time transportation budget expert Jeff Davis, editor of Eno Transportation Weekly, in the October 30th issue. (https://www.enotrans.org/article/house-democrats-claim-sequestration-woes-shuster-faa-bill)
Davis reminds readers that thanks to a 1986 Supreme Court ruling, it is the Office of Management & Budget, not CBO, that has the last word on budget scoring. And OMB has already assessed the AIRR Act’s corporatization provisions and concluded—contrary to CBO—that neither the costs nor the revenues of the ATC corporation should be considered part of the federal budget (as CBO blithely assumed), which undercuts CBO’s overall case.
However, Davis acknowledges that this does not totally solve the problem, due to the inability (within budget scoring rules) of being able to offset changes in discretionary spending against changes in mandatory spending (don’t ask!). But all is not lost. Davis goes on to explain that situations like this come up from time to time in legislation, and what Congress does then is adds to the legislation this simple wording:
“The budgetary effects of this Act shall not be entered on either PAYGO scorecard maintained pursuant to section 4(d) of the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010.”
And to drive home the point, Davis notes that the last time this language was used in a transportation bill was in section 32401 of the FAST Act of 2015, the major bill that reauthorized the Highway Trust Fund and the Federal Highway Administration.
So—once again, no big deal. But I expect opponents of ATC reform will continue making this false assertion that ATC corporatization threatens Medicare, as long as the debate continues. They are that desperate.
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A Serious Look at the ATC Transition Process
The most substantive discussion of ATC corporatization at the ATCA Annual took place at a breakout session titled “How Will We Transition with New Reform?” It was chaired by economist Dorothy Robyn, who worked on ATC reform at the White House National Economic Council during the Clinton Administration’s second term.
Panel member Steve Welman, an economist at MITRE Corporation and co-author of a 2014 MITRE report for FAA on corporatization in six developed countries, was sidelined by a traffic accident and could not appear, so Robyn summarized that important report. Six lessons based on these other countries’ experience in separating their ATC provider from the transport ministry’s safety regulator were as follows:
Allow enough time for the transition, and carefully plan for arm’s-length safety regulation. Establish reliable funding for the safety regulator (in our case, the remaining FAA); MITRE found that governments in most of the cases studied implemented user-tax funding for the safety regulator, rather than general tax funding. Focus on streamlining safety regulation. Address a likely wage gap between civil-service regulators and market-based ATC corporation employees. Ensure a healthy relationship between the safety regulator and the aviation industry. Avoid political interference with the regulator.
Panelist Bill Miracky, an economist with Deloitte Consulting, stressed that a spin-off of the ATO from FAA is the type of thing that goes on all the time in the private sector, and many of these transactions are far larger (in dollars and staff) than the FAA/ATO transition. Thus, many lessons can be learned from such transitions. One obvious point is to offer all current FAA employees a position with either the ATC corporation or the remaining FAA. The challenges, he said, were to define the desired future state of both entities and to ensure robust safety regulation and continued progress on Next Gen. His specific recommendations were these:
Define the separation framework, and create a separate office to manage the transition. Begin the process with the end result clearly in mind. Develop and manage specific separation plans. Optimize cost structures of both entities. Execute all required service agreements. Execute Day 1 readiness.
His talk, of course, elaborated on these points, but the overall message was that this kind of transition has numerous precedents that can be drawn upon for guidance.
The third presenter has been there and done that: Sid Koslow, recently retired after a long career as Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Nav Canada (and before that, a number of years at MITRE, so he knows both FAA and the world’s second-largest ANSP). Koslow stressed the need for a strong team to plan and develop the transition, when a provisional board of directors is in place and numerous details must be thought through and planned for, including which people and assets will transfer from the transportation agency to the corporation, and establishing an initial credit line (prior to the user-fee revenue stream existing). He said the initial Nav Canada team had 45 people, including finance and human resources experts.
Among other points Koslow made, based on Nav Canada’s transition:
Make no changes in operations for the first year after cut |
, 10, 9, and 9 in the same review.[231] By December 1998, Electronic Gaming Monthly's reviews were more mixed, with reviewers citing the lack of games for the system as a major issue. According to EGM reviewer Crispin Boyer, "the Saturn is the only system that can thrill me one month and totally disappoint me the next".[232]
Retrospective feedback of the Saturn is mixed, but generally praises its game library.[37][192] According to Greg Sewart of 1UP.com, "the Saturn will go down in history as one of the most troubled, and greatest, systems of all time".[22] In 2009, IGN named the Saturn as the 18th best video game console of all time, praising its unique game library. According to the reviewers, "While the Saturn ended up losing the popularity contest to both Sony and Nintendo... Nights into Dreams, the Virtua Fighter and Panzer Dragoon series are all examples of exclusive titles that made the console a fan favorite".[193] Edge noted "hardened loyalists continue to reminisce about the console that brought forth games like Burning Rangers, Guardian Heroes, Dragon Force and Panzer Dragoon Saga."[233] In 2015, The Guardian's Keith Stuart declared "the Saturn has perhaps the strongest line up of 2D shooters and fighting games in console history".[234]
Retro Gamer's Damien McFerran stated "Even today, despite the widespread availability of sequels and re-releases on other formats, the Sega Saturn is still a worthwhile investment for those who appreciate the unique gameplay styles of the companies that supported it."[14] IGN's Adam Redsell wrote "[Sega's] devil-may-care attitude towards game development in the Saturn and Dreamcast eras is something that we simply do not see outside of the indie scene today."[188] Necrosoft Games director Brandon Sheffield expounded that "The Saturn was a landing point for games that were too 'adult' in content for other systems, as it was the only one that allowed an 18+ rating for content in Japan... some games, like Enemy Zero used it to take body horror to new levels, an important step toward the expansion of games and who they served."[131] Sewart praised the Saturn's first-party games as "Sega's shining moment as a game developer", with Sonic Team demonstrating its creative range and AM2 producing numerous technically impressive arcade ports, but also commented on the many Japan-exclusive Saturn releases, which he connected with a subsequent boom in the game import market.[22] IGN's Travis Fahs was critical of the Saturn library's lack of "fresh ideas" and "precious few high-profile franchises", in contrast to what he described as Sega's more creative Dreamcast output.[133]
Criticism has befallen Sega's management regarding both the creation and handling of the Saturn. McFerran criticizes Sega's management at the time of the Saturn's development, claiming that it had "fallen out of touch with both the demands of the market and the industry".[14] Bernie Stolar has also been criticized for his decision to end support for the Saturn.[22] According to Fahs, "Stolar's decision to abandon the Saturn made him a villain to many Sega fans, but... it was better to regroup than to enter the next fight battered and bruised. Dreamcast would be Stolar's redemption."[37] Stolar has defended his decision, stating, "I felt Saturn was hurting the company more than helping it. That was a battle that we weren't going to win." Sheffield stated that the Saturn's use of quadrilaterals undermined third-party support for the system, but because "nVidia invested in quads" at the same time there is "a remote possibility" they could have "become the standard instead of triangles"—"if somehow, magically, the Saturn were the most popular console of that era."[131] Speaking more positively of the system, former Working Designs president Victor Ireland described the Saturn as "the start of the future of console gaming" because it "got the better developers thinking and designing with parallel-processing architecture in mind for the first time".[22] Writing for GamesRadar, Justin Towell noted that the Saturn's 3D Pad "set the template for every successful controller that followed, with analog shoulder triggers and left thumbstick... I don't see any three-pronged controllers around the office these days."[235]
Douglass C. Perry of Gamasutra notes that, from its surprise launch to its ultimate failure, the Saturn "soured many gamers on Sega products."[236] Sewart and IGN's Levi Buchanan cited the failure of the Saturn as the major reason for Sega's downfall as a hardware manufacturer, but USgamer's Jeremy Parish described the Saturn as "more a symptom... than a cause" of the company's decline, which began with add-ons for the Genesis that fragmented the market and continued with Sega of America's and Sega of Japan's competing designs for the Dreamcast.[22][131][237] Sheffield portrayed Sega's mistakes with the Saturn as emblematic of the broader decline of the Japanese gaming industry: "They thought they were invincible, and that structure and hierarchy were necessary for their survival, but more flexibility, and a greater participation with the West could have saved them."[131] According to Stuart, Sega "didn't see... the roots of a prevailing trend, away from arcade conversions and traditional role-playing adventures and toward a much wider console development community with fresh ideas about gameplay and structure."[238] Pulp365 reviews editor Matt Paprocki concluded "the Saturn is a relic, but an important one, which represents the harshness of progress and what it can leave in its wake".[131]
Notes [ edit ]
^ Japanese: セガサターン, Hepburn: Sega Satān? SegaSaturn), in contrast to the two word spelling used in the west., In Japan, the name is commonly romanized as one word (), in contrast to the two word spelling used in the west.
References [ edit ]Five for Friday, written by a variety of MoMA staff members, is our attempt to spotlight some of the compelling, charming, and downright curious works in the Museum’s rich collection.
To call David Bowie an art enthusiast would be something of an understatement; at times it seemed that his very existence was an art project. His chameleonic public persona was deeply inspired by dance and performance art (and his subsequent influence on those areas has been equally profound); he was an avowed lover of German Expressionist painting and film, and was a painter himself throughout his life; one of his best songs is called “Andy Warhol“; he had quite the art collection himself. And, I’m happy to say, he could occasionally be spotted among his fellow New Yorkers in the galleries at MoMA.
Unsurprisingly, Bowie also sought out the brightest talents in design and photography to help create his album covers and keep the David Bowie publicity machine chugging along, and we are proud to have several examples in the MoMA design collection. (If you can make it to the Museum, two of the works below are currently on view in the exhibition Making Music Modern: Design for Ear and Eye, which closes on Monday, January 18.)
<a class="noborder" href="http://www.moma.org/collection/works/189050"> </a>
1. Brian Duffy. Album cover for David Bowie, Aladdin Sane. 1973
You’ll be seeing that lightning bolt quite a bit for the next few months. Brian Duffy worked with Bowie on some of his most iconic photo shoots, and on this one they captured what may be the quintessential image of the musician’s career. French make-up artist Pierre La Roche was responsible for the lightning bolt seen ’round the world.
<a class="noborder" href="http://www.moma.org/collection/works/156050"> </a>
2. Unknown designer. Promotional poster for David Bowie, Heroes. 1977
Masayoshi Sukita took the cover photo for Bowie’s “Heroes” album, the musical pinnacle of his “Berlin period.” Bowie’s pose is an homage to the 1917 Erich Heckel painting Roquairol. (Iggy Pop also throws a Roquairol pose on the cover of his 1977 album The Idiot, on which Bowie served as producer, cowriter, keyboardist, and frequent backup vocalist.)
<a class="noborder" href="https://moma.org/wp/inside_out/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Bowie-posters.jpg"> </a>
3. 1972 Ziggy Stardust promotions. From left: Randy Tuten. David Bowie & the Spiders from Mars, Winterland Concert. 1972; Unknown designer. David Bowie, Ziggy Stardust. 1972
Having taken England by storm, Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders from Mars set their sights on the U.S. Randy Tuten, who designed the Winterland Ballroom concert poster, was one of the most prolific poster artists of the psychedelic era, and served as the first in-house designer for the legendary promoter Bill Graham.
<a class="noborder" href="http://www.moma.org/collection/works/156049"> </a>
4. Guy Peellaert. Promotional poster for David Bowie, Diamond Dogs. 1974
Belgian artist Guy Peellaert designed a number of well-known album covers and movie posters, many (including this one) featuring his own paintings. In addition to this promotional item, Peellaert painted the Diamond Dogs album cover.
<a class="noborder" href="http://www.moma.org/collection/works/156051"> </a>
5. Mick Haggerty. Promotional poster for David Bowie, “Let’s Dance” single. 1983
Mick Haggarty used a silhouetted version of his cover for Bowie’s 1983 Let’s Dance album to promote the title-track single. Haggarty would continue to work with Bowie throughout the 1980s, designing the covers for Tonight (1984) and Never Let Me Down (1987).About
WHAT IS THIS ALL ABOUT?
Strike Team: Tactics is a turn-based Squad Tactical game inspired by fantastic games such as Fallout (1,2, and Tactics), X-Com, Jagged Alliance, and Final Fantasy Tactics!
Strike Team: Tactics is specially designed for iPhone, iPod Touches, iPad, and the Mac AppStore. Strike Team: Tactics will allow players to complete a single player campaign but a special focus will also be placed on fun turned based Multiplayer. A variety of single player missions and multiple styles of multiplayer (Hotseat, Pass N Play, Online) should provide a lot of replay value, but we can always do more.
WHAT WE HAVE NOW
Strike Team: Tactics is about 70% complete with a launch aimed in May! We just need a little extra help for the final push! Single player and online multiplayer are perfectly functioning and the game can be played on Mac through Mac App Store or by any iOS device as the game will be universal.
WHAT WE WANT TO ADD
We'd also like to provide a large variety of soldier classes and weapons to customize the playing experience for each player. Right now, we have 2 player multiplayer deathmatch but would love to expand to additional players, game modes, maps, and more. If we can greatly exceed our expectations, we want to bring Strike Team: Tactics to many platforms, such as Steam, Android devices, and more!
Please feel free to provide your ideas in the comments section so you can help us make this a great turn-based strategy game!There are two David Suzukis.
Most of us know one of the Suzukis. Let’s call him Saint Suzuki. That’s the Suzuki whose TV show on the CBC constantly lectures us about our lifestyle. He says we need to consume less, buy less and use less fossil fuels.
But then there’s another Suzuki. Let’s call him Secret Suzuki, because he’s far less well-known.
Secret Suzuki is the one who lives on Vancouver’s elite Point Grey Road, on a double lot, overlooking English Bay, right above the exclusive Kitsilano Yacht Club. The City of Vancouver assesses the land value alone at over $8 million. And that’s just one of Secret Suzuki’s properties.
He has another million-dollar home in Vancouver. And then there’s another home on Quadra Island. That’s three homes right there, if you count the double lot on Point Grey Road as just one property.
But then there’s his large property holdings on Nelson Island. What’s so fascinating about that one is that he co-owns the property with an oil company, Kootenay Oil Distributors Ltd. They don’t plan to drill for oil together. It’s a beautiful tourist spot — maybe perfect for a nice big condo development.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with co-owning any property along with an oil company. But isn’t Saint Suzuki against fossil fuel companies — especially oil companies?
Saint Suzuki tells us that the world is desperately overcrowded, that we’re overpopulated, and that we’re going to run out of things.
But in his own life, Secret Suzuki has five children.
There’s nothing wrong with having five children. It’s a blessing. But then why does he think other people should have fewer kids?
Saint Suzuki rails against corporations and profits. He even gave a well-received anti-capitalist speech at the Occupy Vancouver protest.
But Secret Suzuki himself has several corporations. One of them, the David Suzuki Foundation, took in a whopping $9 million last year and has $12 million in assets. More than 10 million of that is invested in stocks and bonds.
Saint Suzuki despises lobbyists, and says they have a disproportionate control of political power in Ottawa. But Secret Suzuki himself has nine paid lobbyists registered in Ottawa’s lobbyist registry. Not one. Nine.
Saint Suzuki despises politicians, and says they can’t be trusted. Secret Suzuki starred in a Liberal party TV ad along with former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty.
Saint Suzuki says corporations have to be less obsessed by profits, and do more for the public good. They need to especially think of the interests of the next generation, our children.
But Secret Suzuki has made a tidy profit off young people. His standard speaking fee at universities in Canada is $30,000 plus expenses. He billed Quebec’s John Abbott College a cool $41,000 to visit them.
Saint Suzuki speaks in the language of tolerance and equality and liberalism — utterly politically correct.
But Secret Suzuki engages in conduct that should cause feminists to raise an eyebrow. When he visited John Abbott College, his assistant called with special requests to go along with his speaking fee. Here is an internal e-mail from the college’s Mary Milburn: “We have learned, via Dr. Suzuki’s assistant, that although the Dr. does not like to have bodyguards per se, he does not mind having a couple of ladies (females) that would act as body guards.” The college’s Jim Anderson got involved in selecting the coeds, too: “Please be certain that the women are nicely dressed, we don’t want them in evening gowns, but definitely NOT Police Tech uniforms.” All of this bizarre selection of girls, dressed just so, was the result of Secret Suzuki’s special request. If he were a conservative, he’d be called a dirty old man. But he’s a saint. So the college went along with it.
David Suzuki is not a criminal. But he is not a saint. He’s a real man — a capitalist millionaire, a politician, a man with a staff of lobbyists, a prolific father, a wealthy landlord. If only he’d stop scolding the rest of us for aspiring to do the same.by marathemara
I like big books and I cannot lie. You other readers can’t deny that when the post-Scratch version of Rose Lalonde uses her Seer of Light powers to predict everything that will happen in the Alpha Earth session, and then turns that knowledge into a bestselling series of high fantasy doorstoppers as a subtle critique of Betty Crocker’s corporate imperialism…
Okay, enough dropping of beats. But Complacency of the Learned (hereafter abbreviated CotL) is brilliant. It’s Rose’s writing journal all grown up, expanded and adapted into an extended allegory of Lord English’s rise to power.
The most important part of CotL for Homestuck readers so far is that the main villain, Calmasis, is a transparent expy of Caliborn. On the cover of one book, s/he is drawn in Caliborn/Calliope’s green suit and bow tie, and the white wig from Calliope’s trollsona. S/he even shares their naming convention, eight letters beginning with CAL.
In the cover image, Calmasis directs giant red and green chess pieces (similar to the cherubs’ chess set) with Calliope’s wand/pistol. The chess game depicted is the climax of the series, in which Calmasis defeats Zazzerpan, the last member of the Complacency, in chess despite being checkmated him/herself. This is a reflection of Caliborn and Calliope’s last chess game, which Caliborn wins by tricking Calliope into thinking she’s checkmated him.
CotL is also fun, especially in the design of its wizard characters. The emphasis they place on the beard-stroking trappings of wizardry, and the obsession some of them have with high-calorie foods, remind me of the wizards in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. It’s hard to go wrong with Discworld wizards, unless of course there’s someone evil out there who actually cares about doing magic. And Calmasis reminds me in this way of Coin from Sourcery. Both are products of a strict system of magical education, and both rebel against that system, killing anyone who gets in their way to avenge some injustice done either to them or to a mentor. They’re not identical, though: while Calmasis seems to act on his own, Coin is ultimately controlled by his father’s staff and therefore has a shot at redemption (by breaking the staff and disobeying his father) which Calmasis is never going to get, and which Caliborn, by choosing what Aranea Serket calls “the path of the conqueror,” has already turned down.
The one thing that bothers me about CotL is that Calmasis gets top billing. It’s like having a Harry Potter book with Voldemort front and center of the cover art. But I’m sure that on Alpha Earth, this was seen as a bold and innovative move that helped Rose make the ridiculous amount of money in sales that made even the Condesce sit up and pay attention.The founder and chairman of Egyptian telecom giant Orascom resigned on Sunday after the company's massive investment in North Korea went belly-up.
Naguib Sawiris resigned a day after Orascom decided to shut down a branch of its affiliate bank Orabank in Pyongyang under sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council and the U.S. Treasury Department.
"Sawiris has done brisk business in the U.S. and Europe and has much of his assets in the West," a source said. "So he has no choice but to look for an exit in the face of the sanctions."
Sawiris has a U.S. passport and is therefore directly affected by sanctions that penalize U.S. citizens from doing business with the North, according to investigative website Finance Uncovered.
Orabank in Pyongyang is linked to Foreign Trade Bank of North Korea, which has been blacklisted by the U.S. for serving as a funnel for the regime's nuclear weapons development.
Born to a family of Coptic Christians in Egypt, Sawiris spearheaded the telecom markets in Pakistan and Lebanon to become the richest man in the Middle East and North Africa. But even before the sanctions North Korea proved a mire for his company, as the regime first wooed him and then tried to stop it from repatriating its profits.
Another casualty has been Yang Bin, the one-time chairman of China's Ouya Group, who was appointed to run a special economic zone in Sinuiju in the North in 2002.
Shortly afterwards he was arrested by Chinese authorities on charges of tax evasion and fraud and sentenced to 18 years in prison when they discovered that the North was building a casino there. His mistake was to trust the North while disregarding warnings from Chinese authorities.
Or take Xiyang Group, one of China's top 500 businesses, which spent 240 million yuan setting up an iron ore separation plant at a mine in Ongjin in North Korea. In 2012 the North simply threw the company out without giving it a chance to retrieve its investment.
And Ma Xiaohong, the chairman of Hongxiang Group in the Chinese border city of Dandong, made a fortune from business with the North. But in October he was arrested for his involvement in illegal financial transactions with the North.
A diplomatic source said Sawiris was once famous for his "Midas touch," but it seems not even he could break the curse of investing in one of the world's most isolated and capricious countries.The Religious Right likes to say that LGBT people are now granted "special rights," but they're actually the ones getting exceptional treatment by the government.
Recently, a friend of mine in Ohio who has a transgender child was sent an angry, anonymous letter gloating about Trump’s victory, and the fact that, “There won’t be no more special rights for you people.” The missive was full of grammatical errors, misspellings, and used capital letters to emphasize how much she really hates the notion of being legally prevented from discriminating against transgender people.
This random screed would have been comical, except for the fact that Housing and Urban Development Secretary and former presidential candidate Ben Carson said almost the same thing during his congressional hearings when asked about protections for LGBT people: “I have mentioned in the past that no one gets extra rights. Extra rights means you get to redefine everything for everybody else.”
Carson said this without a trace of irony. His definition of “special rights” is basically legal protection from discrimination. This is funny, because he’s enjoyed more legal and employment protection than anyone I know. He’s protected by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as a black person and as a man. He’s constitutionally protected at the highest legal level of scrutiny from discrimination on the basis of race or religion. At John’s Hopkins University, he was protected by “academic freedom,” meaning he couldn’t be fired for anything he said or did as long as it wasn’t blatantly criminal. He took full advantage of this while there under an administration with a long history of tolerance for bigotry and discrimination.
Nearly universally, the people decrying “special rights” for “those people” (whoever they may be) come from the Christian Right. The irony is the people decrying “special rights” have more special rights than anyone else in our society. These individuals want the freedom to discriminate against LGBT people based on their religion, but they would fight tooth and nail against LGBT people (or anyone else) being legally allowed to discriminate against them for being Christian in the first place. They seem unaware of the hypocrisy and privilege of this, We should have the right to discriminate against them but it is unconstitutional for them to discriminate against us attitude.
As it stands, at a federal level LGBT people have almost zero specifically enumerated legal protections, and religious people have the strongest possible ones under U.S. law. Even if LGBT people had explicit legal protections, they would be substantially weaker than those enjoyed by Christians (strict scrutiny vs. intermediate scrutiny).
They want the Trump administration and Congress to strike down the Johnson Amendment, which allows the IRS to strip tax exempt status from churches if they endorse candidates or give them money. This would effectively allow churches to become Super-Super PACs, able to collect and distribute unlimited amounts of dark money to candidates and parties without being subject to campaign finance law of any sort. Given the evidence of foreign interference in the 2016 election, it is not hard to imagine wealthy foreign powers exploiting this for political gain, and further eroding our democracy in the process.
Then there’s the “special rights” that they seem to think LGBT people have. The “special right” to marry who you love? The “special right” to use a bathroom consistent with your gender identity? The “special right” not to be refused service or fired arbitrarily or maliciously? The right to an education? These are already rights that Christians in the U.S. already have. However, these become “special rights” when LGBT gain even a legally pale version of the legal guarantees already enjoyed by the religious right.
Yet somehow the people who want a special right to discriminate become the victims in their own minds. Why? Because they’re expected to serve LGBT people the way they do everyone else. Or they might suffer the indignity of knowingly or unknowingly sharing a bathroom with a transgender person. Or maybe their employer is requiring them to use a transgender person’s legal name.
Oh, the horror. The indignity of it all! This is just like Nazi Germany, they exclaim.
Realistically, getting paid to bake a cake for a gay person is pretty far down the list of crimes against humanity. In truth, this is about a feeling that they have lost their privileged status, and anger because the government might not let them kick the dog anymore is just one of the ways they’re expressing this.
They still feel they should enjoy a privileged status; there’s more of us than there are of them, so let them eat cake. They feel unrepresented and put upon, despite comprising more than 80 percent of the U.S. population, controlling legislatures and governor’s offices in 2/3 of the states, and the legislative and executive branches of the federal government. They’re beginning to feel this governmental control grants them the right to do anything. The Southern Poverty Law Center found that there has been an upsurge in hate crimes since the election, and 20 percent of the perpetrators claimed a right to do it based on the election results.
The question I would ask of these Christians, is if LGBT people are getting so many special rights, would you like to switch places with them? Your gay boss could fire you for mentioning you go to church. Transgender people could insist that they don’t feel comfortable around Christians, and they should be required to use the bathroom at the gas station across the street. Restaurants can legally kick you out for showing up with your family. Switching religions would be a legal basis for getting fired.
I can definitively state LGBT people, on the other hand, would be more than happy to switch places with the people sending nasty letters. We’d get full control of most of the government, constitutionally enshrined protections, strict scrutiny, the Civil Rights Act, our own Sexual Freedom Restoration Act to replace the Religious Freedom Restoration Act?
In the end, people complaining that LGBT people have special rights are their own privileged brands of special snowflakes. They have more, and better “special rights” than any other class of people, and they’re about to get more via legislation and the courts.
Their position is intellectually untenable, however. You can’t claim that someone else is far better off than you, and also be unwilling to trade places. What they are really saying is LGBT people don’t deserve the same fundamental rights as them, because conservative Christianity has a special place in American history and culture.
How special.Sections of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard and Point Reyes-Petaluma Road are lined up to be resurfaced and receive other safety upgrades now that a contract has been authorized between the Marin County Department of Public Works and a North Bay construction firm.
Ghilotti Construction Co. of Santa Rosa will receive $2,049,895.50 from the County's Road and Bridge Rehabilitation Fund to improve 3.74 lane miles (both directions) of Drake Boulevard through the San Geronimo Valley and 1.38 lane miles of Point Reyes-Petaluma Road near Nicasio Reservoir. Awarding of the contract was authorized on July 28, and the money will not affect the County's General Fund. Engineers supervising the project expect work to start in mid-August and be completed by late November.
As part of the County's annual road rehabilitation program, those stretches of pavement will be have base failures repaired, drainage improved, retaining walls installed, fresh striping painted and other pavement markings added. In addition, the Point Reyes-Petaluma Road project includes shoulder widening for bicyclists.
The Drake Boulevard upgrades will take place on a flat stretch between San Geronimo Valley Drive and Nicasio Valley Road near the San Geronimo Golf Course. The Point Reyes-Petaluma Road upgrades will take place on a hilly stretch just northwest of Nicasio Reservoir toward Hicks Valley in an area known as Rocky Hill.
The western region roads project is the fourth and final major project of the calendar year, following previous upgrades approved in the southern, central and northern regions of the county. The projects demonstrate the County government's ongoing commitment to providing safe transportation routes to its residents. The Marin County Board of Supervisors repeatedly has pointed to paving projects and other infrastructure improvements has a high public service priority for the County government.
Since 2006, DPW has resurfaced about 50 percent of its roads – 423 lane miles out of 845 lane miles in the maintained network. In that same timeframe, the County's Pavement Condition Index, a rating that denotes the quality of roads, increased from 50 to 60, bringing it out of the "at-risk" category. To advance toward an overall "good" road condition score of 70, DPW proposes to resurface another 31 percent of its most-used roads (261 lane miles) before 2020.
Construction on Drake Boulevard and Point Reyes-Petaluma Road will take place during daylight hours with traffic control measures in place. During construction, crews ask that drivers, cyclists and pedestrians slow down in the area and adhere to detours or pauses in traffic flow.
--News release from Marin County. A before photo of a stretch of Point Reyes-Petaluma near Nicasio Reservoir.PORTLAND, Ore. — Carmelo Anthony was back in New York on Thursday, confronting a long needle and a cranky knee that has undermined a once-glorious Knicks season.
Anthony had fluid drained from the back of his right knee Thursday afternoon, after spending more than three weeks fighting stiffness and soreness while his game deteriorated. He is expected to rejoin the slumping Knicks on Friday in Los Angeles and is listed as questionable for Sunday’s game against the Clippers.
The Knicks played the Portland Trail Blazers on Thursday night without their three top stars, all because of knee injuries. Amar’e Stoudemire has been lost for six weeks after having surgery. Tyson Chandler sat out after bruising his left knee Wednesday. He is day to day.
There was some good news out of New York, however.
Doctors found no structural damage to Anthony’s knee. Nor was the fluid buildup caused by an arthritic condition. The team described the problem as simply a “soft-tissue fluid collection” in the back of the knee.Warning: This story contains major spoilers from Wednesday’s episode of Arrow. Read at your own risk!
Oliver’s true nature came out during Wednesday’s episode of Arrow.
Tortured by Chase (Josh Segarra), Oliver (Stephen Amell) was forced to finally admit a deep truth, both to himself and to the audience: He doesn’t suit up to reconcile the darkest parts of himself; he does so because he truly does enjoy killing.
In flashback, after Oliver brutally murdered Gregor (David Meunier), he is confronted by Anatoly (David Nykl), who worries about Oliver’s troubling violent tendencies. Though Oliver assures Anatoly that he’s controlling his inner monster by channeling those dark urges into the Hood persona, once Oliver aims to kill Kovar (Dolph Lundgren), it’s clear that suiting up is really a way for Oliver to conceal his growing passion for killing. And though Oliver denies this in the past, he is forced to confront the truth in the present by Chase.
“I like examining this stuff because one of the truths that we reveal in season 5 — via our flashbacks and in present day — is there was an element of Oliver that we met in season 1 that took a little bit of pleasure in snapping somebody’s neck,” Amell tells EW. “I don’t think that negates the transformation that he’s made, but it happened and we have to examine it and Oliver has to deal with the ramifications of that realization.”
Though Oliver is not necessarily killing baddies left and right these days, this truth will certainly haunt him as season 5 charges toward the ultimate confrontation between Oliver and Chase. “He’s become a much more three-dimensional person in so far as, ‘Look, if you bring lethal force against me, I will bring lethal force against you,'” Amell says. “But he’s also not out on a killing spree, right? So how does Oliver deal with that realization? is a huge, huge question that we try to resolve through the latter part of season 5, because ultimately — if thematically we’re dealing with legacy — he has to recognize everything that he’s been party to since coming back to Star City at the start of our series.”
While Oliver seems to indicate he’s done being a vigilante by episode’s end, he’s still determined to take Chase down. “He has to die,” Amell says. “Killing Chase becomes the only thing that matters to him. We really see his world fall apart.”
Suffice it to say, not everyone on Team Arrow will be happy with Oliver’s plans for this season’s big bad, despite all the pain Chase has caused. “Everyone’s conflicted,” Amell says. “One of the things that we’re doing, which I think we tend to do a relatively decent job of, is we are laying some elements in place in how crazy his decisions are that really could lay the basis for a huge source of conflict next year. But yeah, [Oliver’s] going off the deep end a little bit, which is the hallmark of a good villain.”
Even so, Amell believes Oliver can come back from this darkness. “I actually do think so,” the actor says. “I think that ultimately, if Oliver comes out on the winning side this year, he will have gone through some very important realizations that hopefully will help him grow as a person, as a friend, as a leader, as a teammate, as a hero, and as the mayor. I do think it’s important that there is a sense of victory and accomplishment because otherwise, we’re just destroying the city every year.”
Arrow airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.So, I have these four mods I made in my game and I thought I’d share them with you all. They are for the March 26th patch and the Get to Work EP.
No More Autonomous Drinks
Download Here: Mega
Gain Work/School Performance Faster
Download Here: Mega
No More Alien Babies If Abducted!
Download Here: Mega
Multiple Babies!!!!
Download Here: Mega
More info and installation instructions under read more/keep reading:
No More Autonomous Drinks
Tired of your Sims going to the fridge to get a drink? Download this mod and your Sims will no longer do this! You can still tell them to go get a drink, but they will no longer do it on their own. Mod originally by onigirichan93 at MTS, updated for the March 26th patch and Get to Work EP.
Gain Work/School Performance Faster
This:
Eventually will lead to:
So with the March 26th patch, people have been having trouble getting their Sims to be “promoted” to the next level, whether it be with work or school. I made this mod in order to help fix that problem. Sims will now properly gain positive performance (provided they don’t do something stupid and mess up) when they are on the Normal “tone”. What this means, is when you select Normal for them when they are at work or school, they will gain performance at 1.5x the regular speed. Not too much of a boost, but still a enough to help them get to the next level in their career/at school.
No More Alien Babies If Abducted!
If you’re like me, your game is letting your Sims get abducted quite often resulting in A LOT of alien babies/children. This gets annoying after, oh A LOT….this mod makes it so your Sims can get abducted still, but without the annoying offspring it brings. Yay! Note: You can still make aliens in CAS and they can have babies by trying for baby. Note: You need to be patched to the March 26th patch and have the Get to Work EP.
Multiple Babies!!!!
Ever wanted your Sims to have 4, 5 or 6 babies at a time? Or at the very least increase their odds of having twins and triplets? Well then this mod is for you! This allows Sims to have up to 6 babies during birth at a time. Six! That’s quite a bit. Mod originally by pekesims at MTS, I have updated the mod for the March 26th patch and the Get to Work EP. The odds will be: 25% chance of 1 baby, 21% chance oftwins, 18% chance of triplets, 16% chance of quadruplets, 12% chance of quintuplets and 8% chance of sextuplets.
Installation Instructions:
All you have to do to install these packages is unzip the files and place the.package in your Mods folder. Then enjoy!Nothing is more rewarding to a driver than the sweet sound of that perfectly timed blip of the gas pedal, effortlessly matching the revs to the wheel speed, and downshifting crisply into the preceding gear. It's the sound of a true professional.
Here's how to do it right.
For most amateurs shifting marks the moment when their right hand is searching franticly for a gear, their feet are totally confused by the tasks being asked of them, and the gearbox sounds like it will blow up like a caravan on Top Gear.
We've all cocked up gearshifts and it can be the most frustrating thing known to man. In our defense, many cars' throttle and brake pedals are hardly situated in the correct position to allow for seamless heel-and-toe shifting, making our job even harder.
Now would seem a good time to attempt an explanation of the heel-and-toe technique for those unsure. As a disclaimer, it is not easy and it takes practice, but when mastered it is a beautiful thing.
When downshifting in a car using a stick shift, we must first depress the clutch pedal to disengage the gears, move the gearstick into the lower gear, and release the clutch pedal to re-engage the gears. Sounds simple enough, but the issue we have is when pressing the clutch the engine revs drop to idle. When releasing the clutch pedal we need the revs to match our engine speed, which let's say is 4000rpm, for example. So we must manually blip the throttle to 4000rpm just as |
Vanessa Whyte (“Broadchurch”).
In addition to the database, illuminatrix is working towards raising awareness of film’s gender problem by hosting events and workshops, and speaking out on social media platforms.
“Coinciding with the launch of its database, the female collective will curate a day of events on diversity in cooperation with IMAGO, the European Federation of Cinematographers, at the Camerimage International Film Festival of Cinematography in Poland on Nov 18,” Screen International reports.
illuminatrix has received support from the British Society of Cinematographers (BSC), BAFTA, and Women in Film and Television UK.
“Making it as a cinematographer needs skill and daring and tenacity. It should never depend on your gender or race. So I welcome the initiative by the cinematographers of illuminatrix in showcasing some of the best women cinematographers,” said Barry Ackroyd, president of BSC. “This new webpage is proof that the talent is here. Now it’s time to stop talking about equality and time to let it happen. Producers, directors, all film makers, listen up, open your eyes, and play fair.”
Back in May, CINEMATOGRAPHERS XX launched in the U.S. An announcement described how the group will “help the crews behind the camera be more reflective of the stories they create, and provide a resource for producers and directors looking to find qualified cinematographers that identify as women.”
“Women have long been creating beautiful imagery and telling wonderful stories through cinematography, and the conversation about that inequality is finally catching up.” commented Autumn Eakin, founding member of CINEMATOGRAPHERS XX. “I often hear from production companies that they would like to hire more women, they just don’t know where to find them. CINEMATOGRAPHERS XX is a way to to connect productions with qualified, professional cinematographers that identify as female.”
The International Collective of Female Cinematographers (ICFC) also offers an international database of female cinematographers.
So, if a production company wants to hire more women, they now know where to find them: These cinematographers are talented, experienced, and ready to work. Stop making excuses and start effecting change.Share this
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Email You are free to share this article under the Attribution 4.0 International license. University Boston University
It appears inside doomed cells when bidden, like a creature from a horror film: a seven-pronged, wheel-shaped structure that orders its minions to go on a killing spree. They obey, snipping away at critical parts of a cell until it implodes. The command structure is called “the wheel of death,” or the apoptosome.
But the process, called programmed cell death, or apoptosis—from the Greek words for leaves falling from a tree—is a normal part of life. Cells die in an orderly fashion so that during development, we’re not born with webbed hands, for example, and during adulthood we have a protective layer of dead skin cells on top of live ones. Apoptosis is perhaps best known for its role in cancer, either killing cancer cells as they start to proliferate or failing to kill them.
At the center of all this destruction is the apoptosome, the cellular structure that facilitates programmed cell death. Scientists knew it existed decades ago, and over time they have slowly, painstakingly, built models of its structure to better understand its function.
A team led by Christopher Akey, a Boston University School of Medicine professor of physiology and biophysics, has revealed the most detailed three-dimensional model of the apoptosome to date. The model, published in the journal eLife, answers some questions and raises others. Ultimately, a better understanding of how cell death occurs may lead to treatment options that can enhance or suppress the process.
“The apoptosome was discovered more than 20 years ago, but now we have a much better idea of how it works,” says Tat Cheung Cheng, lead author of the eLife paper, a former postdoctoral fellow working with Akey, and now a postdoctoral associate at the Yale School of Medicine. “This lays groundwork for future drug development.”
How apoptosis works
Apoptosis is a complicated yet elegant process. When a wayward cell is marked for death, either by internal or external signals, proteins puncture the mitochondria—those jelly bean–shaped structures that supply cells with fuel—causing a small molecule called cytochrome c to leak out. The liberated cytochrome c, drifting through the cell, connects with another protein, called Apaf-1, causing it to assemble into the wheel-shaped apoptosome.
The central hub of the wheel then docks with a critical protein-cutting enzyme called procaspase-9, which, once activated, triggers other proteins to dismantle the cell.
“The proteins that become activated then go throughout the cell—not indiscriminately at all, they have a few hundred targets—they cleave these things, and it leads to cell destruction,” says Akey, corresponding author of the eLife paper. “The cell starts to collapse from the inside out.”
Akey has been studying the structure of the apoptosome for 18 years, taking photographs at ever finer resolutions and thus answering ever more detailed questions about apoptosis. The particular question he sought to answer this time: how is procaspase-9 activated? “That is the crux of the matter,” says Cheng. “We know that the apoptosome exists, but we just don’t know how the apoptosome can induce the activation of this enzyme.”
Frozen fast
To find out, the team used a technique called cryo-electron microscopy, in which biological samples are cooled rapidly, before the water molecules within them can form damaging ice crystals. “The cooling rate is so high that the water molecules just stop moving. They don’t have time to crystallize,” says Akey. “You freeze-frame it, literally.”
This technique, along with better stabilizers, detectors, and computing power, has allowed Akey and his team to capture increasingly detailed photographs of the apoptosome. “Our first structure, which was published in 2002, was at about 25-angstrom resolution,” says Akey. An angstrom is a unit of length equal to one ten-billionth of a meter; a hydrogen atom measures about half an angstrom across. “We could see the wheel, we could see some details. But now we’re at 4-angstrom resolution. So that’s a huge difference.”
The new pictures allowed the team to solve—or at least partly solve—the procaspase-9 mystery. It appears that a disk on the central hub of the wheel of death—not the whole superstructure—is the key. Shaped like a spiral, the disk can dock three to four procaspase-9 enzymes, and each pair of enzymes can then activate itself. “It’s weird,” says Cheng. “It means the whole platform underneath is kind of not really necessary. It seems to be just to help form the disk, and that’s it.”
Ultimately, even higher resolution photos may give scientists ever more definitive answers. “If you get really high resolution, you can see the actual atoms. That requires something like two‑angstrom resolution,” says Akey. “We’re not at that stage yet, but eventually we might get there.”
“But the work is already telling us a lot about the basic biology,” he adds. “You have to first understand the fundamentals, and then after you have that, then you can start to understand disease.”
The National Institutes of Health supports Akey’s work.
Source: Boston UniversityThere are (soon probably “were”) a few very interesting Q&A threads on Stack Overflow in the “Hidden Secrets of” series on Delphi related topics.
I sort of can get (but don’t agree: there is a very good voting system to de-emphasize material that is not useful, but who am I to argue with the minority of “the world is black and white, we just follow the rules” diamondss) that these get closed, but cannot get that very useful material gets deleted for anyone with less than 10-thousand reputation.
–jeroen
@Jeroen & David, I’ve deleted my off-topic comments from here. Could you do the same, please? I’ve also asked moderators to delete my meta question as it seems the users there are not even humans. Never mind. Stack Overflow is not what it was few years ago as I observe. It’s getting worse. Another piece to this mosaic was running the portuguese version of Stack Overflow ideal for cross posting between the sites.The thing that's weird to me, is that people are taking issue with this sign because it's instilling a "sense of victimhood" in white people, to pull them towards their political ideology.
But the exact same tactic, when employed by BLM is fine. As long as the victim is a black person, and not a white person, it's fine to instill a sense of victimhood for political gain.
(It's sad that I'm going to have to spell this out), I'm not saying that black and white people have had it equally tough in this country, but I also don't give a shit about identity politics. We all live in a first world 21st century country where we all have rights and things are generally better than they've ever been.
White people now can be legally discriminated against because of affirmative action, black people can't. On the flip side, there are generally more white racists than black racists, but I have met black racists who think they're superior to whites because of their race, it happens.
I personally care that there's legal grounds to discriminate against white people, but I know a lot of people would rather have it this way on the chance that some racist white business owner is forced to hire a black employee. I don't think that really happens anymore, at least not in the tech industry, but I'm not in communication with every business owner out there, so whatever.
Please change my view with facts, not attacks on my character. I've done a lot of reading on a lot of different positions, I'm not just a lurking right winger. I'm actually possibly for the dismantling of the government (as I'm libertarian) and possibly the capitalistic system with it, but I'm not entirely convinced. I do feel the need to lay out my personal beliefs here so you guys respect my opinion, because I think you guys don't respect the opinions of anyone who's not left leaning because they're all "fascists" just like all right wingers think of you guys as "commies" looking to reinstantiate the USSR.
I don't sympathize with Hitler. I also don't sympathize with Stalin. They were both totalitarian dictator ass holes.- Advertisement -
The origins of Human Religious Behavior
Throughout the history of psychology, the topic of human religiosity has been referred to as a learned behavior. In other words a person's religion is the final outcome of the person's interaction with his environment. Therefore the assumption is that if you are born in a Christian country, you are going to be a Christian.
Theoretically, since the person has been exposed to his religion from early childhood, it would be quite unlikely that he would choose a different religion or have the desire or the need to practice something else. Although, we do see occasional cases of conversion of single individuals from one religion to another religion, mass conversions are usually rare and mostly are caused by wars and force.
Although, the followers of great religions of the world do not like to admit this historical fact, an honest historian would admit that my ancestors' conversion from Zoroastrianism to Islam was only achieved by sword.
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The same is true for natives of South America becoming Christians. Their faith was sealed by Spaniard swords.
Interestingly, the forceful attempts to make a population atheist have never worked. The most famous historical example of these attempts is Stalin's brutal confrontation of religiosity. Stalin did not look at religion as just "opium of the masses" he looked at it as a menace for the society and considered clergymen as parasites. Stalin's method of dealing with religion was the same method that he used in dealing with anything... elimination. His answer was total elimination of religion. He ordered all mosques, churches and temples to be burned, as well as the killing of all clergy.
It should be noted that upon the collapse of the Soviet Union the first changes included reappearance of mosques, churches, temples and clergymen.
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In other words you can force people to convert to a different religion, but you cannot force them to become an atheist, as if they can not live with out it.
The Case for the Organic Nature of human religiosity.
The idea of hereditary causes of human religiosity was originally introduced by Charles Darwin. This idea is articulated in his autobiography:
This conclusion was strong in my mind about the time, as far as I can remember, when I Wrote the Origin of Species; and it is since that time that it has very gradually with many fluctuations become weaker. But then arises the doubt can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animal,be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions? May not these be the result of the connection between cause and effect, which strikes us as a necessary one, but probably depends merely on inherited experience? Nor must we overlook the probability of the constant inculcation in a belief in God on the minds of children producing so strong and perhaps an inherited effect on their brains not yet fully developed, that it would be as difficult for them to throw off their belief in God, as for a monkey to throw off its instinctive fear and hatred of a snake".
Charles Darwin, Autobiography,1887
It is known that Darwin personally delayed publication of his "Origin of Species " by twenty years. The cause of this delay was not his fear of the response to his introduction of the theory of evolution, rather, he feared the response to his assertions on the organic nature of human religiosity, which was totally unacceptable at that time. It should be noted that 1250 copies of the first edition of "the origin of species" was published in London; all 1250 copies were sold on the first day.
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The evidences for organic nature of human religiosity
There is a general rule in psychology that universal behaviors have organic causes. And consequently their origin could be traced to human brain. For example all human beings manifest sexual behavior as well as aggression. These behaviors are seen universally, in all cultures at all times.
Therefore, if one runs into a person who is totally devoid of sexuality or aggression,.One can assume that the person is suffering from some kind of disease or condition. If one examines the human brain one can easily locate those parts of the brain which are in charge of sexual and aggressive behaviors. At the same time if one cannot locate the original site of a universal behavior it does not mean that the behavior does not have an origin in the human brain. It just means that one does not have the instrumentation or the knowledge to find it.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3I have been spending a lot of time more recently posting reviews of lenses. While that generates a lot of hits, it isn’t as much fun as getting out to new places (or old places) with a camera. A week or two back my train was diverted to King’s Cross Station in the morning due to a problem on the Moorgate line I get to work. The queue for the tube was horrendous, so I decided to spend 10 minutes with my E-M5 rather than attempting to join the crush.
King’s Cross is mid-redevelopment at the minute, but the new roofed area joining the suburban service platforms to the mainline platforms has opened and the old 70’s extension has closed, prior to its demolition and conversion to a public open space (I’m expecting benches, public art and possibly a water feature).
King’s Cross railway station, is a major London railway terminus, opened in 1852. It is on the northern edge of central London, at the junction of Euston Road and York Way, in the London Borough of Camden on the boundary with the London Borough of Islington.
King’s Cross was built as the London hub of the Great Northern Railway and terminus of the East Coast main line. It took its name from the King’s Cross area of London, named after a monument to King George IV that was demolished in 1845.
In 2005, a £500 million restoration plan was announced by Network Rail. The plan includes a thorough restoration and reglazing of the arched roof of the original station and the removal of the cramped and congested 1972 extension, to be replaced by an open-air plaza, scheduled for completion in 2013.
A new semi-circular departures concourse, opened to the public on 19 March 2012, has been built in the space directly to the west of the station behind the Great Northern Hotel, some outbuildings of which have been demolished. It is intended to cater for much-increased passenger flows and provide greater integration between the intercity, suburban and underground sections of the station, facilitating interchange between King’s Cross and St Pancras. The architect claims that the roof is the longest single-span station structure in Europe. The semi-circular building has a radius of 54 metres and over 2000 triangular roof panels, half of which are glass.
Of course, while I was there I couldn’t avoid St Pancras, one of the most beautiful buildings in London with one of my favourite art works (the Meeting Place).
There is also a nice bronze of Sir John Betjeman (the poet who campaigned to prevent St Pancras’ demolition) there.
E-M5, Olympus 9-18mm, 15mm Body Cap and 75mmAn Inspector General report that contends former school Chancellor Kaya Henderson gave improper favoritism to a handful of city officials in 2015. News4's Tom Sherwood reports that a D.C. Councilmember now wants to review all four years of the lottery.
A D.C. Councilmember is calling for a review of all four years that D.C. has used a lottery system to assign students to schools outside their neighborhoods -- including some of the District's most sought-after and selective institutions.
Councilmember David Grosso, who chairs Council's education committee, called for the review following an Inspector General report that contends former school Chancellor Kaya Henderson gave improper favoritism to a handful of city officials in 2015.
That favoritism isn't illegal. But it does shake families' confidence in the fairness of the school lottery, which many try to use to get into better schools outside their neighborhood boundaries.
"We've had 2014 and 2016 school years that have also been perhaps implicated here," said Grosso, who also voted on his committee's version of the 2018 school budget Thursday. "So we're going to take a look at it. We'll look at it on the committee on education. We'll see then if we need to refer it then to the IG to look deeper, and we'll go from there."
Mayor Muriel Bowser said she's willing to "work with the council" on a review. She's also called for the current schools chancellor, Antwan Wilson, to halt any future student referrals outside of the lottery until new ethics guidelines are in place.
"From our point of view, moving forward is what's important. I want the public to have full confidence in our system," Bowser said.
She said she understands the concerns of public school parents.
"I hear their frustration, and I want them to know that we are putting a system in place moving forward where there will be no question."
Officials at the Office of the Inspector General have told the News4 I-Team their investigation found seven instances in which Henderson "improperly used her discretion" as schools chancellor. Henderson announced her resignation in June 2016.
Henderson issued a statement on the controversy in April. "As the IG report notes, in my capacity as Chancellor, I made a very limited number of discretionary placements for students when extraordinary circumstances applied. I stand by those actions. The IG does not provide evidence that placements were made improperly, only that they were discretionary," Henderson's statement reads.
It continues, "I am deeply disappointed by these continual attacks on my integrity in an attempt to besmirch my personal and professional reputation."Could Drones Help Save People In Cardiac Arrest?
Enlarge this image toggle caption Andreas Claesson/Courtesy of FlyPulse Andreas Claesson/Courtesy of FlyPulse
Drones could soon be dropping off packages at customers' doors. But researchers in Sweden have drones in mind for a different, potentially lifesaving delivery: automated external defibrillators.
Using drones to carry AEDs to people who are in cardiac arrest could reduce the time between when patients go into cardiac arrest and when they receive the first shock from an AED, the researchers say.
The more time a person spends in cardiac arrest before being shocked with an AED, the lower the chance of survival. Shocking someone within three minutes gives them the best shot.
More than 350,000 cardiac arrests happen across the U.S. in places other than hospitals each year, according to the American Heart Association — and a person's chance of surviving is about 1 in 10. Drone-delivered AEDs beat ambulance trip times to the scenes of cardiac arrests, the researchers say in a letter published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Dr. Michael Kurz, an associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Alabama-Birmingham and an American Heart Association volunteer, sees the potential for AED-carrying drones to help save lives. He says this is the first time he has seen published data on the use of drones to deliver AEDs.
"This is a really neat, innovative method to combat a problem that we have been struggling with for decades," says Kurz. "It's the same reason we have public access to defibrillation. Airports, casinos, large public venues have AEDs on the wall because presumably, it would take a while for EMS to get there. This is, like, public-access defibrillation on steroids, where we just bring the defibrillator to you."
The researchers used drones to deliver AEDs to places in a rural area of Sweden where people had gone into cardiac arrest between 2006 and 2014, says Stockholm-based Andreas Claesson, the letter's lead author as well as a paramedic and registered nurse.
In each of the 18 flights that the drones made, they beat the ambulance time. The median reduction in response time was about 16 1/2 minutes. And the median time from dispatch to drone launch was three seconds, while it took emergency medical services a median time of three minutes to hit the road.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Andreas Claesson/Courtesy of FlyPulse Andreas Claesson/Courtesy of FlyPulse
Claesson says the idea to use drones to drop off AEDs came from an analysis that showed some people in rural Sweden had to wait about half an hour for EMS to arrive on the scene of an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest situation, leading to a survival rate was 0 percent, which he calls "catastrophic."
The team used geographic information system mapping to pinpoint locations that would be most effective for the test flights, Claesson says, and drafted predefined flight corridors that avoided flying over residents' homes until the drones were about to land in yards.
But more research needs to be done before we start seeing AED-laden drones touching down at cardiac arrest scenes. "We know nothing about bystander interaction," says Claesson.
One of his concerns: Sending an AED via drone means that there won't necessarily be a medical professional on-site.
The typical cardiac arrest patient is a 70-year-old man, he says, which means spouses — who may not be trained how to use an AED — would most likely be the ones using it in an emergency situation. But dispatchers could help coach people through the process of using an AED, Claesson says.
"We know that health care professional CPR is better than layman [CPR]. But we still believe that if we can deliver a defibrillator within five minutes, the proportion of people with shockable rhythms could be pretty high," Claesson says.
AEDs have simple enough instructions that allow just about anyone to figure out how to use them effectively, says Kurz, whose daughter has a congenital heart disease and is in fourth grade.
He taught 400 of her classmates how to do CPR and use AEDs this year.
"They're fourth-graders, so there's a certain amount of corralling that has to occur, but yeah, they do great," Kurz says.
Are you as AED-capable as a fourth-grader? The Red Cross has a step-by-step guide to using an AED.
Claesson is planning a follow-up drone trial in Sweden next summer, when the local emergency medical services receive the most calls.
Kurz says future studies should go beyond analyzing response times and also examine patient survival rates.
"Now the idea of doing this in real life with real patients, when minutes matter, can be demonstrated."The View from the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car, Chapter 4
Chris Urmson Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jan 12, 2016
Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 and Chapter 3
Deadly car crashes surged in the first half of 2015 — by 14% nationwide and 20% in California — with experts projecting that deaths may have topped 40,000 for the year. It’s the equivalent of a 737 full of passengers falling out of the sky five days a week, all year long, yet we seem to accept this as the price of our mobility.
Self-driving cars have the potential to reduce those numbers, because they eliminate the driver inattention and error that leads to thousands of collisions, injuries, and deaths — in fact, 94% of crashes are caused by human error. This is why many people are excited about autonomous vehicles: the question my team and I get asked the most these days is, “When will they be ready?” But before that, there’s an important question we have to answer together as a society: “How safe do they have to be before we decide they’re ready?”
The obvious comparison is with human drivers, but that’s easier said than proved. It’s really difficult to make meaningful comparisons between the performance of autonomous vehicles and human drivers’ performance. The performance of self-driving cars is highly measurable, while there isn’t robust data about how safe (or not) human drivers are.
The challenge of measuring humans’ (un)safety
Human drivers are frequently unsafe in ways that are really difficult to measure. Although there are good statistics on the roles that driver distraction, alcohol impairment, and speeding play in actual collisions, it’s hard to measure the general stress and worry that this behavior causes for drivers nearby. Even an experienced and safety-conscious driver can vary in their state of alertness, affected by a tough day at work or kids in the backseat. This is why car insurance companies are experimenting with devices or apps that show how often a driver speeds or how hard he or she tends to brake, so they can get a better understanding of their safety-related habits.
Crash rates, which society generally looks to as an indication of driver safety, aren’t as reliable a measuring stick as they might seem at first glance. The problem is that most crashes aren’t ever reported to police or to insurance companies. This is especially true of the most common types of collisions: the minor fender benders that happen all the time on city streets. And each state has different thresholds for determining when an accident is serious enough to count as a crash in their local statistics. Yet according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) data, unreported incidents account for 55% of all crashes. That’s why we commissioned research from the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute to establish a methodology that can be used to better compare crash rates of self-driving cars and human-driven cars.
Measuring the performance of our self-driving cars
As we develop our self-driving car, we’re constantly testing, analyzing and evaluating how our software performs in multiple ways. We do this on our test track, in the real world (more than 1.3 million miles to date), and in our simulator (more than 3 million miles a day). Ultimately, a self-driving car’s readiness for the public can’t be boiled down to a single number, but we can accumulate a portfolio of metrics for our system that are useful to watch over time. Let’s take a look at some examples from a report we recently submitted to the California DMV. (Full report here.)
One metric we’re watching closely as an important indicator of our progress is the rate of what we call “simulated contacts.” These are situations in which, when we replayed a real-world situation in our simulator, we determined that our vehicle would likely have made contact with another object if our test driver hadn’t taken over driving. There were 13 of these incidents in the DMV reporting period (though 2 involved traffic cones and 3 were caused by another driver’s reckless behavior). What we find encouraging is that 8 of these incidents took place in ~53,000 miles in ~3 months of 2014, but only 5 of them took place in ~370,000 miles in 11 months of 2015. This trend looks good, and we expect the rate of these incidents to keep declining. (That said, the number of incidents like this won’t fall constantly; we may see it increase as we introduce the car to environments with greater complexity caused by factors like time of day, density of road environment, or weather.)
The report also includes a metric that’s a proxy for the overall stability of the autonomous driving system. (While we’re still adding new capabilities to the software, this isn’t one of our top priority metrics, but it’ll be important once we want to “finalize” versions of our software and load it into vehicles that the public could ride in.) There were 272 instances in which the software detected an anomaly somewhere in the system that could have had possible safety implications; in these cases it immediately handed control of the vehicle to our test driver. We’ve recently been driving ~5300 autonomous miles between these events, which is a nearly 7-fold improvement since the start of the reporting period, when we logged only ~785 autonomous miles between them. We’re pleased with this direction and we’ll focus more on this in the future.
We have many other metrics and methodologies that will be useful for establishing our safety record over time. On our test track, we run tests that are designed to give us extra practice with rare or wacky situations. And our powerful simulator generates thousands of virtual testing scenarios for us; it executes dozens of variations on situations we’ve encountered in the real world by adjusting parameters such as the position and speed of our vehicle and of other road users around us. This helps us test how our car would have performed under slightly different circumstances — valuable preparation for a public road environment in which fractions of seconds can be of critical importance.
Thanks to all this testing, we can develop measurable confidence in our abilities in various environments. This stands in contrast to the hazy variability we accept in experienced human drivers — never mind the 16-year-olds we send onto the streets to learn amidst the rest of us. Although we’re not quite ready to declare that we’re safer than average human drivers on public roads, we’re happy to be making steady progress toward the day we can start inviting members of the public to use our cars.The AFL's score review system again came under heavy fire on Saturday night when a goal was overturned, possibly costing Adelaide a place in the finals series.
Players from both sides thought it was a goal, Richmond coach Damien Hardwick thought it was a goal, and the umpires thought the same when the ball was returned for a centre bounce after Adelaide's Rory Sloane appeared to sneak the ball through at the 29-minute mark of the third term.
Dustin Martin of the Tigers wins the ball in front of Luke Brown of the Crows. Credit:Getty Images
However, the goal was reviewed and it was deemed the ball had touched the post.
The key factor that has again brought the system under question was the fact the same camera set-up was not in place as at other grounds in Melbourne, and many believed because the decision was inconclusive it should have stayed as a goal as determined by the goal umpire.A recent survey by the Pew Research Center has determined that Blacks and Whites hold dramatically different views of race and inequality in America. Polling thousands of U.S. adults of Black and White ethnicity, Pew's researchers were surprised to find that the two groups were worlds apart on issues pertaining to race. This test aims to guess your ethnicity by asking you many of the same questions that Pew used in their research and squaring your answers with Pew's research findings.
All questions pertain to the USA. 'Blacks' denotes African-Americans. 'Whites' denotes non-Hispanic whites.
For each of the following items, indicate your level of agreement.
The CT-BWT7© is the property of IDR Labs International. The "On Views of Race and Inequality, Blacks and Whites Are Worlds Apart" dataset is the property of the Pew Research Center.
The CT-BWT7© is not endorsed by the Pew Research Center. The information and results provided here are for educational purposes only.
The CT-BWT7© is a relevant and modern index and instrument for measuring perceptions of inequality and race relations in America. Impartial reviewers have generally assessed the quality of the Pew Research Center's polling to be very high. The original dataset was published by Pew in 2016 under the heading "On Views of Race and Inequality, Blacks and Whites Are Worlds Apart." It is available on their webpage. In crafting this dataset, Pew polled more than 3000 U.S. adults, adhering to best practice standards at every step along the way. Basing our test on Pew's findings is thus assumed to yield high degrees of validity in pegging the respondent's answers to the stated opinions of the study's dataset. As the title indicates, contemporary research on views of race relations in America among Blacks and Whites indicate that the two ethnic groups are very far from each other in their perceptions of these issues.
The CT-BWT7© should not be construed as associated with, or endorsed by, the Pew Research Center. The "On Views of Race and Inequality, Blacks and Whites Are Worlds Apart" dataset is the property of the Pew Research Center. The CT-BWT7© is the property of IDR Labs International. The authors of this online Black/White personality test are certified in the use of multiple personality tests and have worked professionally with politics, polling, and personality testing. The results of our online Black/White test are provided "as-is", and should not be construed as providing professional or certified advice of any kind. For more on our online personality test, please consult our Terms of Service.Grimstad, Norway’s Nøgne Ø is Norway’s golden child in their growing craft brewery scene. Luckily Albertan’s have been privy to many imported bottles of Nøgne Ø beers over the last year. In May of this year I made an adventuresome trip to Scandinavia to climb mountains and see the fjords. Starting in the beautiful harbour city of Bergen I found myself to arrive on May 17th or Norwegian Constitution Day. Little did I know at the time that this would be the most eyeopening and interesting day of my entire European vacation. After watching the parade along Bryggen the strip of old Hanseatic buildings along the harbourfront I made my way to Hakon’s Hall and Rosenkrantz tower atop a hill overlooking the entire harbourfront. From there I could see the true amount of Norwegians who were out to party the town in traditional dress. I made my way up towards the hills and mountains surrounding Bergen to take the Mt. Fløyen funicular up to see the best view of the city. Due to an overflow of locals trying to take the funicular I thought maybe I would go back later close to sunset. So I made my way back to my hotel to meet my hiking group for the next week and passed by a bar called the Garage a block from my hotel. I noticed the Garage had a few signs up for Nøgne Ø and Haandbryggeriet so I thould I should probably take a look.
Before I continue I should note that Norway is the most expensive country on earth where a Big Mac costs 95 NOK or $19 CAD. Walking up to the bar a very friendly bartender asked me where I was from and why I was in Bergen. I told him I was going hiking on the fjords and glaciers for 10 days and this was the starting place and that I was from Calgary, Alberta. He asked me if Calgary was like Stavanger in Norway which are both oil cities. After questioning him about the Norwegian craft beers he had he offered me a pint of Nøgne Ø Imperial Stout on cask for 110 NOK ($22 CAD) which was truly delicious despite its price tag (but a pint of crappy lager was around 80 NOK). I sat down in the corner and used the wifi to check some news back home until a young Norwegian guy named Jos approached me and asked why I was in the corner and not celebrating with the rest of the locals. Jos was in Bergen to celebrate with his friends who were late to the party after travelling all the way from somewhere near Trondheim. The next few hours were an interesting insight into Norwegian solcialist life and the high cost of living. Jos was a factory working who welding compression parts for off shore oil rigs. After several more expensive beers Jos and I were discussing the differences between Norwegian and Canadian life. We finally talked about the etreme right wing people in Norway like Varg Vikernes and Anders Behring Breivik discussing the church burnings and murders in Bergen in the 1990’s. Later that night after thinking of all we had talked about I could not of asked for a more interesting experience than meeting Jos in Bergen and seeing Constitution Day celebrations. But now maybe I should talk about the beer…
Nøgne Ø Imperial Stout aged in cognac barrels is a 9% ABV beer laid down in previously used cognac barrels for an entire year. Pouring out of the 8oz bottle a gloopy viscous entirely opaque black with a thin light tan head. The glass has a few noted alcohol leggings with sizable lacing splotches. The appearance is definately that of an aged Imperial Stout. The aroma is outrageous with huge roasted and slightly smoky malts leading to earthen barrel notes and vanilla bean shavings. After a few more whiffs of the aroma an overall sublime aroma of vanilla and woody booze is left. Sweet, syrupy mid palate with vanilla nuances and a light cocoa dusting are well combined. Sweet finish with roasted robustness and a rather mild bitterness caps off the aged flavour. Earthy and woody barrel flavours persist into the finish with a noted barrel emphasis throughout. This beer is incredibly complex and well rounded for a barrel aged Imperial Stout. Although I am a bit biased because Imperial Stout and in particular barrel aged Imperial Stout are my favorite, this |
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After the war, Jim finished his degree at Wayne State University, then earned his master’s and dental degrees from the University of Detroit. He finally became a dentist. He was a tough but fair professor at the University of Detroit and did pro bono work on the weekends. Every year, he gave his students a “surprise” quiz on Dec. 7. Although he had a sense of humor about it, he did not talk about the war or what he’d done.
On the way to the ski resort, Jim’s young daughter, Anne, sat behind him. He insisted that his children and wife wear seat belts, even though it would be another year before they were required. Just south of Flint, his car hit a patch of ice and slammed into a stalled car on the side of the highway.
The impact killed him. He was 46.
2000
DAYS BEFORE THE White House ceremony, Sen. Akaka needed a political miracle. He’d learned of Jim Okubo at the last minute, leaving just a matter of days to introduce legislation and have Congress and the president sign it. Otherwise, Jim would be excluded again.
In 2000, President Bill Clinton awarded 22 Medals of Honor on the South Lawn of the White House. Each recipient was introduced by name, his citation read aloud. Jim’s widow and children were there, seated among the crowd, learning the full extent of their father’s service. Finally, President Clinton declared, “It is long past time to break the silence about their courage, to put faces and names with the courage, and to honor it by name.”This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: John Perkins joins us now in our firehouse studio. Welcome to Democracy Now!
JOHN PERKINS: Thank you, Amy. It’s great to be here.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. Okay, explain this term, “economic hit man,” e.h.m., as you call it.
JOHN PERKINS: Basically what we were trained to do and what our job is to do is to build up the American empire. To bring — to create situations where as many resources as possible flow into this country, to our corporations, and our government, and in fact we’ve been very successful. We’ve built the largest empire in the history of the world. It’s been done over the last 50 years since World War II with very little military might, actually. It’s only in rare instances like Iraq where the military comes in as a last resort. This empire, unlike any other in the history of the world, has been built primarily through economic manipulation, through cheating, through fraud, through seducing people into our way of life, through the economic hit men. I was very much a part of that.
AMY GOODMAN: How did you become one? Who did you work for?
JOHN PERKINS: Well, I was initially recruited while I was in business school back in the late sixties by the National Security Agency, the nation’s largest and least understood spy organization; but ultimately I worked for private corporations. The first real economic hit man was back in the early 1950’s, Kermit Roosevelt, the grandson of Teddy, who overthrew of government of Iran, a democratically elected government, Mossadegh’s government who was _Time_’s magazine person of the year; and he was so successful at doing this without any bloodshed — well, there was a little bloodshed, but no military intervention, just spending millions of dollars and replaced Mossadegh with the Shah of Iran. At that point, we understood that this idea of economic hit man was an extremely good one. We didn’t have to worry about the threat of war with Russia when we did it this way. The problem with that was that Roosevelt was a C.I.A. agent. He was a government employee. Had he been caught, we would have been in a lot of trouble. It would have been very embarrassing. So, at that point, the decision was made to use organizations like the C.I.A. and the N.S.A. to recruit potential economic hit men like me and then send us to work for private consulting companies, engineering firms, construction companies, so that if we were caught, there would be no connection with the government.
AMY GOODMAN: Okay. Explain the company you worked for.
JOHN PERKINS: Well, the company I worked for was a company named Chas. T. Main in Boston, Massachusetts. We were about 2,000 employees, and I became its chief economist. I ended up having fifty people working for me. But my real job was deal-making. It was giving loans to other countries, huge loans, much bigger than they could possibly repay. One of the conditions of the loan — let’s say a $1 billion to a country like Indonesia or Ecuador — and this country would then have to give ninety percent of that loan back to a U.S. company, or U.S. companies, to build the infrastructure — a Halliburton or a Bechtel. These were big ones. Those companies would then go in and build an electrical system or ports or highways, and these would basically serve just a few of the very wealthiest families in those countries. The poor people in those countries would be stuck ultimately with this amazing debt that they couldn’t possibly repay. A country today like Ecuador owes over fifty percent of its national budget just to pay down its debt. And it really can’t do it. So, we literally have them over a barrel. So, when we want more oil, we go to Ecuador and say, “Look, you’re not able to repay your debts, therefore give our oil companies your Amazon rain forest, which are filled with oil.” And today we’re going in and destroying Amazonian rain forests, forcing Ecuador to give them to us because they’ve accumulated all this debt. So we make this big loan, most of it comes back to the United States, the country is left with the debt plus lots of interest, and they basically become our servants, our slaves. It’s an empire. There’s no two ways about it. It’s a huge empire. It’s been extremely successful.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. You say because of bribes and other reason you didn’t write this book for a long time. What do you mean? Who tried to bribe you, or who — what are the bribes you accepted?
JOHN PERKINS: Well, I accepted a half a million dollar bribe in the nineties not to write the book.
AMY GOODMAN: From?
JOHN PERKINS: From a major construction engineering company.
AMY GOODMAN: Which one?
JOHN PERKINS: Legally speaking, it wasn’t — Stoner-Webster. Legally speaking it wasn’t a bribe, it was — I was being paid as a consultant. This is all very legal. But I essentially did nothing. It was a very understood, as I explained in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, that it was — I was — it was understood when I accepted this money as a consultant to them I wouldn’t have to do much work, but I mustn’t write any books about the subject, which they were aware that I was in the process of writing this book, which at the time I called “Conscience of an Economic Hit Man.” And I have to tell you, Amy, that, you know, it’s an extraordinary story from the standpoint of —- It’s almost James Bondish, truly, and I mean—-
AMY GOODMAN: Well that’s certainly how the book reads.
JOHN PERKINS: Yeah, and it was, you know? And when the National Security Agency recruited me, they put me through a day of lie detector tests. They found out all my weaknesses and immediately seduced me. They used the strongest drugs in our culture, sex, power and money, to win me over. I come from a very old New England family, Calvinist, steeped in amazingly strong moral values. I think I, you know, I’m a good person overall, and I think my story really shows how this system and these powerful drugs of sex, money and power can seduce people, because I certainly was seduced. And if I hadn’t lived this life as an economic hit man, I think I’d have a hard time believing that anybody does these things. And that’s why I wrote the book, because our country really needs to understand, if people in this nation understood what our foreign policy is really about, what foreign aid is about, how our corporations work, where our tax money goes, I know we will demand change.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to John Perkins. In your book, you talk about how you helped to implement a secret scheme that funneled billions of dollars of Saudi Arabian petrol dollars back into the U.S. economy, and that further cemented the intimate relationship between the House of Saud and successive U.S. administrations. Explain.
JOHN PERKINS: Yes, it was a fascinating time. I remember well, you’re probably too young to remember, but I remember well in the early seventies how OPEC exercised this power it had, and cut back on oil supplies. We had cars lined up at gas stations. The country was afraid that it was facing another 1929-type of crash — depression; and this was unacceptable. So, they —- the Treasury Department hired me and a few other economic hit men. We went to Saudi Arabia. We -—
AMY GOODMAN: You’re actually called economic hit men —e.h.m.’s?
JOHN PERKINS: Yeah, it was a tongue-in-cheek term that we called ourselves. Officially, I was a chief economist. We called ourselves e.h.m.'s. It was tongue-in-cheek. It was like, nobody will believe us if we say this, you know? And, so, we went to Saudi Arabia in the early seventies. We knew Saudi Arabia was the key to dropping our dependency, or to controlling the situation. And we worked out this deal whereby the Royal House of Saud agreed to send most of their petro-dollars back to the United States and invest them in U.S. government securities. The Treasury Department would use the interest from these securities to hire U.S. companies to build Saudi Arabia — new cities, new infrastructure — which we've done. And the House of Saud would agree to maintain the price of oil within acceptable limits to us, which they’ve done all of these years, and we would agree to keep the House of Saud in power as long as they did this, which we’ve done, which is one of the reasons we went to war with Iraq in the first place. And in Iraq we tried to implement the same policy that was so successful in Saudi Arabia, but Saddam Hussein didn’t buy. When the economic hit men fail in this scenario, the next step is what we call the jackals. Jackals are C.I.A.-sanctioned people that come in and try to foment a coup or revolution. If that doesn’t work, they perform assassinations. or try to. In the case of Iraq, they weren’t able to get through to Saddam Hussein. He had — His bodyguards were too good. He had doubles. They couldn’t get through to him. So the third line of defense, if the economic hit men and the jackals fail, the next line of defense is our young men and women, who are sent in to die and kill, which is what we’ve obviously done in Iraq.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain how Torrijos died?
JOHN PERKINS: Omar Torrijos, the President of Panama. Omar Torrijos had signed the Canal Treaty with Carter much — and, you know, it passed our congress by only one vote. It was a highly contended issue. And Torrijos then also went ahead and negotiated with the Japanese to build a sea-level canal. The Japanese wanted to finance and construct a sea-level canal in Panama. Torrijos talked to them about this which very much upset Bechtel Corporation, whose president was George Schultz and senior council was Casper Weinberger. When Carter was thrown out (and that’s an interesting story — how that actually happened), when he lost the election, and Reagan came in and Schultz came in as Secretary of State from Bechtel, and Weinberger came from Bechtel to be Secretary of Defense, they were extremely angry at Torrijos — tried to get him to renegotiate the Canal Treaty and not to talk to the Japanese. He adamantly refused. He was a very principled man. He had his problem, but he was a very principled man. He was an amazing man, Torrijos. And so, he died in a fiery airplane crash, which was connected to a tape recorder with explosives in it, which — I was there. I had been working with him. I knew that we economic hit men had failed. I knew the jackals were closing in on him, and the next thing, his plane exploded with a tape recorder with a bomb in it. There’s no question in my mind that it was C.I.A. sanctioned, and most — many Latin American investigators have come to the same conclusion. Of course, we never heard about that in our country.
AMY GOODMAN: So, where — when did your change your heart happen?
JOHN PERKINS: I felt guilty throughout the whole time, but I was seduced. The power of these drugs, sex, power, and money, was extremely strong for me. And, of course, I was doing things I was being patted on the back for. I was chief economist. I was doing things that Robert McNamara liked and so on.
AMY GOODMAN: How closely did you work with the World Bank?
JOHN PERKINS: Very, very closely with the World Bank. The World Bank provides most of the money that’s used by economic hit men, it and the I.M.F. But when 9/11 struck, I had a change of heart. I knew the story had to be told because what happened at 9/11 is a direct result of what the economic hit men are doing. And the only way that we’re going to feel secure in this country again and that we’re going to feel good about ourselves is if we use these systems we’ve put into place to create positive change around the world. I really believe we can do that. I believe the World Bank and other institutions can be turned around and do what they were originally intended to do, which is help reconstruct devastated parts of the world. Help — genuinely help poor people. There are twenty-four thousand people starving to death every day. We can change that.
AMY GOODMAN: John Perkins, I want to thank you very much for being with us. John Perkins’ book is called, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.Some unsettling details have been discovered within the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy for virtual headset the Oculus Rift, including points about questionable data collection and creator copyrights.
The headset in the new wave of virtual reality machines is a spectacle among modern technology. The company’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, however, are not so exciting to consumers. Here are three of the creepiest and most questionable discoveries found within the documents.
1. The Oculus Rift is always on, and it’s watching and collecting your data.
When you install the headset, a program entitled “OVRServer_x64.exe” is implanted with it. The software has full system permissions, never turns off, and frequently sends data back to Facebook, everyone’s favorite authoritarian social network that also happens to own the Oculus Rift. To make matters worse, it also states in the Privacy Policy that any data collected can be stored, shared, and used to market specific things to you by working with their Facebook counterparts. Similar to the Microsoft Kinect, which was always on and could watch and listen to you constantly, we don’t know what sort of data the Rift will be collecting, or when.
2. The Oculus Rift wants to share your data with their Facebook ‘family’.
“We may share information within the family of related companies that are legally part of the same group of companies that Oculus is part of, or that become part of that group, such as Facebook,” states a section within the Oculus Rift Privacy Policy. Doesn’t that sound appealing? Because if there was anything we all wanted more of, it was Facebook harvesting our information. Related companies are not just confined to Facebook, however, and with a list of currently eleven related companies (with the possibility of new ones being added at any time), your information is not just to be shared with Facebook for marketing purposes.
3. The Oculus Rift wants to own your creative content.
Anything creative that’s made with the device automatically belongs to Oculus Rift, or at least partially according to the Terms of Service’s User Content section.
Though the Rift does “not claim any ownership rights in or to your User Content” unless otherwise specified, they do have written rights to be able to “use, copy, display, store, adapt, publicly perform and distribute such User Content in connection with the Services.” By signing the Terms of Service when you use the device, you also grant the company full permission to sublicense this ability to anyone of their choosing.
—-
The Oculus Rift’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy are fairly creepy and ambiguous, despite being in most parts industry standard throughout, and though it’s probably certain that user creations within the device won’t be stolen, used, and auctioned like runaway children at Disney Land, or that the device will watch and monitor you in unthinkable ways, with Facebook’s involvement it should definitely raise a few red flags. To what extent could the company use these permissions that all consumers will undoubtedly flick through and sign off within a couple of seconds of turning the device on? Are we signing our souls to the devil with yet another cold, corporate, and invasive company? We’ll just have to wait and see.
Charlie Nash is a frequent contributor to Breitbart Tech and former editor of the Squid Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington.| By
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Published on The Doomstead Diner on November 16, 2016
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"What do you mean 'neighbor'? Kenny asked suspiciously. The Glock still had the safety off. "The nearest cabin is almost a mile away, and nobody ever seems to be there."
"Yea that one is empty. It's been up for sale for a few years. I live over yonder, about 5 miles upstream.", Karl replied, gesturing his hand towards the west.
Kenny looked the man over, he seemed to be in his 50s and wasn't carrying a weapon, at least not one large enough to see easily. Maybe he had an ankle holster, but that didn't seem too likely either, so he holstered the Glock. He didn't seem threatening, although for an older guy he looked to be in very good shape. 5 miles away though was a pretty long hike so early in the morning, and Kenny didn't hear a 4 wheeler coming on to his property.
"5 miles? You walked all the way over here this morning just to say hi?" Kenny asked incredulously.
"Walk? Hell no I rode over on my scooter." Karl said, gesturing toward his ZEV.
The ZEV got Kenny's prepper antennae up as he looked out at the vehicle from the van.
"Electric?" Kenny inquired, raising an eyebrow.
"Yup. It's the Cat's Pajama's. It's got a range almost 100 miles on a charge and it will do highway speeds, although not on back country like this. I came around via the logging roads and then in on the road you cut in here. Took about 30 minutes because it's a lot longer driving around that way than to come straight over as the crow flies."
Kenny was astounded. Not only did this fellow know where his camp was, he also knew where his road in came from! It was a bit crushing to know he could be so easily located. He was going to have to find out how he was found so easily.
"My name's Karl. What's yours?" Karl asked, even though he already knew Kenny's name from the county records office. It might have made Kenny even more jumpy to feel he had been spied on.
"I'm Kenny. Mind if I come out and have a look at the scooter?"
"Sure. You can take it for a spin too, at least if you know how to ride anyhow. No gearshift, very simple."
Kenny put on his shoes and walked with Karl over to the ZEV. It was camo colored with a very robust looking double frame. No obvious motor that he could see.
"Where's the motor?", Kenny asked.
"Hub motor. The wheel itself is the motor. Very efficient.", Karl replied. "Go on, take it for a ride, just don't turn the throttle too quick, it will jump right out from under you. It has a lot of pick-up."
Kenny climbed on the scooter and flipped up the kickstand. It felt very light, with almost all the weight at the axle height, unlike motorcycles with the engine up above the wheels. Turning the key on the ignition, there was no sound, and no starter button to push either. The only thing that changed was a green diode light came on and the electronic speedometer screen lit up.
Kenny twisted the throttle gingerly, and felt the scooter begin to move. Picking up his feet, he drove it slowly around his van and trailer once, then a second time a bit faster. It made almost no sound at all, just a low hum when under way. When he came to a halt, dead silence again.
"Wow! That is just TOO COOL!" Kenny exclaimed. "I am going to HAVE to get one of these!"
Karl laughed. "Yea, they're a lot of fun. I have a couple of different models, including a trike with a dumping bed on the back for hauling around stuff at my place. I also have an electric Polaris Ranger utility vehicle for bigger loads. I'm not as young as I used to be and hauling back a moose humping all the meat out on my back is not something I am fond of anymore. Makes the joints hurt."
"So, how long have you known I was here?" Kenny asked.
Karl put up his hand with his palm facing outward, the universal sign language to STOP. "Wait. Before we get into that, I've got a present for you."
Karl went around to the back of the ZEV and opened the 6 cubic foot camo colored fiberglass lockbox on the back, withdrawing a reed woven picnic basket. Kenny smiled at the contrast between the two old and new containers.
"Got some fresh eggs from my chickens and some goat cheese from my goats and some Bear Bacon from my freezer for breakfast."
"Wow, that sounds really good! Usually when I come up on the weekends to work on the property I just bring up a Subway Hero and a Take & Bake Pizza and a couple of cans of Chunky Soup. I do have some nice Arabica Coffee Beans from a cottage roaster in Missoula though."
"That sounds GREAT! I hardly ever get good coffee anymore, the closest grocery is 20 miles away and they only carry Maxwell House canned stuff. I don't travel into Missoula too often."
Kenny got his cooking gear out of the trailer, along with a folding table and a couple of folding chairs, a couple of mess kits to cook with and Hobo Knives to use for silverware. Karl fried up the Bear Bacon and then made a big Goat Cheese Omellette with 6 of the freshly laid chicken eggs, while Kenny ground up the coffee beans using a hand grinder. He boiled up some water from the stream in his stainless steel kettle, then letting the coffee and water soak in the French Press for a bit before pouring the steaming hot Java into the stainless steel drinking cups in the mess kits. Breakfast was ready in about 20 minutes, and Kevin & Karl sat down to enjoy the feast.
"So…", Kevin repeated, "how long have you known I was here?"
"Not too long after you first came last summer. I smelled your campfires and then heard it when you started knocking down the trees to make the clearing here and cut the road in. Well, I more felt the trees coming down than heard them, it's the low frequency sounds that travel so far, mostly through the ground. You don't really hear it with your ears, but you do sense it."
"But how did you know where I WAS? 5 miles is a lot of radius, and this is a small campsite."
Karl laughed. "Well, I probably would have found it after a week or two of riding around either on one of the scooters or one of my horses, but I cheated on this and went into the records office in Missoula to look up properties that had been transacted recently. I have a decent amount of real estate around here, so I like to know who my neighbors are."
"CRAP!" Kenny exclaimed. "I never though about that! That sure does make it easy to find anyone, no matter how remote your site is."
"Yup. No real secrecy these days, and no way to stay entirely private either, no matter how far out you go, and this really isn't all that far out either. Besides all the public records of property transactions, there's Google Earth too, and it's also pretty easy to fly drones to look for infrared signatures and really nail down the location of anyone, anywhere on earth. I've been at this game a long time, and once the internet went up I realized that true privacy and true isolation were gone for good. Or at least for so long as the internet is still up and running, anyhow."
Kenny was shocked. This old guy seemed to know as much if not more about prepping and the ever increasing surveillance by the Police State than he did!
"So…how long have you been around here Karl? When did you get started?" Kenny inquired with increasing interest.
"A LOOONNG time ago, Sonny Boy. Before you were even a swimmer in your dad's nuts." Karl said with a big grin. "I moved up here back in the 70s, been here ever since with a few trips away here and there, mostly back in the 90s. Haven't travelled outside the Fascist States of Amerika since 9-11 and the Trade Center went down."
Kenny's ears perked up hearing the term "Fascist States of Amerika". There was only one place he heard that term used regularly. The Doomstead Diner.
"Why do you call this the "Fascist States of Amerika?", Kenny inquired. "Where did you hear that?"
"Oh, I'm still "connected" to the internet. I'm not a primitivist or rewilder by any means, as should be obvious by my electric scooter over there. " Karl responded, thumbing at the ZEV. "I've been reading and watching as the spin down accelerates, and there are a few Bloggers on the net who cover this in detail. I follow a fellow on a Blog called the Doomstead Diner who goes by the handle RE and writes ridiculously long articles about the economics going on here. When I read one of his first articles on the Diner, "Da Fed: Central Banking According to RE", it resonated with me. I've been lurking on the Diner ever since, and he calls it the "FSoA" all the time.
"You're a lurker on the Diner?!?!?", Kenny exclaimed, completely flabberghasted. "I'm a Diner lurker too! I've been reading RE's shit on the Diner since I was in Junior High!"
Karl let out a huge belly laugh. "Well, that does explain a few things then. How come you don't post up there and just lurk?"
"Well, at first I just didn't think I had too much too contribute, I was just in Junior High. The forum there was also kind of nuts, either they were getting into abstract arguments about religion, or they were napalming each other to beat the band. Then once I did learn some stuff and got my own ideas about what was ongoing, I started to get paranoid about anyone knowing about it and tracking my posting on the internet. So I never posted up, but I read the Diner every day, along with quite a few other websites concerned with collapse topics."
"Not that much different from me." Karl mused. "Mostly my paranoia keeps me from posting up, but besides that the regular posters there get too testy for me most of the time. I mostly just read the blog articles and only venture into the Forum occassionally."
"So, where do you think this is going Karl? Seriously. And how SOON? Like RE always says, it's the TIMELINE that's the big question mark, not so much what the end result will be".
"Well, it's obviously going down the toilet, that's for sure. But I am as unsure about the timeline or exactly how far down the ladder we're going to go here as the next Kollapsnik out there. Extinction is certainly a possibility, but even if it is there is no way I will be the Last Man Left Standing on Earth, although maybe you have a shot at that." Karl said with a wry laugh. "Climate change could screw everything, or the Nincompoop Neo-cons, war mongers and terrorists on all sides might start pitching the nukes out everywhere. WTF knows on this or how it will play out?"
Karl continued onward…
"Meanwhile, I've spent the last 40 years around here, sort of straddling two worlds and trying to stay out of the rat race as much as possible, and I was pretty successful at doing that. It's not the least bit sustainable though, for the obvious reason I'm up here by myself, a hermit for the most part, no wife or children. If it is going to be sustainable, at least a few more people are going to be necessary. I was giving up hope on that until you showed up. That's why I came over to meet with you."
Kevin nodded in understanding. "Yea, I run up into that problem myself when I think about what I am doing, and my obsession with security and secrecy. I can't live up here forever by myself, although I prefer that to the idea of ending up in a FEMA Concentration Camp or as Cannon Fodder in some stupid war or BBQ meat for Zombies cruising the streets of Missoula when Safeway runs out of food. I just don't know what else to do right now though. RE on the Diner talks all the time about "forming community" and his SUN☼ Project, but HTF do you DO that? I'm a loner, I don't have many friends. Wait… I don't have ANY friends. How do you make a community if you have no friends?"
Karl sighed. "Yes I know where you are coming from, more than you can imagine since I have spent 40 years with no friends, living in isolation. But I think there is a reason we have met, a reason why we both were drawn to this patch of the earth at this time. I think we need to work this out, how to find others and to let go some of the obsession with security and remaining hidden. I am sure there are still good people out there, we just need to find them before TSHTF."
Kenny & Karl fell into silence for a while, and took their mess kits down to the stream to clean them off. As they walked back up the hill to the campsite, Kenny broke the silence.
"You are right Karl. Somehow we have to find others and make a community around here. I don't know how really yet but I do know people in Missoula, I have many that I work for with my landscaping business and a few people I still know from high school, although they are mostly clueless idiots. Maybe I'll be able to find some decent folks."
Karl smiled and got visibly more happy. "YES! You're still out there and people are starting to wake up. I think we can make a difference here, Lolo has a lot of resources and there aren't a whole lot of people around here at the moment. We can work together to make this work. I wondered how you were making a living and how you afforded this land. So you are a landscaper?"
Kenny laughed. "Well, 'landscaper' is the professional term. Mostly I cut grass for people who still are making decent money. But I started the business before I graduated High School, and it keeps growing. Right now I am making more money than most my age in Missoula, a lot more than most of my classmates who went to college and are now sinking ever deeper in debt. I like it because it is my own business and I don't have anyone bossing me around. I don't spend a lot of money during the week, so I have plenty to invest in my Doomstead and prepping up."
"You have done an amazing job Kenny, considering you are so young. The work you have done in getting your property ready for TSHTF scenario is amazing, and your mobile camping setup is quite impressive. You'll have to come by my property also and have a look, maybe it will give you some ideas here. It's a more permanent setup than yours though, and cost a good deal more money too and a lot of years of work to get it where it is now."
"I'd really love to see your place Karl! Thanks for the invite! Maybe next weekend when I come up I can come over?"
"Sure. That would be great! I have to get back over there now though, it's getting close to milking time for the goats and I gotta feed the chickens and the horses. We can chat over the internet though, or text on the cell phones. Let's exchange email addys and phone numbers."
They exchanged their contact information, and Kenny watched Karl drive off on the ZEV out the access road, somewhat in disbelief he had met this fellow living so close to him, who was so much older but seemed so in synch with his own thoughts. He was a "Boomer", and Boomers were supposed to be clueless and wasteful enablers of the industrial society. In Karl though, he already felt he had a real friend, the first real friend he could remember since grade school. It was a warm feeling.Note: I meant to post this some weeks ago, but the bailout derailed that plan. While it pertains to the just-past election, it’s still relevant.
The absurdity that Ron Paul is a defender of liberty should now be at an end, given his endorsement of the worst possible candidate for president, Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin.
The Constitution Party seeks to impose Biblical law on America. I was going to quote some relevant sections of their platform, but the Preamble says it all:
The Constitution Party gratefully acknowledges the blessing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as Creator, Preserver and Ruler of the Universe and of these United States. We hereby appeal to Him for mercy, aid, comfort, guidance and the protection of His Providence as we work to restore and preserve these United States. This great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been and are afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here. The goal of the Constitution Party is to restore American jurisprudence to its Biblical foundations and to limit the federal government to its Constitutional boundaries.
Let’s consider what that would mean in practice.
On abortion:
The pre-born child, whose life begins at fertilization, is a human being created in God’s image. The first duty of the law is to prevent the shedding of innocent blood. It is, therefore, the duty of all civil governments to secure and to safeguard the lives of the pre-born. … We affirm the God-given legal personhood of all unborn human beings, without exception. As to matters of rape and incest, it is unconscionable to take the life of an innocent child for the crimes of his father. No government may legalize the taking of the unalienable right to life without justification, including the life of the pre-born; abortion may not be declared lawful by any institution of state or local government – legislative, judicial, or executive. The right to life should not be made dependent upon a vote of a majority of any legislative body. … In addition, we oppose the funding and legalization of bio-research involving human embryonic or pre-embryonic cells. Finally, we also oppose all government “legalization” of euthanasia, infanticide and suicide.
On drugs:
The Constitution Party will uphold the right of states and localities to restrict access to drugs and to enforce such restrictions. We support legislation to stop the flow of illegal drugs into these United States from foreign sources. As a matter of self-defense, retaliatory policies including embargoes, sanctions, and tariffs, should be considered.
On marriage:
The law of our Creator defines marriage as the union between one man and one woman. The marriage covenant is the foundation of the family, and the family is fundamental in the maintenance of a stable, healthy and prosperous social order. No government may legitimately authorize or define marriage or family relations contrary to what God has instituted. … Finally, we oppose any legal recognition of homosexual unions. … We affirm the value of the father and the mother in the home, and we oppose efforts to legalize adoption of children by homosexual singles or couples.
Gambling:
Gambling promotes an increase in crime, destruction of family values, and a decline in the moral fiber of our country. We are opposed to government sponsorship, involvement in, or promotion of gambling, such as lotteries, or subsidization of Native American casinos in the name of economic development. We call for the repeal of federal legislation that usurps state and local authority regarding authorization and regulation of tribal casinos in the states.
On immigration:
We favor a moratorium on immigration to these United States, except in extreme hardship cases or in other individual special circumstances, until the availability of all federal subsidies and assistance be discontinued, and proper security procedures have been instituted to protect against terrorist infiltration.
On the judiciary:
We commend Former Chief Justice Roy Moore of the Alabama Supreme Court for his defense of the display of the Ten Commandments, and condemn those who persecuted him and removed him from office for his morally and legally just stand.
On statehood:
We acknowledge that each state’s membership in the Union is voluntary.
By endorsing a candidate from the Constitution Party, Ron Paul has clearly shown that he’s no friend of liberty. Instead, he’s endorsed a theocratic government in which Christians would force everyone to comply with the demands of their faith at the point of a gun.
The fact that Ron Paul is still regarded as a defender of liberty within libertarian circles shows — yet again — the effects |
Sunday) to make the most of his opportunities and he did that.”
Williams, the first of the three running backs the Packers drafted last offseason, could’ve easily been rattled by a reduced role in the offense, but instead he embraced the third-string job.
While waiting for work on offense, the 6-foot, 213-pound running back carved out a niche on special teams. For as much publicity as his performance on the ground generated Sunday, he actually earned a game ball for his work on special teams.By Chung Li-hua / Staff reporter
With the Executive Yuan poised to raise the cap on the number of Chinese tourists traveling to Taiwan via the Free Independent Travel (FIT) program, an opposition lawmaker likened the move to a deal with the devil, saying that violations of the law by Chinese tourists are on the rise, with last year’s total almost double that of 2013.
The National Development Council proposed “economy-boosting measures” earlier this month, including raising the cap on the number of Chinese tourists traveling to Taiwan via the FIT program from 4,000 to 5,000 per day and raising the limit for those traveling via the “small three links” through Kinmen and Matsu from 500 to 1,000 per day.
There is no change planned to the daily number allowed for Chinese traveling as members of tour groups.
Tourism Bureau Director-General David Hsieh (謝謂君) yesterday said that the measures are expected to come into effect late next month after the National Immigration Agency has completed the relevant preparations.
However, according to agency statistics, the number of Chinese tourists found to have broken the law was 2,788 last year, the highest figure ever, and almost double the 1,415 recorded in 2013.
Of last year’s criminal cases involving Chinese tourists, 1,492 were accused of visa overstays, 618 of counterfeiting ID documents or making false claims about ID documents, 492 of sham marriages, 91 of working illegally and 29 of prostitution.
In the first half of this year alone, 1,124 Chinese tourists were accused of breaking the law.
Last month, a drone piloted by Chinese tourist Yang Yunfan (楊雲帆) — who was traveling via the FIT program — hit Taipei 101; in October last year, Chinese tourist Wu Xin (吳昕), also traveling via the FIT program, gained access to an off-limits machine room in a Chunghwa Telecom office in Taipei and took pictures which he posted online, calling himself “the first Chinese to have ever entered a Taiwanese military base.”
There were also Chinese who concealed their political or military backgrounds and who have disappeared after entering the nation.
A Control Yuan report released in March found that the current FIT application is filled out online by the applicants themselves, with the visa being issued about 48 hours after the forms and documents have been submitted.
This means that a review thorough enough to uncover any deliberate dishonesty on the part of applicants is unlikely to take place.
Taiwan Solidarity Union Legislator Yeh Chin-ling (葉津鈴) cast doubt on the government’s attempt to save the nation’s economy and tourism industry by granting access to more Chinese tourists, saying the move has driven away tourists from other places such as Japan, the US and Europe.
In 2008, 38 percent of tourists visiting Taiwan were Japanese, but last year, the percentage dropped to 16 percent, she said.
Chinese tourists, many of whom travel on low or even zero budget packages as part of travel agencies’ marketing and promotion schemes, have a consumptive power that is only two-thirds that of Japanese, US and European tourists, Yeh said.
The value created pales in comparison with the costs that Taiwan has to pay in terms of national security, environmental protection and the burden on transportation, she said.
Hsieh said the cap raised this time is for more Chinese FIT tourists to travel to Taiwan, not tour groups, so the benefits they bring would be more “balanced across different sectors.”17 Amazing Tree House Designs From Around the World
Posted: by August 11th, 2016
Not all homes are built on firm foundations and steady ground. It’s entirely possible to create a living space that doesn’t rely on the traditional heavy materials we find in our modern homes today and tree-houses are the archetypal example. They can be both elaborate and luxurious, provided you have the right planning and execution. This collection from around the web of 17 stunning tree-house designs shows that with a little imagination you can be transported to an amazing living space in a home amongst the leaves.
Châteaux Dans Les Arbres – France
DragonFly Tree House – Sweden
A 15-meter long ramp takes you up to the Dragonfly, where big panoramic windows give you a magnificent view of the valley. It is built out of wood, with an exterior made out of sheet metal that will eventually turn rust-brown and blend in even further with the pine-tree forest. The design and the spectacular interiors are the makings of Rintala Eggertsson Architects.
Alnwick Castle Tree House
The Treehouse is one of the most magical and unique restaurants to be found anywhere in the world – high up in the treetops, with a roaring log fire in the centre of the room and trees growing through the floor.
Keemala, Thailand
These futuristic-looking bosky dwellings are inspired by a mythological clan, the We-Ha (Sky) people, who are believed to have built their homes suspended from the ground. The two-storey villas are dotted amid lush vegetation, streams and fountains in the hotel grounds, and when you are not gazing at the views, one of the star attractions is the holistic spa.
Carlow, Ireland
This tree house castle is built in the grounds of one of Irelands most magnificent country houses. Designed by Blue Forest in a Tudor Gothic style, the tree house closely resembles the architecture of the main house, which dates back to the 17th century.
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Washington
Foster Huntington was an up-and-comer in the New York fashion industry. Then he ditched it all and built his own personal paradise in the sky. OMG. Those views.
Monterey Bay, California
There couldn’t be a more perfect place for a treehouse than the one with a view to the beautiful bay of the Pacific Ocean. Located in Los Gatos, California.
West Virginia, USA
Used by the Boy Scouts of America to host their Jamboree, this Treehouse by Architects Mithun – provides dynamic educational and gathering spaces for exploring and understanding the site and ecosystem at the levels of ground, tree canopy, and sky. The towering Corten steel frame elevates visitors to extraordinary vantages and provides an armature for green building systems, such as photo voltaic panels, wind turbines, and a large cistern and water cleansing system. Interactive exhibits and celebrates sustainable technologies.
Finca Bellavista, Costa Rica
Finca Bellavista is a sustainable treehouse community in Costa Rica’s rainforest canopies. You can purchase a parcel to build your own treehouse on, or just crash there for a few nights. They let you zipline between treehouses.
Urban Tree House – Berlin
Conceived as an experimental research project, this treehouse in berlin has been designed to serve as an oasis of tranquility set within an urban context. completed by german design office baumraum, the scheme seeks to add to the city’s collection of small alternative constructions, while preserving the existing tree population of the 650 square meter site.
Atlanta, Georgia, USA
The architect and landscape designer Peter Bahouth made a project of the unique house-hotel on the tree in Buckhead, a few minutes from Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The author tried to create a house for recreation, but not to harm the surrounding nature, especially during construction works of buildings.
Beach Rock Treehouse: Okinawa, Japan
This treehouse by Japanese builder Kobayahsi Takashi was constructed with the express purpose of communicating with outer space. “A sparkling beacon among treetops, it is easy to imagine the dome succeeding at its mission to make contact with alien life,”
Takashi Kobayashi Tree House Japan
Kobayashi is a self taught architect, designer, and builder. Yet his tree houses are spectacular displays of how design and nature seamlessly integrate when constant attention and consideration is given to surroundings and environment.
Loch Goilhead, Scotland
Developed in the 1750’s with the arrival of Steamers in the clyde estuary Loch Goilhead is set amidst magnificent west Highland scenery, this picturesque village is now a popular outdoor pursuits and holiday home centre. This Lodge on the edge of the loch provides breathtaking views as well as being an impressive structure in it’s own right.
Lion Sands, South Africa
The most striking feature of the Kingston Tree house hotel is without a second a doubt its construction. The Kingston Treehouse employs large sheets of glass, combined with wood, to a spectacular effect. It’s a luxurious tree house hotel surrounded by natural boulders, with a unique window to enjoy the ever-changing views.
Bellingham, Washington
Peter Frazier, a customer experience consultant, decided after years of working at an office and gaining over 50 pounds that he needed to make a change in his life – so he built this incredible treehouse office in the woods.
UFO, Sweden
The room is cast in durable composite material – all to create the lightest, yet strong and sustainable design possible. The interior gives the room a modern and comfortable feel. The UFO is built for five people, two adults in a double bed and three children, with separate beds, bathroom and living area.The Voice of Russia
January 19, 2013
Just days away from the inauguration of President Barack Obama, Capitol Affairs takes a look with the help of Jill Stein, former presidential candidate for the Green Party, at the state of politics, the state of the country and what the re-election of Obama means for the country.
The entire interview will be aired on Monday, inauguration day, but here is the first part.
Dr. Jill Stein is a Doctor of Internal Medicine having obtained her degree from Harvard Medical School. She is the member of the Green Party and ran for a Governor of Massachusetts in 2002 and 2010. And she was the party’s nominee for President of the US in the 2012 election.
Dr. Stein, thank you so much for joining us on the program.
It is really good to be with you Carmen.
Absolutely! My pleasure to have you. So, we are just right up on inauguration day for the President. Can you first of all talk a little bit about your reasons for running in 2012 against President Obama and of course the Republican nominee and other nominees that were in the race?
Well, the reason I ran I think is really sort of the same reason for why I and so many others really continue to call out for real change and we hope to provide a real voice of opposition. We are going in the wrong direction and not simply going but actually accelerating in the wrong direction. And I was recruited to run and the specific reason that drew me in was because the President in the prior several months had gone on records supporting cuts to medic care and social security and medic aid as the answer to the debt ceiling crisis. This was back in 2011 and that was just clearly the wrong way to go.
We’ve seen the President continue in that play. We’ve seen the rich get richer, we’ve seen trillions of our tax dollars be squandered and continue to be squandered on bailouts for Wall Street, tax breaks for the wealthy, wars for oil that we don’t need, massive wasteful expenditures on the private health insurance bureaucracy – this is where our scarce resources are going and they are instead delivering austerity for the American people. We are at the breaking point simply.
And I think at this point they thinly veiled this breaking point, they have pretended to create a recovery, pretended to have taxed the rich and pretended to be protecting the social security and so on. But it is not so at all. The recovery for the Wall Street, recovery for the wealthy, the jobs that are protected are benefit poor jobs, we still have high unemployment.
So, the problems continue, they are very thinly papered over crisis. We are in for more of the same. I think there is a big wake up moment that will be happening soon, especially as the austerity deals get locked in over the course of the next coming months with the upcoming negotiations. So, this is a good time for people to be rethinking their political allegiances and standing up for the real solutions that we could have right now.
And this is what we tried to do during the election, to put on record that we don’t have to be losing it all, but we could actually be having it all right now with jobs with solving the climate crisis, bringing our troops home, ending these wars for oil. There is a win-win out there if and when we – the people – stand up and demand it.
You know, I think it is fascinating actually that you’ve mentioned one of the reasons and the number one reason that you decided to run was because of what you called… well, actually let me call it, because you didn’t use this word, but I want to. These foul arguments over the debt ceiling, it is exactly what is in the news again right now, I mean the situation is almost identical, it is déjà vu all over again.
Exactly! I just had published on other words sort of alternatives indicated column on the web under that url – other words – making exactly that point that this is déjà vu. This is political déjà vu, it is like the first time Obama was elected. We had a supposedly progressive candidate running on hope and change. And what was the first thing he did? It was to appoint Larry Summers, the architect, the engineer really of waste, fraud and abuse on Wall Street. He was then appointed, as one of Barack Obama’s first appointments, he was appointed to head basically the economic advisors. And then Timothy Geithner who managed to look the other way, Wall Street actually practiced that waste, fraud and abuse was brought in to head Treasury ensuring that that waste, fraud and abuse would be the official policy in the White House.
And so there was a wake up after the first election that this indeed was the best friend of Wall Street that we had elected, not actually this populist candidate that he’d pretended to be. And all sorts of progressive policies continued to be rolled out, including massive bailouts for Wall Street, neglect of the free trade agreements that continued to send our jobs overseas, more wars for oil, bailouts for the banks while home owners and students went into deeper and deeper debts creating among others an entire generation debtors.
And finally I have to mention the climate crisis too. It continues to escalate and Obama basically embraced the policies of George Bush and went far beyond in all of those areas just mentioned and in addition on our civil liberties which have been further under assault under the Obama administration, with everything from the criminalization of protest under H.R. 347 to the indefinite attentions under the NDAA which was just renewed this past New Year’s Eve or approximately, and the rights of assassination and expansion of the drone wars. And here we are now about to go into Mali which is a war over uranium resources to maintain nuclear power.
So, after the first election we had a very rude awakening about who this President really was. During the last campaign we saw him revert to once again progressive candidate who promised he would make the economy fair. You know, there were accolades in the progressive community because the President had sounded his voice and mission once again, populist Obama was back just in time for the election also promising to protect social security and tax the rich. But within weeks after the election, before he is even been inaugurated suddenly he’s managed to give away that store on tax reforms.
So, he basically put an end to a state tax, to lucky and to low capital gains rates and to just provide the least little fig leaf of attack on the wealthy families as he had promised which was embarrassingly pathetically small and inadequate to start with. You know, suddenly real Obama is back. He hasn’t even been inaugurated, that ink of the elections and all the promises made has hardly even dried and suddenly it is the same old song. So, yes, it is déjà vu all over again, same old flip flop from the progressive candidate to the unapologetic Wall Street ally in the White House.
You’ve brought up so many different subjects and I actually want to try to get to as many of them as we can a little bit more in depth if we could. Let’s go ahead and start with the last one, you talked a little bit about taxes. The argument has been made of course that the President isn’t a totalitarian, he can’t just decide what the tax rate should be and he had to deal with the politics of Washington at that time and simply couldn’t get more in terms of raising taxes particularly on the wealthier in this country. Is that not a good argument, just simply the fact that he has to work within the framework of Washington?
Well, he could have at least tried. And he had an enormous and powerful bargaining chip which was the expiring Bush tax cuts. He could have held out and actually use those tax cuts to have protected medic care and social security for example in locking in on those tax cuts. And he basically locked in some 98% of those tax cuts, all except very small tax increases on the very highest levels of wealth a gave away all sorts of other stuff in addition including essentially repealing the state tax so that we now not only have unprecedented disparities in wealth in this country, they are now inheritable, like it haven’t been certainly in the last centuries, since the state tax has been around.
And it was widely supported by both the Democrats and Republicans that we should not have an inherited aristocracy in this country, yet that’s what we are back to now. You know, we really saw the President throwing the towel here before there was even a tug of war with that. And that’s not what we deserve, that’s not what the American people bargain for. We could have at least had someone going there fighting. And he really went in there with that concession at the outset. Even John Boehner had offered much more, a much greater tax concessions and revenue concessions than the President even fought for.
And in the end a marginal tax increase on like the top 1% of the country which is a little bit ironic when you consider the mantra of the Occupy Movement that we’ve seen over the last couple of years which was – we are the 99%. So, when you consider the fact that only the top 1% of the earners in this country saw a slight tax increase, why aren’t the other 99% really upset? What’s not bringing them out again?
You know, in part I think this kind of happened over the holidays and was suddenly revealed on New Year’s Day. And that didn’t happen by accident, you can be sure. That’s they do these horrible betrayals at a time when people aren’t paying attention. It has been very quickly which was “hands up”, which in itself, when they are rushing things through under the cover of winter holidays, you can be sure it is not good stuff.
And it is only now coming to light. And I think the corporate press certainly implicated here. They do their best to keep it quiet for their big corporate sponsors. You know, the media is incredibly consolidated, more than ever. And thanks to true independent media like you the story gets to be told, but it is definitely around the margins. So, most people are absolutely clueless.
But I think this is one of the real problems of the Obama administration that there is such a propaganda campaign now surrounding this President and the Democratic Party which pretends to be a voice of by and for the people that a lot of progressives are left with this incredible cognitive dissonance and they get silenced in the confusion surrounding it. This is why I think it is so important that we, who do understand what is going on, that we stand up and that we not be goated into this politics of fear which tells us to be quiet and protect the lesser evil because there could have been a greater evil sitting in that office.
The reality is – those small differences between the lesser and the greater evil, those small differences are around the margins. Yes, they are differences but they are not enough to save your job, to save wages, to save your social security, to save your climate, to save your planet, to save your life. We are very much in the target here. We have a false economic recovery going on. We are as much at risk as ever for another economic meltdown, bigger than ever that we cannot bail ourselves out.
And God knows, they are continuing this $80 billion bailout every month that the Fed is doing now for the big banks yet again. And what have we gotten for it? Nothing. So, we continue to titter on the brink of economically, we are accelerating towards the brink in terms of the climate. We’ve just been through a devastating year but it is only a hint of what is to come and we are catapulting faster than ever towards that climate crisis from which there will be no recovery.
It is clear, it is not ok to sit back and let politics as usual, whether it is a democrat or a republican, continue to take us over the cliff. It is really important for those to see clearly what is going on, to stand up and cast off this politics of fear and trade it in for the politics of courage because it is now or never if we are going to stand up. It is not just future generations, it is our kids, it is ourselves who are in the target here right now.
That was part of our conversation with Jill Stein – Green Party activist and Green Party nominee for president in the 2012 race.
The entire interview will air on Monday, inauguration day, at 5 pm eastern time on the American Edition of Voice of Russia.
Listen to interview in iTunes
http://m.ruvr.ru/download/data/2013/01/19/1335430107/Carmen_CAP3-JillStein-011813.mp3Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said "the loser of the night was Marco Rubio" during his celebratory speech on Super Tuesday. "At least you can say that Ted has won something," the frontrunner said. (Video: Reuters/Photo: Jabin Botsford)
THE MORNING PLUM:
Donald Trump did not totally dominate last night, but the Super Tuesday results may have set in motion a process that is effectively closing the window on any chances to stop him. Trump only won around 35 percent of the overall Republican vote, and his delegate lead is not as formidable as it could have been.
Still, in winning seven states, Trump confirmed that he can win all over the country and can make inroads among many different subgroups of Republican voters. The results — Ted Cruz won three states; Marco Rubio took one; and Kasich outperformed Rubio here and there — will also likely encourage all three to stay in the race until March 15th, possibly making it harder still to slow Trump’s march to the nomination on that crucial date.
So now what?
Some Republicans are vowing to continue the resistance, with a group of major, deep-pocketed donors announcing new plans for a massive ad campaign to stop Trump. Others are talking about backing a third party run. Still others are suggesting that, even if all three non-Trump candidates remain in the race, that could actually facilitate efforts to force a contested convention, because it might deny Trump an outright majority of delegates.
But here and there, you can see signs of acceptance and acquiescence, and these signs give us a hint as to how Republicans might justify to themselves the eventuality of getting behind Trump as their nominee. They break down into three categories.
1) Trump is not quite as awful as Hillary is. Here’s former New Hampshire Governor and Senator Judd Gregg:
And if Trump won? Gregg would support him. “What’s the option, Hillary Clinton?” asked Gregg. “I’d rather have somebody a little light on substance than somebody who put our national security at risk.”
“A little light on substance” is an interesting euphemism, but look for more of this sort of thing. We might see a quiet migration from “Trump’s wretched xenophobia, bigotry and tendency to regard the Constitution as a sh*t-stained piece of toilet paper have no place in the GOP,” to “Trump’s deeper instincts are concerning, to be sure, but they are not nearly as dangerous as Hillary’s are, and he can probably be set right with a little schooling.”
2) Trump doesn’t have deeply held principles, so he’ll probably work with us. Politico reports that Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell have developed “rules of engagement” with Trump, in which they will criticize him when he acts like a hateful, dangerous lunatic, while leaving little doubt that they will back him if he’s the nominee. Note this:
Some in the Capitol believe there’s a slight upside in Trump’s candidacy. They don’t believe he has deeply held beliefs, and therefore can be persuaded to adopt the House GOP’s forthcoming agenda. Others say a Trump-fueled increase in voter turnout could help the party in some races.
In other words, Trump can’t possibly believe all the crazy, reckless nonsense he’s spewing, because it’s so crazy and reckless. That seems like a pretty big gamble.
3) Trump is already showing signs of growing. As Jonathan Cohn points out, at Trump’s victory presser last night, he seemed to pivot towards a slightly softer tone and a more general-election-friendly message. This led Newt Gingrich to remark:
Trump's shift toward inclusiveness, team effort and unity was vitally important He has to build a Reagan like inclusiveness to win this fall — Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) March 2, 2016
This is something Democrats should take seriously as a real possibility, for purposes of the general election battle. But in the near term, it may be a sign that Republicans are prepared to decide that Trump is showing a capacity to grow.
Trump’s continued march to the nomination effectively stamps out most of the embers of hope among Republicans that he can be stopped by conventional means, i.e., by the voters. As Tim Alberta writes: “They had hoped Tuesday would bring evidence that Trump’s appeal was abating, and that the electorate was ready to rally around a single challenger to defeat him. They were disappointed on both fronts.”
As results showed Donald Trump leading in at least six states on Super Tuesday, Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) argued that nominating him would be bad for the Republican party. Here are key moments from their speeches following the March 1 races. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)
To be clear, it’s very possible that a sizable chunk of Republicans will remain committed to fighting Trump all the way to the convention, and perhaps even beyond. Perhaps Rubio is right to predict that most Republicans will decide that getting behind Trump is simply not an option, because so doing would reduce the GOP and conservatism to smoking wreckage. It’s also possible that he will be denied a majority of delegates and see the nomination taken from him at a contested convention. But if you do see more Republicans move into the Trump-acceptance camp, the above rationales will likely be employed to justify it.
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* CLINTON DOMINATES, BUT SANDERS WILL HANG IN THERE: Hillary Clinton won in seven states last night, piling up a delegate lead that will likely be very hard for Sanders to overcome. But the Post reports that Sanders plans to push on:
Sanders remains a potent force who can pull Clinton to the left and force her to spend money and other political resources…Sanders’s campaign boasted Tuesday that he had raised more money in February, almost all of it in small amounts, than Clinton. The campaign also announced late Tuesday that it would host a “path forward” breakfast for the media Wednesday…Sanders’s team has mapped out a busy schedule in coming days, with events planned in Maine, Michigan, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and Ohio.
As I’ve argued, there is every incentive for Sanders to stay in, to try to build a national constituency among young voters and exert leverage over the convention and the party’s agenda in the general election. He’s got the money to do it, too.
* A VERY BAD NIGHT FOR MARCO RUBIO: Nate Cohn argues that Trump’s showing was not all that dominant, revealing that he might still be stopped in various scenarios, while summing up Rubio’s night this way:
The night could not have gone much worse for Marco Rubio….He failed to win Virginia, his best prospect of a primary victory. He has won in Minnesota, but it will be hard for him to claim any great strength with one caucus win in what was already poised to be his best state….with Mr. Cruz and Mr. Kasich all beating or exceeding expectations, and Mr. Rubio failing to counter with strength of his own, it is hard to imagine either Mr. Kasich or Mr. Cruz leaving the race soon.
It’s worth adding that all this happened after Rubio got down into the gutter with Trump, while Cruz and Kasich mostly refrained from doing that.
* MITT ROMNEY TO SAVE THE GOP? CNN reports on private discussions underway among top Republican strategists and insiders about the various paths forward, now that Trump may well be the GOP nominee:
Disaffected Republicans are discussing everything from skipping the Republican National Convention in July to running a conservative candidate as an independent or third-party candidate — with the ultimate goal of denying Trump the presidency. One of the names frequently mentioned in this hypothetical is Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, even though he has shown no desire to run another campaign but has shown a zest for attacking Trump.
This would give Republicans a way of asserting that they will not make peace with Trump, even at the cost of the White House, which would probably happen even if they did get behind him.
* TED CRUZ FACES TOUGH ROAD AHEAD: The New York Times write-up asserts that Cruz’s success yesterday has given strength to his assertion that he should stay in the race. But:
Still, Mr. Cruz also showed the limits of his political reach: He did not come close to Mr. Trump in much of the South, he failed to resonate in more moderate Massachusetts and Virginia, and the lineup of states that vote later in March may be less hospitable to his brand of rigidly ideological politics.
Of course, Cruz has no real incentive not to stay in — if the GOP loses the White House after declining to nominate the only True Conservative in the race, that would only prove that he was right all along.
* THE MAP FAVORS DONALD TRUMP LATER: It’s often observed that Trump’s momentum might be slowed in the big, winner-take-all states that vote on March 15th. But Tim Alberta delivers the bad news to Republicans:
After that, April sees the race move to Trump’s wheelhouse: the northeast. Tuesday’s result in Massachusetts previewed how tough Trump will be in his own backyard: He won 49 percent of the vote, beating Kasich, the next-closest finisher, by more than 30 points. It may still be possible to prevent Trump from securing 1,237 delegates. But it’s now impossible to envision anyone else arriving in Cleveland as the Republican nominee.
That would mean there are only two options: Trump wins the nomination outright; or a contested convention.
* REPUBLICANS EYE A CONTESTED CONVENTION: MSNBC’s Benjy Sarlin takes stock of the results and writes:
At this point it’s looking like it will take a contested convention, in which no candidate has a majority of delegates, to oust Trump. With that scenario in mind, anti-Trump Republicans seemed split on Tuesday between whether it would be better to try and consolidate behind one candidate or encourage candidates to remain in the race to have a better chance of denying Trump an outright majority.
So, not only are Republicans divided over whether to try to bring about a contested convention; they’re divided over how they might even pull that off.
* AND HOW LONG WILL REPUBLICANS STICK BY RUBIO? Senator Lindsey Graham says what must not be said:
“You know Ted Cruz is not my favorite, by any means,” Graham, who dropped his own bid for the White House in December, said in an interview with CBS. “But we may be in a position where we have to rally around Ted Cruz as the only way to stop Donald Trump, and I’m not so sure that would work.”
In other words, maybe it’s time to admit that Rubio might not be the guy to take down Trump in a head-to-head match-up, after all. Will more Republicans come around to this position?Please enable Javascript to watch this video
(KTVI) – An inmate who committed suicide at the St. Clair County Jail spent much of his time there trying to convince kids not to become a career criminal like himself.
Bradley Scarpi, 33, of Belleville hanged himself Friday inside the jail. Mandy Murphey previously interviewed and featured Scarpi in her Fox Files report on the St. Clair County “Scared Straight” program for at-risk kids.
Scarpi was released from jail following the interview. Sheriff Rick Watson said he committed a couple of serious crimes, including a home invasion and armed robbery in April, and was back behind bars in February of 2013.
Sheriff Watson said five other inmates tried to commit suicide inside the jail over the Memorial Day weekend but were unsuccessful.While many recent studies indicate that drinking water can help you lose weight, a gallon of water may be excessive, depending on your current height, weight, age and gender. Too much water can actually give you dangerously low sodium levels, and your neurons need sodium to fire. On the other hand, dehydration can slow your metabolism, and drinking water before meals can help you feel full. Burning more calories than you consume is the only way to lose weight, and water is an important part of that process, but you have to drink it in moderation.
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Water Before Meals A 2010 study by Dr. Barbara Davy of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, found that drinking two glasses of water before meals helped participants lose five extra pounds over 12 weeks, in comparison with a control group that did not drink water before meals. In another study, the same researcher found that people who drank water before meals consume about 75 fewer calories per meal. In these cases, the water itself does not physically reduce your weight, but it does make you feel full, which keeps you from consuming as many calories, and consuming fewer calories is a key component of weight loss.
Dehydration According to CNN's diet and fitness expert Dr. Melina Jampolis, your metabolism slows down even if your body is just one percent dehydrated. Metabolism is a term for breaking down food into energy and using that energy to build new cellular components. This process requires energy, or calories, so if it's slow, you're burning fewer calories. About 60 percent of your body is made up of water, and water helps flush toxins and carry vital nutrients to your cells, so water is imperative for your overall health. Because it's so important, if you don't get enough water, your body will actually start holding on to whatever water it gets, which leads to water retention, or excess weight.
Water Loss and Proper Replacement You may have heard the old adage that tells you to drink eight glasses of water a day. This is a good guideline, but appropriate water consumption isn't that simple. In fact, dieticians and scientists have differing theories about the right amount of water to drink, but their calculations generally come to roughly the same conclusions -- about eight 8-oz. glasses, or around two liters, which is roughly half a gallon. Your body loses about two to three liters of water per day through sweat and urination, so you need to replace that much. About 20 percent of your water comes from food, so you need to drink the rest. Men generally lose more water than women, but an athletic woman would need more water than a sedentary man. The best way to tell if you are consuming enough water is to ensure that your urine is clear or pale yellow and that you rarely feel thirsty.
Weight Loss Guidelines On its own, drinking water won't make you lose weight. Losing weight requires proper diet and exercise, because the only way to lose weight is to burn more calories than you consume. Aerobic exercise is a key component of this process, as it burns enough calories to get your body to start burning stored fat. In addition, it's also important to increase your overall activity, eat healthier foods such as lean protein and fresh vegetables, and make the process enjoyable so that you stick with it.
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Mirror's Edge: Catalyst has elements of multiplayer within its campaign, but no live competitive modes. DICE's Patrick Bach said that live multiplayer was "something we discussed quite a bit," but ultimately the team "decided to separate you physically. But there's always a connection to other players."
Exit Theatre Mode
Bach explained, "We have asynchronous play in the multiplayer component...an asynchronous connection where your actions will affect my world." One of Faith's numerous objective types tasks her with hacking a billboard to eliminate the corporate advertising presence from the city of Glass. In doing so, your hacked billboards can also appear in your friends' games, giving players the opportunity to put their persistent stamp on more than more than one world. When setting up for a Dash race, you'll see your friends leaderboard scores imprinted on the objective in your game.
"Players do not always have time to play together at the same time, especially if they're not in the same room," said Bach. "But when I play my game, your game should affect mine." The Mirror's Edge team's early discussions about synchronous multiplayer didn't get very far. "We talked about what would happen what would happen if we put other players in your world. Well, you'll probably get a lot of a**holes. Trolling is a big part of the gaming community. Some find it very funny, others not so funny. We tried to separate it so it's people you want in your world, but they will not be able to mess with you. They'll be able to affect it."
For more on Mirror's Edge, stay tuned to IGN.
Mitch Dyer is an Editor at IGN. He hosts IGN Arena, a podcast about MOBAs. Talk to Mitch about Dota 2, movies, books, and other stuff on Twitter at @MitchyD and subscribe to MitchyD on Twitch.by Michael Langlois
Regardless of the route you took to get your book into the marketplace, you’re going to have to do some promotion. Well, with one exception. If you got a six-figure advance from a publishing house, then you can rest assured that they’ll throw some marketing muscle behind your book. But if you got a standard deal, or put your book out yourself, you’re on your own.
Here are a few things that have helped me get noticed:
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or easy. And it will be even harder to advance if Republicans—the primary beneficiaries of this year’s corporate spending—take control of the House.
But the founders did not say that impeachment would be easy.
What they said—and what Peter DeFazio recognizes—was that, sometimes, impeachment is the only remedy left to citizens (and congressmen) who would defend American democracy.Upcoming: The Space Police
I got an exclusive chance to sit down recently with J McClain and talk about his upcoming project for EVE_NT, 'Space Police'. Space Police is a mockumentary, following the adventures of the titular force as they try to keep order in New Eden. Though no set date has been given for a premiere, McClain gave some insight into what we can expect.
“I had just come back from FanFest and I was memeing into the reality the whole being the Official Director of the Space Police while I was on the o7 show,” McClain told me. “So, I got to talking to some people about doing, maybe, just a funny video for the Director of Space Police thing; and then, then it kind of snowballed from there and turned into a whole web series that’s expanding and hopefully going to include a lot more people from the community who do streaming and video type media.”
The hope seems to be being realised, with a truly stellar cast coming together and an overall team of more than a dozen; a number that has more than doubled since I interviewed McClain. “It’s still picking up speed” appears to have been an accurate appraisal. With so many people on board, the help of EVE_NT on the production side of things, and even the help of CCP themselves in pulling assets together, Space Police seems to be an exciting prospect.
Things are still in the early days, and with so much still to be put in place it is no surprise that McClain was as yet unable to pin down things like series and episode length- but we can expect a fairly short first series as the team behind it test the waters, with talk of low double digits for episode count, and episode times a little less. “As we get more people who have more experience, and as I get more experience myself, the videos might be able to run a bit longer,” McClain said on the potential of the series beyond its first run.
In front of the camera, we’ve got some familiar faces joining the project, and will be seeing them within their spaceships. McClain’s vision will be putting the stars right into the action with a fusion of techniques and sources from cinematic shots of in game action, to live action footage of the cast. Space Police is an ambitious web series; but with the talented team behind it, McClain is hopeful.
The ranks of the eponymous force will be full of familiar names to the EVE community, headed of course by McClain himself, reprising his character as the overconfident Official Director. Manic Velocity will be proving his acting chops as the straight man of the piece, while Lysus will be the team’s flying ace. Away from the front lines, Dirk MacGirk is joining the team as an angry desk sergeant, while JEFFRAIDER provides the voice of the ship’s AI. Rounding out the main cast, Reload will be joining as a rookie officer. Rahne has also been confirmed for an unknown but recurring role.
Behind the scenes, as he seems to be in so many things, Elise Randolph joins the diverse writing team, while Raiden Harmann and Ned Thomas join as filming coordinator and sound expert respectively. Of course, no police force is complete without its livery- and as they set out towards the lawless expanses of low and null, the Space Police will be adorned with everybody's favourite Gallente ship skins.
If any of this sounds like something you’d like to get involved in, then you can! The team is still growing, and if you have any ideas, skills or talents you want to contribute, get in touch with J McClain in-game or on Twitter. With more developments on the way, keep watching EVE_NT for future looks behind the scenes and news on what’s to come as we eagerly await what Space Police has in store.Cal released official financial documents Friday that confirm a massive budget deficit and dire outlook for the Bears’ 30-sport athletic model. Related Articles Cal athletics’ $20 million question: Will sports need to be axed?
Cal stadium plan financially flawed
The athletic department lost $21.7 million in the 2016 fiscal year, according to a statement of revenues and expenses submitted to the NCAA.
The deficit matches projections outlined months ago by this newspaper and was covered by central campus, which itself is running a $110 million budget shortfall.
The athletic department’s fiscal woes are rooted in the debt service payment on the Memorial Stadium and Simpson Training Center projects, which cost approximately $460 million (combined).
The Bears generated $86.3 million in revenue from continuing operations against $88.1 million in expenses. But the interest payment on the debt service was $18.5 million. (There were minor additional costs for capital projects.)
That interest payment will remain steady until 2032, when the principal kicks in and annual payments soar — first to $30 million and eventually to almost $40 million.
Cal chancellor Nicholas Dirks has formed a task force to recommend a sustainable athletic model. The group is likely months away from issuing its conclusions, but the elimination of sports teams is a potential, if not likely, outcome.
The projections for the 2017 fiscal year are nearly as dire: An $18.8 million loss.PPP’s new Wisconsin poll finds that the race for Governor next year is likely to be competitive. Scott Walker is somewhat unpopular, with 43% of voters approving of the job he’s doing to 49% who disapprove. Walker trails a generic Democratic opponent for reelection 48-43. Of course generic Democrats sometimes poll stronger than who the nominee actually ends up being and it remains to be seen who from the crowded Democratic field emerges but the race at the least looks like it should be a toss up.
The Foxconn deal isn’t doing much to enhance Walker’s political standing. 34% of voters say they support the deal to 41% who oppose it. Voters also question Walker’s motivations with the deal- just 38% think he’s doing it because it will be a good long term deal for the state, while 49% think he’s doing it just to try to help with his reelection next year.
There is also a sentiment among voters that in several key areas things in Wisconsin have not improved under Walker’s leadership. Just 17% think the quality of public schools has gotten better during Walker’s tenure to 48% who think they’ve gotten worse and 27% who believe they’ve stayed about the same. And only 20% think the quality of roads and highways has gotten better during the Walker administration, to 38% who think they’ve gotten worse, and 36% who think they’ve stayed about the same.
The other thing plaguing Walker right now is his ties to Donald Trump, who’s become unpopular in Wisconsin. Only 40% of voters approve of the job Trump is doing to 52% who disapprove. And 44% of voters in the state think Walker has been too supportive of Trump to 35% who think he’s been supportive about the right amount, and 13% who think he hasn’t been supportive enough.
Democrats lead the generic legislative ballot in the state 44-41. Of course the reality with the state’s gerrymandered district lines is that wouldn’t give them much of a chance at a majority in either chamber of the legislature. 44% of voters in the state think the legislative district lines are not fairly drawn, to only 25% who think they are fair. By a 63-16 spread voters think lines should be decided by an independent nonpartisan commission instead of the Legislature and Governor. The appetite for nonpartisan redistricting carries across the usual political divides- Clinton voters support it 79/6, but Trump voters do too 47/28.
On some other key state issues:
-59% of voters support Wisconsin expanding Medicaid, to only 21% who are opposed.
-79% of voters support allowing student loan borrowers to refinance their loans, to only 9% who are opposed.
-Just 12% of voters think family and medical leave benefits in Wisconsin should be reduced. A 41% plurality thinks they should be expanded and 36% think they’re fine as is.
Paul Ryan’s having the same issues with his popularity in Wisconsin that he is nationally. Only 35% of voters approve of the job he’s doing to 51% who disapprove. He hasn’t found a way to strike the right balance when it comes to supporting Donald Trump- 44% of voters think he’s too supportive of Trump, 25% think he’s not supportive enough of Trump, and only 23% think he’s getting the balance right. He’s getting it from both sides with 79% of Clinton voters thinking he’s too supportive of Trump and 51% of Trump voters thinking he’s not supportive enough of Trump.
Wisconsin matches the rest of the country when it comes to a new popularity for the Affordable Care Act in the wake of efforts to repeal it this year. 44% of voters now say they support it, to just 38% who oppose it. Only 33% of voters think the best path forward on health care is to repeal the Affordable Care Act, while 57% think it’s to keep it in place and pass a bipartisan bill to make fixes to it as necessary.
Republican tax reform efforts are also getting poor reviews from Wisconsin voters. Only 28% of voters say they support the Republicans in Congress’ tax proposal, to 43% who say they are opposed to it. That’s a reflection of the sentiment of a majority of voters- 51%- that the plan will mostly just help wealthy families. Only 23% think the primary beneficiary will be middle income families, and 9% think it will be low income families.
Full results hereFILE - This May 22, 2013 file photo shows customer at a Hobby Lobby store in Denver. The Supreme Court has agreed to referee another dispute over President Barack Obama's health care law, whether businesses can use religious objections to escape a requirement to cover birth control for employees. The justices said Tuesday they will take up an issue that has divided the lower courts in the face of roughly 40 lawsuits from for-profit companies asking to be spared from having to cover some or all forms of contraception. The court will consider two cases. One involves Hobby Lobby Inc., an Oklahoma City-based arts and crafts chain with 13,000 full-time employees. Hobby Lobby won in the lower courts. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski, File)
Access to hormonal birth control hasn’t typically been a goal of the gay rights movement. But after a near miss on an anti-gay bill in Arizona last week, LGBT advocacy groups are rallying around a Supreme Court birth control case, arguing that gay people’s rights will be collateral damage if the court rules that for-profit businesses do not have to provide contraceptives to female employees.
On March 25, the Supreme Court will hear arguments from the Oklahoma-based crafts store chain Hobby Lobby that the federal health care law is infringing on its religious liberty by forcing the company to provide contraceptive coverage in its health plan. The case is unusual because the family owned company is arguing that for-profit corporations — not just individuals and religiously affiliated nonprofits — have religious beliefs that should be protected under the Constitution and the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Most of the dozens of “friend of the court” briefs in the case, filed in January, are from religious and anti-abortion individuals and organizations on the Hobby Lobby side, and reproductive rights groups on the government’s side. Only two gay rights organizations filed amicus briefs laying out the potential implications the case could have on gay and lesbian people. (The briefs favored Hobby Lobby’s side by a 3 to 4 ratio.)
But on Monday, just a few days after Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed a law that would have allowed businesses with religious objections to refuse service to gay people, more than 30 LGBT groups signed on to a statement that says the birth control case is “cut from the same cloth” as the recently vetoed Arizona law.
If the conservative-leaning court rules that companies may deny contraceptives based on the religious beliefs of their owners, corporations would have more latitude to argue that serving gays and lesbians violates their religious beliefs, the groups argue.
“People from all across the country would face very real harm if corporations get a license to discriminate under the guise of religious liberty,” the statement says. The groups say the case could allow businesses to deny health care to employees with AIDS or HIV, or for hotels or restaurants to refuse to serve LGBT people.
“The case is directly about women’s access to reproductive health care and we don’t mean to suggest that that’s not the core issue there, but it is important to expand the lens,” said Jenny Pizer, general counsel for Lambda Legal, the gay rights groups that filed an amicus brief in the case.
The Arizona law served as a wake-up call for the general public and the gay rights community that a case about religious objections to birth control could have a big impact on gays.
“We’ve come to see the Hobby Lobby case as the biggest Supreme Court case that nobody’s heard about,” said Eric Ferrero, spokesman for Planned Parenthood. “What really happened with Arizona is it brought to life in very real terms what this agenda looks like.”
Interestingly, many of the nightmare scenarios the groups lay out of businesses turning away gays en masse are actually legal under existing law. There are few existing federal protections for discrimination against employees or customers based on sexual orientation, but advocates hope that Congress and states will move to adopt them soon. (Some gay discrimination cases can be brought as gender discrimination, but courts are split on the claims.) If Hobby Lobby prevails, businesses will have an argument in their back pocket going forward that religious objections to serving gays supersede any future anti-discrimination laws.
“Likely in the future we will have anti-discrimination laws that protect gay people so [this case] is attempting to get pre-emptive religious exemption from that,” said Doug NeJaime, a law professor specializing in gay rights at the University of California, Irvine.
More immediately, a ruling in favor of Hobby Lobby could also serve as a shield for businesses based in the 21 states that prohibit businesses from turning away customers based on their sexual orientation.
Hobby Lobby supporters argue that it’s far from clear that a ruling in the company’s favor would help a business owner who believes homosexuality is a sin and does not want to provide certain services to gay people.
“I know of no American religious group that teaches discrimination against gays as such, and few judges would be persuaded of the sincerity of such a claim,” writes Doug Laycock, a law professor at the University of Virginia.NBA 2K13 Leaks Oklahoma City Thunder Alternate Uniform: How Does It Look? by Chris Walder
NBA Jam Tournament: Could It Work On The Pro Level? by Jay Rosales
Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo are sure-fire starters for the Boston Celtics heading into the 2012-13 NBA season. With Avery Bradley still recovering from a shoulder injury, it’s fair to say that newly acquired Courtney Lee will be holding down the shooting guard spot until his inevitable return.
It was (at one point) assumed that Brandon Bass, a starter for 39 games last season, would also be returning to his starting power forward position as well.
Well, there’s no such thing as a “sure thing” with these Boston Celtics.
Head Coach Doc Rivers is now leaving the door open for rookie forward Jared Sullinger to slide into that role. The idea is that having Sullinger start and moving Bass to a reserve role would give Boston more depth.
Rivers is also considering experimenting with different rotations, including starting former #2 overall pick Darko Milocic occasionally at the 5 spot.
“We may go to a transitional starting lineup, you know, have three different lineups. We put a lot of thought into it. We just will figure it out.”
“I’m going to try it a couple of games, and then I’ll throw Brandon in and I’ll throw Darko in a couple times. So you can read into it whatever you want, but there’s been no decisions made on anything now.”
During the Celtics two overseas preseason games against Turkey and Italy, Jared put up 25 points and 15 rebounds in just 37 minutes of action.
Is starting Jared Sullinger a good idea?
Absolutely.
Putting Jared into that role right away works on many levels for this Celtics team.
As mentioned above, having Bass come off the bench will give the second unit some much needed depth in the paint, as Chris Wilcox, Darko Milicic and Fab Melo are the only other bigs outside of Kevin Garnett of course.
Those names don’t exactly inspire much confidence.
Sullinger starting will surely help in the rebounding department, as Boston ranked dead last (yes, even behind the Charlotte Bobcats) in rebounds last season with just 38.8 a game. Jared averaged 9.7 rebounds a game during his two-year stint with the Ohio State Buckeyes.
Bass, on the other hand, was 50th amongst power forwards last season in rebounds per 48 minutes, which isn’t a great statistic for a starting forward in the NBA.
Jared is already getting high praise from his future hall of famer teammate Kevin Garnett.
“His IQ is very high. I watched him a couple of times while he was (at Ohio State), and we saw a little of what he can do skill-wise. When you play with him you can actually see the IQ.”
Rajon Rondo has also had kind words to say about Sullinger.
Nothing is set in stone as of yet. From how it looks now, not only could Sullinger see time in the starting line-up, but a couple of other Celtics could as well.
Will it hurt team chemistry on the court? Is it wise to constantly tinker with the starting line-up rather than having a select group of players who begin each game on a nightly basis?
Whether or not Sullinger becomes or remains a starter for the duration of the season, it can only help the Celtics moving forward.
Give the rookie some playing time and allow him the opportunity to produce alongside Boston’s new “Big Three”. Throwing a player of his potential and his IQ into the lion’s den right away will give the Celtics yet another experienced weapon come the postseason.
Christopher Walder is a sports blogger and lead editor for Sir Charles in Charge. You may follow him on Twitter @WalderSportsCLOSE Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana allows Indianapolis residents to share anonymous tips with law enforcement. Here are a few things Crime Stoppers wants you to know before you call. Wochit
Mallory Jackson, 27, and Meredith Opel, 20. (Photo: Provided by the Opel family.)
The man believed to have killed his estranged wife and her sister in Indianapolis was found dead in Arkansas of an apparent suicide.
Darrel Jackson, 29, according to police reports, is believed to have killed Mallory Jackson, 27, and her sister Meredith Opel, 20, in a southeast-side home.
Then, Jackson drove more than 400 miles to Jonesboro, Ark., where his family lives. He parked in back of a home and, police said, sent a text message to his father saying "he could not take it no longer."
About 1:40 p.m. Indianapolis time, Jackson's father and brother found Darrel Jackson in the front seat of a 2011 Nissan Sentra with an Indiana plate.
He had shot himself in the head. A Smith and Wesson 9-mm handgun was in the car with him.
About four hours later, Indianapolis metropolitan police found the bodies of Mallory Jackson and Opel in a home in the 4500 block of Stone Mill Drive.
According to an Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department news release, the sisters suffered "apparent trauma." Autopsy results have not been released.
Darrel Jackson was Mallory Jackson's husband, police said. According to the Jonesboro police report, Darrel Jackson lived at the same house on Stone Mill Drive where the sisters were killed.
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Police had been called to that same home recently to respond to a domestic dispute, IMPD Sgt. Christopher Wilburn said. Wilburn said details of that incident were not immediately available Monday,
Mallory Jackson and Opel are graduates of Roncalli High School in Indianapolis. Jackson graduated in 2009 and Opel in 2015.
Their father, Doug Opel, is a former athletic director for Roncalli and served as the school's basketball coach from 1984-89.
"The Opel Family spans generations of Roncalli alumni and have been long time members of our community on many levels," Roncalli Principal Chuck Weisenbach said in a statement. "Our hearts are heavy and our prayers are with the family."
Mallory Jackson, 27, and daughter Camilla Rose. (Photo: Provided by the Opel family.)
Jackson worked as a licensed practical nurse for American Senior Communities at Rosewalk Village. She leaves behind a daughter, Camilla Rose, according to her obituary.
Opel was a senior at the University of Southern Indiana, according to her obituary.
Funeral services for Opel and Jackson will be celebrated at 10 a.m. Dec. 2 at the Roncalli gymnasium. Their burials will be at Calvary Cemetery.
Call Star reporter Vic Ryckaert at (317) 444-2701. Follow him on Twitter: @VicRyc.
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That 70’s icon, Mr. Bill, now has his own video game for the iPhone and iPod touch. It’s a bit of a cross between Angry Birds and Doodle Jump. Given the popularity of those two games, it’s no surprise that someone would try to duplicate them with a familiar character.
The premise of the initial level of the game is that Mr. Bill joins a circus due to the nefarious machinations of Mr. Hand and Mr. Sluggo. You have to fire the character out of a cannon and he must land on a "safe area" further to the right of the screen. However, the length to the safe area far outstretches the firing capability of the cannon.
There are a few ways you can fly further. The first is to flap Mr. Bill’s arms which makes him go higher. The second is to land on various things like seals and clowns that would then toss him further. Another is to eat various foods that mysteriously are available in mid-air to give our protagonist more energy. There are naturally things to avoid while sailing across the screen, like fire eaters and lions.
Further levels of the game are unlocked as you progress play. There is another version of the game built in which has Mr. Bill working on Sluggo’s Farm. There is also a "secret" level that is more scary-themed and will be available by Halloween.
The game is simple and addictive. It’s exactly the sort of game that would thrive in the App Store. The graphics are very good, particularly on retina display. My only complaint is a personal choice. The settings are fairly simplistic and doesn’t allow for fairly standard capabilities in other games like setting your audio library in the background.
Other than that, if you enjoy torturing clay, this game is for you. I’m just waiting for the iPhone version of MTV’s Celebrity Deathmatch for more of the same.In early 2011, I was a part of a group that staunchly believed in the necessity and urgency to change the status quo in Syria. As a 19-year-old Christian student, full of hopes and dreams, nothing was going to stop me back then from taking the risk of wandering the streets of Aleppo on March 10, 2011, on a very cold night, to distribute fliers calling on the people to protest. I was jailed and tortured by Bashar al-Assad’s forces, not once, but three times. I was later forced into exile, to leave my home, family, friends, and hopes back home.
In 2013, I heard about a new leader, a Salafist preacher and rebel commander, whose existence made me—a secular activist from a confessional minority—an immediate antagonist. He was Zahran Alloush, and his Jaysh al-Islam, or Army of Islam, today controls al-Ghouta, the largest part of the Damascus countryside, which the regime hit with chemical weapons in August 2013, killing 1,400 people in a day. His headquarters are few miles away from Assad’s presidential palace. Alloush fought on many fronts and against many adversaries, including ISIS and the regime. Today, he’s a prominent target of the Russian airstrikes, which tend to hit Army of Islam positions just as Alloush’s forces are battling ISIS.
Alloush’s conservatism isn’t foreign to the region he controls, but nor has it impinged upon competing traditions of liberalism in the surrounding areas. There are Christian towns in al-Ghouta where churches have been kept unmolested for decades. Muslims and Christians have lived harmoniously in the area, too. Also somewhat distinct from other rebel organizations in Syria, Alloush’s Army of Islam is purely Syrian in composition. There are no foreign fighters in its ranks, no veterans of mujahidin campaigns in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Whatever heroic status he may enjoy among opposition forces, Alloush is also a deeply controversial figure. He stands accused by many of having abducted a great icon of the Syrian uprising, the human-rights campaigner Razan Zaytouneh.
I first thought that interviewing him would be an incredibly hard task, given my politics and religious background. I was wrong. I interviewed Alloush for The Daily Beast recently while he was at his compound in al-Ghouta.
The Daily Beast: How did the Army of Islam emerge? Is it a Syrian army or an Islamic one? What is its banner? And what are your priorities?
Zahran Alloush: Jaysh al-Islam, like other revolutionary forces, emerged after the regime crackdown of the Syrian peaceful protests. It was a must at that time to have tools to protect the population from the regime atrocities by carrying arms and defending them.
As for the identity—we are Syrians with a revolutionary project. That is why we have always chosen our allies and enemies depending only on their position from the revolution and the regime.
As for the banner, we have a distinct banner as a faction but it is not a replacement of the Syrian independence flag. It is just a banner that carries our name.
Our priorities are those initial priorities of the revolution. We want to rid our country of all dictatorial and terrorist projects.
TDB: In one of your prior interviews, you said that you do not have any differences with Jabhat al Nusra, the al Qaeda franchise in Syria. You said that your Sharia adviser does not disagree with the Sharia adviser of al Nusra. Does that mean that you have no ideological differences with al Qaeda?
ZA: Back then, I was referring to Abu Maria al-Qahtani, one of [al Nusra’s] Sharia advisers. We saw that Qahtani was showing a moderate face and we wanted to encourage those efforts. Now al Nusra has different Sharia advisers, and ours have many disagreements with them, ideologically and intellectually.
TDB: How is your relationship with Ahrar al-Sham, the powerful Salafist rebel group in Syria? Why were you excluded from its new coalition against Assad called the Army of Conquest?
ZA: Jaysh al-Islam stands alongside Ahrar al-Sham and all revolutionary forces that fight Assad and refuses ISIS’s takfiri mentality. You should ask them this question. We have heard that one component of the army which has ties with ISIS is the one that lobbied against us.
TDB: Why does Jaysh al-Islam have many enemies on opposite sides such as ISIS, al Qaeda, and secular opposition figures?
ZA: In general, Jaysh al-Islam does not have objections or sensitivity to criticism. On the contrary, we reach out to all those who have the expertise and comprehensive vision to evaluate us and offer advice. However, we are always subject to distortion by some people simply because we cannot satisfy everybody. There are always people who hate what we do and feel that their personal interests are not served and they will continue to criticize us anyway. We think that we have to continue work rather than waste time on propaganda and anti-propaganda.
TDB: Do you think you have been wrongly accused of kidnapping Razan Zaytouneh and have you arrested those who kidnapped her?
ZA: The case of Razan Zaytouneh has been used to demonize Jaysh al-Islam by many sides. Most people do not know that Jaysh al-Islam facilitated Zaytouneh’s entrance into eastern Ghouta through the martyr Mohamed Adas, manager of the office of [Syrian regime] defectors in Jaysh al-Islam. We offered to protect Zaytouneh because many sides might be upset by her work, but she preferred to work independently. Why would we bring her in and then kidnap her? It is illogical. As for the arrest of those who kidnapped her, this is also not true. When we figure out who the kidnappers are, they will immediately appear in court.
TDB: Do you apply Sharia law in the areas you control? What are your views on democracy and the future of Syria?
ZA: Jaysh al-Islam does not intervene in the judiciary body in our areas. We have representatives in the judiciary councils. The judiciary councils include many sheikhs and jurists who represent the diversity of our community. We believe in the rule of institutions.
When I criticized democracy, I was referring to the manipulation of people through lies covered by attractive colors. The democracy of Assad, the pluralism of the Baath, and the Islamism of ISIS are a few examples. The Western double standards are also applied to democracy. While democracy is used to serve people’s interests in the West, democracy is manipulated in our countries to bring villains to rule as agents for outside powers. We believe that the future of Syria after Assad should be governed by a technocratic body which has the skills and the qualifications. We do not believe that Syria should be ruled by sectarian or partisan rule, but by a technocratic body that represent the diversity of the Syrian people. We do not see ourselves as Islamic. We are Muslims.
TDB: Erbin, a town in Ghouta, includes many Christians. How do you treat the Christians in your area? Is it true that the Christians prefer Assad to the rule of the opposition?
ZA: The Christians have been living in Syria for hundreds of years and they have contributed to the enlightenment of Syria. The Syrian revolution core was the freedom and equality of all Syrians regardless to their religion. The regime of Assad is the main contributor to the misery of the Christians. The regime of Assad has enforced many restrictions on the Syrian Christians, and forced many of them to leave and to close their businesses due to Assad’s so-called social economic policy.
TDB: You’ve been under siege for around four years. How are you providing services to people in your areas?
ZA: Assad uses starvation and siege because he thinks he’ll win the war this way. We have in Ghouta some resources like water and agriculture; we have professionals in many fields from the citizens of Ghouta. We try to be creative in terms of providing the main needs for the people and this is not the effort of our army by itself but the efforts of the Ghouta people in general. Our people still suffer from a severe lack of very basic needs due to the tough siege. This takes place, unfortunately, before the eyes of the world’s institutions that carry humanitarian logos.
TDB: Why do many people call you a dictator? And what is the reason behind the demonstrations against you?
ZA: Dictatorship indicates that I am forcing people to accept and apply someone’s ideas. In Ghouta we witness a lot of social and political activities. People protest, write, and meet freely. We also protect the demonstrations against Jaysh al-Islam and accept the other point of view. East Ghouta is by far the most secure liberated area for activists and ordinary people. Media are always welcome to cover the situation in our area. Many people criticize me and they live safely in Eastern Ghouta. Many people suffer from the repercussions of war and siege and they protest against the groups that control the smuggling tunnels, yet everyone knows that we do not control any.
Some demonstrations against Jaysh al-Islam were organized by family members of ISIS prisoners demanding their release. No country in the world would release criminals under the pressure of protests.
TDB: Unlike many areas of Syria, ISIS was not able to recruit or control any area in Ghouta. Why is that?
ZA: Although most of the people in our area are conservative, they aren’t radical. We have many Muslim scholars who belong to civic and moderate schools of religion. People of Ghouta are fortified from radicalization due to these facts.
When we liberated Ghouta from the criminal regime of Assad, and the people were mourning their loved ones who were killed by Assad, radicalization was contained by Jaysh al-Islam because we have local Islamic scholars who relentlessly educated our young men and women and told them that this is not the answer for Assad’s brutality.
TDB: You fought ISIS in Ghouta, Qalamoun [a southern district in the Damascus region], and in northern Syria. You lost many of your men in the war against ISIS. But Western countries still do not back you or include you in any arming project. Why?
ZA: ISIS does not belong to the Syrian revolution. Assad has exploited this organization at the most critical time when it was about to fall. Despite the involvement of foreign Shia militias, Assad was in a very weak condition when ISIS appeared to save his regime. It started assassinating revolutionary commanders and attacking Free Syrian Army groups rather than fighting Assad. ISIS accused the Syrian people of being infidels and created big trouble inside liberated areas. A few months later, they waged an all-out war against revolutionary forces.
We think that the West was happy to see ISIS in the region, especially those who evaded the moral obligations to stand by the Syrian people after Assad crossed all the red lines and used chemical weapons.
The West intervened after ISIS took control of Mosul in Iraq. We fought ISIS early on when we discovered their deviation from Islam and the danger they pose to our revolution and people. The West knows well that Jaysh al-Islam and other revolutionary forces are not terrorist, but the wish to reproduce the regime may affect its designation policy.
TDB: What do you think of the United States? Do you believe that it can help solve the Syria crisis?
ZA: America is a powerful country and it can play a major role to end the Syrian conflict if it wants. But the current administration refuses to play this role and acts with cold blood when it comes to Syria. It has failed to respond effectively to Assad’s massacres and we saw that obviously when Assad crossed the “red line” on the use of chemical weapons. America was able to stop the chemical attacks, but it didn’t care.
When America demanded Assad to pull his army out of Lebanon, Assad had to do that in few days, though being in Lebanon was very essential and important for his regime. Even if the administration didn’t want to intervene directly, it is still able to support the real revolutionary groups which are capable of toppling Assad and at the same time defeating ISIS. Instead, it is promoting weak groups and supporting them just to say, ‘We are doing something for Syria.’
TDB: Are you concerned about the Russian intervention in Syria?
ZA: Russia has always supported Assad politically and supplied him with weapons. The intervention now will cause more destruction and death for the Syrian people but we know from history that foreign occupations always lose at the end.
We think that this intervention is the result of the regime’s failure in the war with the revolution despite all the regional support. Shortly before the intervention the regime suffered huge losses in Idlib and Damascus. These defeats caused a collapse in morale among the regime’s supporters, and it prompted the Russians to get involved.
TDB: Is the Russian air force targeting Jaysh al-Islam? And will you cooperate with Russia if it restricts its targets to ISIS?
ZA: Russia bombed Jaysh al-Islam positions for a time, and then stopped. We do not need their help in the fight against ISIS.
TDB: You control areas near the Israeli border. Do you have any agenda regarding Israel or the Israel-Palestine conflict?
ZA: These issues along with other foreign policy issues should be tackled by the future Syrian government, which has to be formed after the removal of the Assad regime and has to stick to our people’s principled stances.
TBD: Do you support the exportation of jihad and acts of violence in the West?
ZA: We were forced to take up arms to defend ourselves after the regime committed atrocities against us before the eyes of the world, which did not intervene to save our people. We condemn acts of violence all over the world regardless of who commits them and who are the victims.
TDB: We have seen you going to Turkey though Ghouta is under siege. Is it true that you arrange that with the regime?
ZA: If I and other revolutionary factions leaders arrange our movements with the regime when we get in and out of besieged areas, then who is fighting the regime on the ground? Who is defending the liberated territories? Who is killing the regime’s soldiers every day? If we are coordinating with the regime, why is it besieging our areas and bombing us?
These rumors are released by ISIS to defame Jaysh al-Islam, but it is unacceptable to hear them from sane people. Of course, we won’t tell anybody about the secret routes we take to get out of besieged areas because this is what they want. We can’t reveal how we move from the north to the south of the country to get captured and killed by ISIS. Our fight on the ground and our martyred fighters and commanders as well as the death of thousands of regime mercenaries at the walls of Ghouta are the strongest proofs of our sincerity.
TDB: Ghouta has lost the biggest numbers of people because of regime attacks. You eliminated ISIS there and prevented Assad from regaining it and your fighters are all Syrians. Do you think |
. Pedro Arrupe, from Spain's Basque country, was head of the fraternity from 1965 to 1983, a time when many of its members, especially in Latin America, veered sharply to the left. Under his guidance, the Jesuits adopted a manifesto which committed them to "promote justice and enter into solidarity with the voiceless and the powerless." Defying threats from right-wing death squads, he kept a large contingent of Jesuits in El Salvador, six of whom would ultimately be killed. When illness forced him to retire, Pope John Paul II overruled his choice of successor, an implied rebuke which many Jesuits resented.
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Klaus Luhmer was a distinguished educationalist and head of a university; he was an advocate of Montessori teaching methods which aim to bring out pupils' innate gifts. Hugo Enomiya Lassalle was a practitioner of Buddhist meditation techniques who qualified as a Zen master. He began advocating the idea that Christianity and the Zen tradition were compatible, but the Vatican reined in his publishing. Hubert Schiffer followed a more classical form of Catholic pietism; he became a leading member of a movement that urged frequent use of the rosary prayers.
So...four utterly contrasting lives? In fact, they have one big thing in common, besides being Jesuits. They were all in Hiroshima exactly 68 years ago, on August 6th 1945. In total there were eight Jesuits in or near Hiroshima at the time. In accordance with the church calendar, they were expecting to spend the day commemorating the moment in the New Testament when Jesus is said to have appeared before three followers with "his face shining like the sun and his raiment white as the light". Instead, they witnessed a different blinding flash and each responded in his own way. Father Arrupe drew on his medical training to help set up a makeshift hospital for the wounded and dying. Years later, as head of Japan's Sophia University, and until his death in 2011 at the age of 94, Father Luhmer would recall seeing victims "with skin hanging off their bones in strips" and hearing their muffled cries of "water, water...". The future Zen specialist, Father Lassalle, was carried on a stretcher by Father Luhmer to a Jesuit premises on the outskirts of the city. Despite serious injuries, Father Lassalle recovered and later led the construction of a World Peace Memorial Cathedral in Hiroshima. Father Schiffer was one of four Jesuits living near the centre of the devastation who somehow escaped without injury; he ascribed their survival to a miracle.
Most of us know the meaning of a life-changing moment. But what sort of change that moment will bring about....well, that can vary, to say the least.© AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File FILE - In this Thursday, Aug. 6, 2015, file photo, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton listens to a home care worker during a roundtable discussion in Los Angeles. Calling for a “new college compact,” Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday, Aug. 10, will unveil a $350 billion plan aimed at making college more affordable and reducing the crushing burden of student debt.
WASHINGTON — Calling for a "new college compact," Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday will unveil a $350 billion plan aimed at making college more affordable and reducing the crushing burden of student debt.
At a town hall meeting in New Hampshire, the state with the highest average student debt in the country, Clinton will propose steps to reduce the cost of four-year public schools, make two-year community colleges tuition-free and cut student loan interest rates, according to campaign aides.
The college affordability plan, a main plank of her policy platform, is an effort to address a major financial stress for many American families and satisfy a central demand of the Democratic party's liberal wing.
The proposal centers on a $200 billion federal incentive system aimed at encouraging states to expand their investments in higher education and cut student costs. States that guarantee "no-loan" tuition at four-year public schools and free tuition at community colleges will be eligible to receive federal funds.
But Clinton doesn't go quite as far as some more liberal politicians and party activists, who've made "debt-free college" an early litmus test for the presidential primary field. In May, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders released his own plan that would eliminate tuition and fees for public universities. The $70 billion annual proposal would be funded by imposing a tax on transactions by hedge funds, investment houses and other Wall Street firms.
While military veterans, lower-income students and those who complete a national service program, like AmeriCorps, would go to school for free in the Clinton plan, others would incur costs for their schooling and living expenses at four-year public universities. "For many students, it would translate into debt-free tuition," said Carmel Martin, executive vice president for policy at the Center for American Progress, who advised Clinton on that plan. "It will depend on the student circumstances and the institution they are going to."
For most students, their families will still be expected to make a "realistic" contribution, say Clinton's aides, and students will contribute wages from ten hours of work per week.
Those currently repaying loans would be able to refinance their outstanding debt at lower rates, a change Clinton's aides say will save an average of $2,000 for 25 million borrowers over the life of the loan — an amount that equal to just about $17 month over a ten year repayment period. She would also expand income-based repayment programs, allowing every student borrower to enroll in a plan that would cap their payments at 10 percent of their income with remaining debt forgiven after 20 years.
Private universities with "modest endowments" that serve a higher percentage of low-income students, including historically black colleges, would also receive federal funds to help lower the costs of attendance and improve graduation rates.
The cost of Clinton's plan would be offset by capping itemized tax deductions for wealthy families at 28 percent, like those taken by high-income taxpayers for charitable contributions and mortgage interest. That proposal, which has long been included in President Barack Obama's annual budget, would raise more than $600 billion in the next decade, according to the Treasury Department.
Clinton's plan would likely face a steep climb in Congress: A $60 billion Obama administration initiative for free community college has gotten little traction.
Even so, college affordability has emerged as a major issue on the presidential campaign trail, as families face the highest debt burden in generations. National student debt is near $1.3 trillion dollars and the average price for in-state students at public four-year universities is 42 percent higher than it was a decade ago, according to the College Board.
In almost every campaign stop, Clinton hears from students and families worried about paying for school. Her team conducted weeks of meetings with experts on the issue to develop their proposal, including policy staffers for liberal leader Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
"There's something wrong when students and their families have to go deeply into debt to be able to get the education and skills they need in order to make the best of their own lives," she told students and teachers at Kirkland Community College in Monticello, Iowa, in April, shortly after announcing her campaign.
Clinton aides believe their plan will help build enthusiasm for her candidacy with younger voters — whose support twice helped catapult Obama into the White House. The policy roll-out is timed for when students return to college campuses. Clinton organizers plan to promote the plan at registration events and other gatherings kicking-off the school year, according to a campaign aide, in an effort to galvanize college students.Kristinn Taylor at The Gateway Pundit on Tuesday….
Twitter is allowing, as of this writing, an account dedicated to assassinating President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence that features as the header image a doctored photo showing Trump dead from gunshot wounds to the head and chest. The account also features photos of purported sniper rifles purchased with the claimed intent of killing Trump and Pence. As reported byat The Gateway Pundit on Tuesday….Twitter is allowing, as of this writing, an account dedicated to assassinating President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence that features as the header image a doctored photo showing Trump dead from gunshot wounds to the head and chest. The account also features photos of purported sniper rifles purchased with the claimed intent of killing Trump and Pence.
The Twitter account handle is “ John Silva@JohnnyKing663 “. The account was opened in January 2017 and has only eight tweets. The first one posted on February 27 reads, “#killtrump Doing it tonight!!!!”
On March 2 the account posted, “Just kidding. Doing it soon though!!!”
That was followed a few minutes later with a photo of two alleged sniper rifles with scopes mounted with the statement, “#AssassinateTrump. Just got me a new JP LRP-07 Long Range Precision sniper rifle off the Darknet. She’s beautiful.”
The account’s last post was Monday mid-day, “got my JP LRP-07. Got it hidden but the time is almost right.”, that was posted as a reply comment o the tweet about Trump and Pence’s blood “staining the concrete.”One of the best parts of that juicy NYT story yesterday about all the infighting in the McCain- Palin campaign was the fact that a huge chunk of the story was given over to exploring who was leaking to sniveling conservative columnist Bill Kristol—a Times columnist! It's pretty unusual for a paper to start digging on its own columnist's confidential sources, but hey, it's Bill Kristol and nobody at the Times likes him, so they just went for it. That prompted some further review by the Daily Beast, which concluded, yep, Bill Kristol is basically just a lackey for political operatives:
As one McCain advisor put it to me: “In the last six weeks there was a remarkable echo. You could listen to arguments made by folks inside of the campaign who were close to Bill Kristol and then open up the New York Times and read them in Kristol’s columns. It was ‘set Sarah free,’ coupled with an agenda designed to appeal to the religious right and the more raucous elements of the party. They got their way often enough, and we started noticing that at many of the Palin functions it was non-stop ‘Sarah, Sarah,’ while John McCain all but vanished. Were they trying to get McCain elected in 2008, or to help Palin on the way to the Republican nomination in 2012? You can’t get yourself into a situation in which anyone can credibly ask that question.”
Bill Kristol is a partisan hack without any redeeming original thoughts, so he just serves as a pipeline for whatever talking points his pet factions of the conservative movement want to get out that day. A good hire. [Daily Beast]Columbus Clippers 4, Syracuse Chiefs 6
Box Score · Clippers fall to 54-56
Everything looked good for the Columbus Clippers heading into the top of the ninth inning. They held a two-run lead with Carlos Frias on the mound to close out the win.
...he allowed a home run and a walk before being pulled, and things that worse from there. The Syracuse Chiefs ended up scoring four that inning, put them up by two; a deficit the Clippers offense could not respond to in the bottom of the frame.
Ronny Rodriguez and Michael Martinez led the Clippers with two hits apiece; the former had the team’s only home run of the game with a third-inning grand slam.
This was supposed to be the year where Adam Plutko showed he can make the jump to the majors, but it hasn’t happened. The 25-year-old carries a 6.91 ERA this season, but he had a nice outing yesterday, striking out two and allowing just two runs in seven innings. Plutko has yet to throw a shutout this season; the two earned runs allowed ties a season-low.
Akron RubberDucks 2, Richmond Flying Squirrels 4
Box Score · RubberDucks fall to 49-48
After a streak of four-straight wins to get above.500, the Akron RubberDucks dropped their first game in almost a week yesterday.
Starting pitcher Thomas Pannone continued his phenomenal season, striking out seven and walking one in five innings. He did allow two runs off a homer, but that was all that crossed the plate under his watch.
Left fielder Luigi Rodriguez went 3-for-4 with a home run, while shortstop Yu-Cheng Chang continued his slow resurgence with a 2-for-3 day, including a double.
Catcher Francisco Mejia is listed as day-to-day with a hip injury.
Lynchburg Hillcats 1, Potomac Nationals 4
Box Score · Hillcats fall to 58-41
The Lynchburg Hillcats started the day with an 8-6 win to complete a previously suspended game. In the second game of the ‘doubleheader’, however, things went much worse.
Lynchburg batters recorded just five hits, four of which came from the bottom four hitters in the batting order. The lone run came off the bat of catcher Daniel Salters.
Starting pitcher Shao-Ching Ching had a complete game (six innings)
Lake County Captains 7, Clinton LumberKings 2
Box Score · Captains improve to 41-57
The Lake County Captains enjoyed a blowout win over the Clinton LumberKings yesterday, thanks in large part to right fielder Mitch Longo continuing to be hot and hitting dingers.
Longo finished the game with just one official at-bat, but he drew four walks. Left fielder Michael Tinsley finished with a team-leading two hits and a double.
Mahoning Valley Scrappers 1, State College Spikes 5
Box Score · Scrappers fall to 20-13
Despite a solid bullpen showing, and eight hits from the offense, the Mahoning Valley Scrappers could not overcome starting pitcher Grant Hockin’s four runs allowed in 3.2 innings.
Shortstop Jesse Berardi led the way with two hits, while second baseman Ernie Clement and right fielder Will Benson had a triple and a double, respectively. Benson may be finally breaking out of his slow start. Over his last six games he’s 9-for-21 with three walks.
The AZL Indians and the DSL Indians had scheduled off-days.We all remember Representative Nancy Pelosi’s infamous statement that we have to pass the ObamaCare legislation so that we can find out what’s in it. That was in 2010 and Mrs. Pelosi was then speaker of the House of Representatives.
Well, Congress followed her advice and passed ObamaCare, formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Three years later, in October of 2013, tens of millions of Americans began finding out what was really in the bill, as they began receiving health insurance cancellations and/or massive premium hikes. They also began to learn that under ObamaCare the IRS has been given new powers to go after them, their businesses, and their bank accounts. And that is only the beginning. As with all legislation, the devil is in the details, and lots of devils keep popping out of the constantly evolving details, as dozens of federal agencies continue churning out thousands of pages of regulations to implement the misbegotten, misnamed Affordable Care Act.
There are many important lessons from ObamaCare that we should apply to another huge project that could have a similarly devastating impact on our nation. In November 2009, President Obama announced his intention to have the United States participate in a so-called trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. I say so-called trade agreement because 80 percent of the proposed agreement deals with a great many issues besides trade.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, as it is called, is an all-out assault on our national sovereignty. It would unconstitutionally transfer legislative powers from the U.S. Congress, our state legislatures, and our city and county governments to multi-national corporations and unaccountable international bureaucrats at the World Trade Organization, or WTO. Incredibly, it also would transfer judicial powers from our federal and state courts — which are bad enough — to globalist TPP judges at regional tribunals and the WTO. It would also confer huge advantages on foreign businesses and large multinationals, while at the same time putting companies that operate here in America — especially small and medium-sized enterprises — at a competitive disadvantage. American businesses would remain shackled by the regulations of EPA, FDA, OSHA, etc. while their foreign competitors could operate here unimpeded by those same strictures.
Like the infamous NAFTA trade agreement passed in the '90s, the TPP would usher in another wave of outsourcing, as the remaining manufacturing and technology bases would be given incentives to move to Pacific Rim countries, resulting in millions more American job losses.
With TPP negotiations on track to be completed by the end of 2013, President Obama will likely ask Congress to approve this trade agreement in early 2014. Contact your senators and representative and urge them to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and see the many additional articles listed below that we’ve published detailing the dangers of the TPP.
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Dangers of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Secret "Trade" Agreement (Video)
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): Assault on Our Sovereignty, Our Constitution, Our Liberty (Video)
TPP Repeats Lies, Deception, Denials of NAFTA, CAFTA, WTO (Video)
WikiLeaks Publishes Key Chapter of Secret TPP Agreement
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Trans-Pacific Partnership Ready for Christmas Delivery?
TPP Secret Trade Agreement Puts International Tribunal Above U.S.
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Goal of TPP: Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP)Scientists have developed an algorithm which can analyse a book and predict with 84 per cent accuracy whether or not it will be a commercial success.
A technique called statistical stylometry, which mathematically examines the use of words and grammar, was found to be “surprisingly effective” in determining how popular a book would be.
The group of computer scientists from Stony Brook University in New York said that a range of factors determine whether or not a book will enjoy success, including “interestingness”, novelty, style of writing, and how engaging the storyline is, but admit that external factors such as luck can also play a role.
By downloading classic books from the Project Gutenberg archive they were able to analyse texts with their algorithm and compare its predictions to historical information on the success of the work. Everything from science fiction to classic literature and poetry was included.
It was found that the predictions matched the actual popularity of the book 84 per cent of the time.
They found several trends that were often found in successful books, including heavy use of conjunctions such as “and” and “but” and large numbers of nouns and adjectives.
Less successful work tended to include more verbs and adverbs and relied on words that explicitly describe actions and emotions such as “wanted”, “took” or “promised”, while more successful books favoured verbs that describe thought processes such as “recognised” or “remembered”.
To find “less successful” books for their tests, the researchers scoured Amazon for low-ranking books in terms of sales. They also included Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, despite its commercial success, because of “negative critiques if had attracted from media”.
“Predicting the success of literary works poses a massive dilemma for publishers and aspiring writers alike,” said Assistant Professor Yejin Choi, one of the authors of the paper published by the Association of Computational Linguistics.
“To the best of our knowledge, our work is the first that provides quantitative insights into the connection between the writing style and the success of literary works.
“Previous work has attempted to gain insights into the ‘secret recipe’ of successful books. But most of these studies were qualitative, based on a dozen books, and focused primarily on high-level content - the personalities of protagonists and antagonists and the plots. Our work examines a considerably larger collection - 800 books - over multiple genres, providing insights into lexical, syntactic, and discourse patterns that characterise the writing styles commonly shared among the successful literature.”Pin +1 Share 59 Shares
Trump gave a speech about the economy at The Economic Club of New York today. Trump emphasized his ability to create jobs and bring prosperity back to the United States.
“Not one single idea she’s got will create one net American job or create one new dollar of American wealth for our workers,” Trump said of Hillary Clinton. “The only thing she can offer is a welfare check. That’s about it. Our plan will produce paychecks and they’re going to be great paychecks for millions of people now unemployed or underemployed.”
“Instead of driving jobs and wealth away, America will become the world’s great magnet for innovation and job creation. My opponent’s plan rejects this optimism. She offers only more taxing and her tax increases are unbelievable. More regulating, more spending, and more wealth redistribution. A future of slow growth, declining incomes and dwindling prosperity. The only people who get rich under Hillary Clinton are the donors and the special interests, but bad for our country. In Hillary Clinton’s America we have surrendered our status as the world’s great economy and we have surrendered our middle class to the whims of foreign countries. We take care of them better than we take care of ourselves. Not one single idea she’s got will create one net American job or create one new dollar of American wealth for our workers. The only thing she can offer is a welfare check. That’s about it. Our plan will produce paychecks and they’re going to be great paychecks for millions of people now unemployed or underemployed.”
CommentsDo you believe that you really think for yourself? Did you come up with your attitudes, opinions and beliefs on your own, or are they continually being shaped and molded by someone else? Could it be possible that you and everyone around you is actually hooked into a real life version of “the matrix” that is constantly defining your reality for you? Sadly, the truth is that almost all of us have willingly hooked ourselves into a colossal media system that literally tells us what to think. In the United States today, the average American watches 153 hours of television a month. We also spend huge amounts of time watching movies, surfing the Internet, reading books and magazines, playing video games and listening to music. Many Americans are so addicted to being “connected” that they will actually become physically uncomfortable if they are at home and there is total silence. Unfortunately, as I pointed out in a previous article, somewhere around 90 percent of the “information” that we are allowing to be endlessly pumped into our heads is owned by just 6 gigantic media corporations. So could it be possible that the thousands of hours of “news and entertainment” that you are allowing these gigantic corporations to fill your head with each year is having an effect on you? Does the mainstream media have more control over you than you ever dreamed possible? If you want to continue on in blissful ignorance, stop reading now, but if you want to take “the red pill”, keep on reading because the further down the rabbit hole you go, the stranger that things get.
When you go to work or to school in the morning, what is everyone talking about?
Usually, people are talking about something that they saw on television or that they heard about in the news.
In our society today, the limited interactions that we do have with other people are usually defined by our mutual connection to the media.
The mainstream media literally defines for us what is important and what is not. If the mainstream media does not talk about something, then it simply does not matter.
I don’t know how many times over the years I have heard someone tell me some version of the following statement: ”If that was true we would have heard about it on the news.”
Has anyone ever said something similar to you?
The funny thing is that most of the time I won’t even mention something important that I may have heard in one of my articles unless I can back it up with a “mainstream source”, and I don’t even trust the mainstream media.
I know that the mainstream media often distorts the facts and often tells outright lies, but I regularly link to them because that gives my articles more “credibility” in the eyes of those that are still fully hooked into the matrix.
In a world where the big media corporations have so much power, is there any hope for us?
As long as the big corporations that control the media are dominating and controlling the conversation, is there any chance that there will ever be a mass awakening among the American people?
Our young people seem particularly addicted to being constantly “connected” to the media matrix that is being constructed all around us. The following is a brief excerpt from a recent article by Daniel Taylor…
According to a 2010 LA Times report, young people spend on average 53 hours a week watching TV, playing video games, and sitting at the computer. Facebook users spend about 15 hours a month on the social networking site. People are walking – and driving – blindly while texting, sometimes walking into fountains and evenfalling off cliffs.
Wow – our young people spend more than 200 hours a month connected to the mainstream media?
But we only have about 480 waking hours a month to work with.
If they are being exposed to that amount of continuous propaganda, what hope do our young people have?
In the old days, kids actually played with each other in the streets and adults actually left their homes to interact with one another.
But these days we spend nearly all of our time sitting passively in our homes staring at flickering screens.
Is that a sign of a healthy society?
We were created to be social creatures. We were designed to love and to be loved. But these days people “love” their favorite sports teams or they “love” their favorite television shows but we have an increasingly difficult time having real relationships with each other.
Meanwhile, the global elite rely on the mainstream media to keep us distracted and to control the boundaries of public discourse. Most of the time, the mainstream media focuses on the latest celebrity scandal or the latest dogfights between the Republicans and the Democrats and they systematically ignore many of the more important things that are taking place out there.
Let me just give you one example of how the mainstream media shapes the news. For decades, there was almost a complete and total media blackout on the Bilderberg Group meetings that happen every year. Top newspaper executives from the United States would actually attend these meetings, but then their newspapers would not say a single word about them.
If anyone out there did bring up “the Bilderberg Group”, they were dismissed as wacky “conspiracy theorists” and were told that it simply does not exist.
Of course now we all know that it does exist, although the mainstream media in the U.S. still mostly ignores it. In fact, this has been by design. The following is what David Rockefeller is alleged to have said during a Bilderberg Group meeting back in 1991…
We are grateful to The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. … It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now much more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.
Even today, many prominent “journalists” in the U.S. mock people when they bring up the Bilderberg Group. For example, Lawrence O’Donnellof MSNBC says that he is “way too lazy” to look into the Bilderberg Group and that he “doesn’t know about it, so it must not exist”.
For much more on the connection between the mainstream media and the global elite, please see this article: “Who Runs The World? Solid Proof That A Core Group Of Wealthy Elitists Is Pulling The Strings“.
Instead of telling us what is really going on in the world, the mainstream media keeps us endlessly distracted. The following are just a few of the headlines that can be found on the front pages of major mainstream news sites right now…
-College student creates condom delivery service
-Michael Douglas is feeling ‘good’
-Golf tournament delayed by kangaroos
-Rock ‘n’ roll hamburger experience
-Lady Gaga cancels tour, set for surgery
Wow – those are some examples of some really hard-hitting journalism right there.
So why do most Americans continue to fall for this nonsense?
Sadly, part of the reason is because we have become so “dumbed down” as a society.
Recently, the Guardian conducted an evaluation of the reading level of every State of the Union address in U.S. history. What they found is that Barack Obama’s State of the Union addresses have had the second lowest reading level average in history, and that in general the reading levels of the speeches have been significantly declining over time.
But it is not just our presidents that appear to be getting stupider. The truth is that our public education system is a total joke at this point. Many of our high school students are as dumb as a rock, and if you can believe it, 23 percent of all Americans cannot even read beyond a fourth-grade level.
Of course the elite are quite pleased with this, because a stupid public is a public that is easier to dominate.
When a large segment of the population can barely read and is accustomed to letting others do their thinking for them, it becomes easier to lie.
For example, on Thursday Paul Krugman of the New York Times made the following statement…
“Growing dependence on government is mostly a myth”
Of course most of you that are reading this know that is a flat-out lie. The charts in this article clearly show that the number of Americans on food stamps is at an all-time high and the percentage of the population that is on food stamps is at an all-time high.
Back in 1983, less than a third of all Americans lived in a household that got money from the federal government each month, Now, an all-time high 49 percent of all Americans live in a home where at least one person receives money from the government each month.
For many more stats and charts that demonstrate the stunning growth of government dependence, please see this article and this article.
Sadly, the truth doesn’t seem to matter too much to the media these days. The mainstream media tends to be incredibly arrogant, and most of the time they don’t even pretend to be “objective” or “neutral” anymore.
Fortunately, more Americans than ever are becoming dissatisfied with the mainstream media and are starting to seek out alternative sources of information. According to a recent Gallup poll, the level of trust that the American public has in the mainstream media is now at an all-time low.
So perhaps there is hope after all.
What do you think?Metal band's drummer singled out for criticism by Park Stage headliners
Mogwai have dismissed Glastonbury headliners Metallica as being “unbelievably bad.”
The Scottish band will headline The Park Stage at Glastonbury on the same night (Saturday) Metallica perform on The Pyramid Stage later this month (June).
PHOTOS: The most viscous put-owns in music
Speaking to Gigwise, the band were not filled with support for their fellow headliners however, instead criticising drummer Lars Ulrich’s technical ability and saying any controversy about their appearance at the festival is because the band are “shite”.
“I can’t wait to hear that guy play the drums again – unbelievably bad,” Barry Burns of the band said. “He’s terrible.”
Meanwhile, frontman Stuart Braitwaite continued: “I just can’t wait until we go all quiet and you can hear ‘Enter Sandman’ in the background, because we’re on at the same time. I don’t really see the fuss. They’re a pretty big rock band and it’s a pretty big rock festival.”
Other artists to pass comment on this year’s Saturday night headliners at the Worthy Farm Festival include Arctic Monkeys, Mick Jagger, Kasabian and Johnny Marr.
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40 Exciting Albums Still To Come In 2014Bones found in the southern California desert are believed to be the remains of a family that went missing in February 2010.
Investigators confirmed Joseph McStay, 40, and his wife, Summer, 43, were found in shallow graves about 60 miles (96km) outside Los Angeles.
Officials presume other remains are those of the couple's sons, but they have not finished their DNA analysis.
The remains were found on Monday by an off-road motorcyclist.
Some of the bones had been dragged to the surface by animals, said police.
The family was at first believed to have crossed the border into Mexico.
Investigators originally thought grainy surveillance video had shown the McStays crossing into Tijuana, Mexico.
'Evidence at scene'
But San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon said there was no proof the family had crossed the border. The couple's death appears to be homicide, he added.
Image caption Michael McStay was distraught over learning his brother was dead It gives us courage to know they're together Michael McStay, Victim's brother
It is not yet clear when the McStays were killed, nor if they were killed in the desert or elsewhere.
But Sheriff McMahon said: "There is investigative evidence that is at the scene that will help complete the investigation."
Officials said the bodies of the McStays had been in the desert for an extended period.
The family left their five-bedroom home in the community of Fallbrook, north of San Diego, California, without telling anyone, leaving their two pet dogs in the backyard.
There was no sign of forced entry at the house and tens of thousands of dollars in the couple's bank accounts went untouched.
Their sport utility vehicle was found near the US-Mexico border.
The San Diego Union Tribune newspaper reported that a search of the family's computer showed that Summer McStay, a housewife, had bought Spanish-language software and someone had looked up passport requirements for children travelling to Mexico.
Joseph McStay's brother, Michael McStay, said it had been a "hard road" for the family not knowing what happened to the couple and their sons, Gianni, four, and Joseph, three.
"It's not really the outcome we were looking for, but it gives us courage to know that they're together and they're in a better place," a tearful Mr McStay said.In 2008, Andre Ethier had a breakout season for the Dodgers, hitting.305/.375/.510 for a team that made it to the National League Championship Series. His.382 wOBA that year was good for 10th among all MLB outfielders, impressive for a player who had spent much of his first two seasons in the big leagues battling lesser players like Luis Gonzalez & Juan Pierre for playing time. The following year, the Dodgers made it back to the NLCS, and Ethier was a huge part of that success; while his wOBA was slightly down to.370 (which still made him a top-20 outfielder), he increased his home runs from 20 to 31 and left behind a string of lasting memories, since it seemed that every time you looked up in 2009, Ethier was hitting a walkoff and being mobbed by teammates at home plate. At 27 years old, Ethier had a career line of.291/.363/.490 in four seasons and had established himself not only as an up-and-coming star but as one of the few feathers in general manager Ned Colletti’s cowboy hat, considering he’d been stolen from Billy Beane & the Athletics when it became clear Milton Bradley had to go after 2005.
While the future may have looked bright for both Ethier and the Dodgers at that point, it hasn’t really worked out that way for either party. The Dodgers, saddled by the whirlwind controversies brought on by the excesses of owner Frank McCourt, went just one game over.500 over the last two seasons, not sniffing the playoffs either time. Ethier, while still relatively productive despite battling injuries, has seen his power all but disappear. A slugging percentage that was.508 in 2009 has fallen to.493 in 2010 and down to.421 in 2011, when he hit just 11 homers and had a.343 wOBA that barely placed him within the top 30 among outfielders.
Ethier’s reputation has been further damaged by what can kindly be described as a salty attitude, including complaining about his contract status & suggesting that he might be non-tendered just before Opening Day 2010 and getting into a very public spat with the team about whether he was being forced to play through a knee injury late last season. Beyond that, his total inability to hit left-handed pitching and his less-than-impressive defensive performance (despite a laughable Gold Glove in 2011) led FanGraphs’ own Mike Axisa, writing at River Ave Blues this winter, to label him as essentially a platoon designated hitter, a description I couldn’t really find much to argue with.
All of which is to say that the outlook on Ethier heading into 2012 isn’t exactly what it was following 2009, and that’s reflected in fantasy drafts so far this season. His ADP at MockDraftCentral is 135th overall and just 35th among outfielders, behind Nick Markakis and just barely ahead of Peter Bourjos. At both MDC and in CBS’ auction values list, he’s seen as being only slightly more valuable than Melky Cabrera, who A) had a career year (.349 wOBA) last year which was only slightly better than Ethier’s sub-par 2011 and B) seems about as likely to repeat that performance as McCourt is to go into business with Bud Selig on a nice little bed-and-breakfast.
Here’s the thing, though: absolutely everything is falling into place perfectly for Ethier to have a huge comeback season, and that potential along with his lessened public profile makes him a very valuable commodity.
Let’s take a closer look at Ethier’s last two seasons to see exactly what happened, because the wheels didn’t just suddenly come off indiscriminately and unreasonably. Through the first 33 games of 2010, Ethier was destroying the ball with a.392/.457/.744 line and 11 homers. Though such a performance is completely unsustainable over a full season, even some regression would have easily allowed him to match or better his two previous excellent seasons. On May 15, Ethier fractured the pinky of his right hand taking batting practice before a game in San Diego and landed on the disabled list. He rushed back as soon as he was eligible to return on May 31 and proceeded to collect just one single in his first fourteen plate appearances; he would hit just.260/.335/.413 with 12 homers over the ensuing 106 games and would later admit that he had returned to action before his finger was ready |
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BEIRUT, June 29 (Reuters) - An offshoot of al Qaeda which has captured territory in Iraq and Syria has declared itself an Islamic "caliphate" and called on factions worldwide to pledge their allegiance, a statement posted on Islamist websites and Twitter said on Sunday.
The move poses a direct challenge to the central leadership of al Qaeda, which has already disowned it, and to conservative Gulf Arab rulers.
The group, previously known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and also known as ISIS, has renamed itself "Islamic State" and proclaimed its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as "Caliph" - the head of the state, the statement said.
"He is the imam and khalifah (Caliph) for the Muslims everywhere," the group's spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani said in the statement, which was translated into several languages and read out in an Arabic audio speech.
"Accordingly, the "Iraq and Sham" (Levant) in the name of the Islamic State is henceforth removed from all official deliberations and communications, and the official name is the Islamic State from the date of this declaration," he said.
The Sunni Muslim militant group follows al Qaeda's hard-line ideology but draws its strength from foreign fighters, battle-hardened from Iraq.
It seeks to re-create a medieval-style caliphate erasing borders from the Mediterranean to the Gulf and deems Shi'ite Muslims to be heretics deserving death.
"It is incumbent upon all Muslims to pledge allegiance to (him) and support him...The legality of all emirates, groups, states, and organizations, becomes null by the expansion of the khalifah's authority and arrival of its troops to their areas," the statement said.
In Syria, the group has alienated many civilians and opposition activists by imposing harsh rulings against dissent, even beheading and crucifying opponents, in areas it controls.
In Iraq it has been accused by rights groups of carrying out mass executions in the northern city of Tikrit and in Lebanon the group claimed a suicide attack at a hotel on Wednesday.
Charles Lister, Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Doha Center, saw considerable significance in the group's declaration.
"Whatever judgments are made in terms of its legitimacy, (the) announcement that it has restored the Caliphate is likely the most significant development in international jihadism since 9/11.
"The impact of this announcement will be global as al-Qaeda affiliates and independent jihadist groups must now definitively choose to support and join the Islamic State or to oppose it."
Gulf Arab states such as Saudi Arabia are likely to be alarmed by the open declaration of a caliphate that challenges their power and the dynastic system on which it rests. Saudi Arabia fought al Qaeda militants for several years, finally crushing their campaign in 2006.
Fighters from the group overran the Iraqi city of Mosul last month in a lightning action and have advanced towards Baghdad. In Syria they have captured territory in the north and east, along the frontier with Iraq.
The group crucified eight rival rebel fighters in Syria, a monitoring group said on Sunday, and it has frequently fought with al Qaeda's Syrian wing and other armed Islamist groups.
Such infighting has killed around 7,000 people in the country so far this year and complicated the three-year uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. (Reporting by Sylvia Westall in Beirut and Ali Abdelaty in Cairo,; editing by Ralph Boulton)Monaco are weighing up a move for Tottenham defender Kyle Walker after switching their sights across North London.
Arsenal’s Bacary Sagna had been a top target for Monaco, who want to sign a new right-back either in January or at the end of the season.
But French sources claim 23-year-old Walker is emerging as Monaco’s number one choice, as Arsenal try to negotiate a new contract with Sagna.
Walker only signed a new Spurs deal in October that committed him to the club until 2019 and it seems highly unlikely he would be sold.
But that may not put Monaco off testing Tottenham’s resolve with a lucrative offer for the 23-year-old England international.
Meanwhile, Jan Vertonghen is not hopeful of making a speedy recovery from his ankle injury.
Tottenham are using blood-spinning methods to try to get Vertonghen, who was at the Liverpool game in a protective boot and using crutches, back as quickly as possible.
But sources close to defender Vertonghen rate his chances of playing over the Christmas and New Year period as extremely slim.
Vertonghen is thought to have set himself a personal target of playing again in roughly four weeks, which would rule him out of the back-to-back games against Manchester United in the Premier League and Arsenal in the FA Cup.Strikes by thousands of primary and high school teachers over underpaid bonuses and low salaries have spread to five counties in Xinyang, Henan Province on Sunday, after similar protests in Heilongjiang Province in late November.Two female teachers out of about ten struck by police in clashes in Huaibin county in Xinyang have been hospitalized, including Wang Ye, a politics teacher at Huaibin Senior High School, Yu Jianwei, Wang's husband and a teacher at the same school, told the Global Times Sunday.Seven teachers arrested on Sunday morning were released by the afternoon, Yang Shufeng, one of the seven teachers told the Global Times."The police said it was an illegal protest and asked us to shoulder the responsibility for it," Yang said.Some 1,000 teachers in Huaibin county gathered with banners reading "Raise salaries. Improve the quality of education" in front of the local government at around 9 am Sunday due to low base wages and undisclosed wage rates for merit bonuses, Yu said. But half of them were dispersed by school leaders.He added that police then attempted to tear down the banners and drag away the protesting teachers that remained. During the clash, his wife and other teachers were injured by the police.The county publicity department told the Global Times that there were only some 100 demonstrators, denying clashes between teachers and police officers, while the publicity head of the local police station said he had no knowledge of the arrests."The monthly salary on average is about 1,600 yuan ($257)," said Yu, who worked for seven years as a senior high school teacher, adding that wages of teachers in primary and junior high schools were lower."In addition, our [living] stipends were often withheld or paid in arrears. Salary deduction sometimes happens in the name of [charitable] donations without our consent," Yu said, adding that Monday classes may be suspended.The latest strike has emerged from other protests in Gushi, Luoshan, Xixian and Shangcheng counties staged since last week.Teachers in Luoshan county of Xinyang reached by the Global Times said the average monthly wage of the protestors ranged from 1,400 to 1,600 yuan, while local housing prices remain around 4,000 yuan per square meter. Minimum wage in counties in Xinyang is 1,100 yuan a month.As to merit bonuses, teachers in Huaibin and Luoshan counties confirmed that they received merit pay for 2014 on Thursday, but did not receive payment from 2010 to 2013."The average salary is low indeed. It may be due to the shrinking fiscal revenue that was the source of merit bonuses," said Guo Dongliang, dean of the Institute of Labor Science under the Ministry of Human Resources and Social SecurityThe brutal, bleak series that has captured the hearts of a generation will come to a brutal, bleak end in November when The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 arrives in cinemas. It is the conclusion of the Hunger Games saga, which has immersed the young in a cleverly realised world of trauma, violence, mayhem and death.
For fans of Suzanne Collins’s trilogy about a young girl, Katniss Everdeen, forced to fight for survival in a country ruled by fear and fuelled by televised gladiatorial combat, this is the moment they have been waiting for.
Since the first book in the trilogy was published in 2008, Collins’s tale has sold more than 65 million copies in the US alone. The films, the first of which was released in 2012, have raked in more than $2bn worldwide at the box office and made a global star of their leading lady, Jennifer Lawrence, who plays the increasingly traumatised Katniss with a perfect mix of fury and resignation. For the huge appeal of The Hunger Games goes deeper than the fact that it’s an exciting tale well told. The generation who came to Katniss as young teens and have grown up ploughing through the books and queuing for the movies respond to her story in a particularly personal way.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 trailer
As to why that might be, the economist and academic Noreena Hertz, who coined the term Generation K (after Katniss) for those born between 1995 and 2002, says that this is a generation riddled with anxiety, distrustful of traditional institutions from government to marriage, and, “like their heroine Katniss Everdeen, [imbued with] a strong sense of what is right and fair”.
“I think The Hunger Games resonates with them so much because they are Katniss navigating a dark and difficult world,” says Hertz, who interviewed 2,000 teenagers from the UK and the US about their hopes, fears and beliefs, concluding that today’s teens are shaped by three factors: technology, recession and coming of age in a time of great unease.
“This is a generation who grew up through 9/11, the Madrid bombings, the London bombings and Islamic State terrors. They see danger piped down their smartphones and beheadings on their Facebook page,” she says. “My data showed very clearly how anxious they are about everything from getting into debt or not getting a job, to wider issues such as climate change and war – 79% of those who took part in my survey worried about getting a job, 72% worried about debt, and you have to remember these are teenagers.
“In previous generations teenagers did not think in this way. Unlike the first-era millennials [who Hertz classes as those aged between 20 and 30] who grew up believing that the world was their oyster and ‘Yes we can’, this new generation knows the world is an unequal and harsh place.”
Writer and activist Laurie Penny, herself a first-era millennial at the age of 29, agrees. “I think what today’s young people have grasped that my generation didn’t get until our early 20s, is that adults don’t know everything,” she says. “They might be trying their best but they don’t always have your best interests at heart. The current generation really understands that – they’re more politically engaged and they have more sense of community because they’re able to find each other easily thanks to their use of technology.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest From left, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint and Daniel Radcliffe in Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban. Photograph: Murray Close/Warner Bros
One of the primary appeals of the Hunger Games trilogy is its refusal to sugarcoat the scenarios Katniss finds herself in. In contrast to JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series, there are no reliable adult figures to dispense helpful advice and no one in authority she can truly trust (notably even the most likeable adult figures in the books tend to be flawed at best and fraudulent at worst). Even her friends may not always have her back, hard as they try – Dumbledore’s Army would probably find themselves taken out before they’d uttered a single counter-curse in the battlegrounds of Panem. At the end of the day, Katniss can only rely on one person, herself.
“Ultimately, the message of the Hunger Games is that everything’s not going to be OK,” says Penny. “One of the reasons Jennifer Lawrence is so good is because she lets you see that while Katniss is heroic, she’s also frightened all of the time. She spends the whole story being forced into situations she doesn’t want to be in. Kids respond because they can imagine what it’s like to be terrified but know that you have to carry on.”
It’s incontestable that we live in difficult times and that younger generations in particular may be more acutely aware that things aren’t improving any time soon, but is it a reach to say that fans of the Hunger Games are responding as much to the world around them as to the books?
Ultimately, the message of The Hunger Games is that everything's not going to be OK Laurie Penny, activist
“At heart the Hunger Games works because it’s a great story with a kick-ass and complicated female lead,” says Saci Lloyd, author of the young adult novel Momentum, which details life in a cruelly divided London of the near future. “I don’t think that the majority of young readers are connecting to it on a political level, but I do think that it taps into their sense of anxiety. It’s clear that today’s teenagers feel a great deal of anxiety, that they’re under a lot of pressure, both internal and external, and that depression rates are rising among teens. There’s a sense that the hyper-connected world can be overwhelming, that there are no clear boundaries any more and today’s teens always have to be ‘on’ – given all that, a girl with a bow and arrow sorting shit out is a lovely story.”
Last week, the Equality and Human Rights Commission painted a dire picture of the prospects of British teenagers relative to previous generations. Louise O’Neill, whose bleak but brilliant Only Ever Yours has struck a huge chord with the millennial generation, agrees that the popularity of dystopian tales such as the Hunger Games is an echo of the times. “Millennials are the first generation unlikely to achieve a higher standard of living than their parents enjoyed. They’ve been priced out of the housing market, unemployment is almost a given and they’ve been saddled with economic debt which they did nothing to accumulate,” she says. “The anger they have about this, coupled with their genuine concern about social, political, and ecological crises, has created an atmosphere of fear and anxiety. That’s why so many of this generation are drawn to dystopian fiction.”
Certainly there’s a sense that the Hunger Games trilogy was very prescient. When the first novel was published in 2008 the global recession was just beginning. Since then we’ve seen economic collapse in Greece, the Arab spring, civil war in Syria, the rise of Isis and the deaths of black men and women at the hands of the police in the US leading to the formation of the Black Lives Matter movement. Small wonder that the Hunger Games, with its tributes and brutal deaths, its armed rebellion in District 13 and its pleas by traumatised citizens for the state to stop killing its citizens, seems less like fantasy fiction and more like a dark reflection of our times.
“What works with the Hunger Games is that it’s really good about the way mass media makes a spectacle of brutality,” says novelist Daniel José Older, whose recent book for young adults, Shadowshaper, is an addictive story of magic, music, art and death on the streets of Brooklyn. “Whenever something awful happens and it gets shown repeatedly on TV, it really does make me think of those books. The idea that today’s teenagers respond so strongly because of what’s happening in the world is a simplification, but what’s interesting about the books is the way in which they take violence seriously and tackle the lasting effects of war and trauma. That’s what gives the work its power and makes it so unsettling.”
The Hunger Games continues to shape today’s stories, on both shelf and screen. Bookshop shelves are stuffed full of dark tales of bleak worlds, from Blood Red Road by Moira Young, to Veronica Roth’s Divergent, while the freshest new show of the year, Mr Robot, available in the UK on Amazon Prime instant video, feels like a New York-set reality-based companion piece to the Hunger Games, similarly driven by paranoia, trauma and betrayal. “Sometimes books arrive at the time you need them,” says Penny. “The Hunger Games is the right book for the right time – which is kind of frightening.”
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 is in cinemas from 19 November
TEEN MOVIES
Star Wars (1977)
The film that shaped a generation. The seventh instalment of the franchise,The Force Awakens, is the other most hotly anticipated movie of 2015.The Breakfast Club (1985)
Generation X is also called Generation Breakfast Club in honour of the John Hughes movies that raised them.
Clueless (1995)
This summer Salon.com chose Clueless and its upbeat heroine Cher Horowitz as the film that marked the move from “Gen X angst to millennial optimism”.
Harry Potter (1997)
The other huge influence on early millennials – JK Rowling’s books, and the subsequent films – taught a generation to believe in magic and the power of friendship.Looking for news you can trust?
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On Tuesday, life came at John Carman fast.
Nearly 10 months after the New Jersey Republican legislator shared a meme asking if the historic Women’s March would be “over in time” for its participants to “cook dinner,” a woman and first-time political candidate who expressed anger over the sexist remarks has ousted Carman from office.
Democrat Ashley Bennett will now take Carman’s seat on the Atlantic County Board of Freeholders, a nine-member governing body that oversees politics in the South Jersey county. She was one of thousands of women around the country to dive into politics after Trump’s victory last year
“I was angry about [the Facebook meme], because elected officials shouldn’t be on social media mocking and belittling people who are expressing their concerns about their community and the nation,” Bennett said in October.
Last month, Carman drew fresh outrage for sporting a Confederate flag patch in the shape of New Jersey on his denim vest. He denied the racist implications of the patch, calling it the “South Jersey Rebel Patch.”
Here’s Carman’s Facebook post reacting to Tuesday’s loss:The Grizzlies have given Lionel Hollins permission to speak to other teams after initial talks between Memphis and the coach stalled over what one source described as "major philosophical differences."
Hollins' contract with the Grizzlies expires at the end of the month. Both he and the team have said they hoped he would return to build on the most successful season in franchise history. But initial conversations on a new contract haven't been productive, leading the Grizzlies to give him permission to speak with other teams on Sunday.
The Brooklyn Nets and Los Angeles Clippers each have interest in Hollins, but no team has formally requested permission to speak to Hollins yet, a source familiar with the situation said Sunday.
Hollins told ESPN last month that Grizzlies management came to him during the first round of the playoffs to assure him that the franchise wanted to bring him back.
"The only conversations we've had is they said they wanted me back," Hollins told ESPN during the second round of the playoffs. "After we lost the first two games to the Clippers, we had a friendly conversation about the series and how they just wanted me personally to know that regardless of what's being said out there, this is how they felt. That was great."
Grizzlies point guard Mike Conley expressed a similar sentiment in an interview with ESPN last month.
"I know that he's fought for me in every situation that he's had to. I can't even put enough words in the sentences to say how much it means to me," Conley said. "Now I'm trying to go to bat for him, try and keep him here."
ESPN.com's Marc Stein reported in early April that Grizzlies management wants to retain Hollins, even after the coach's initially angry reaction to the late-January trade of Rudy Gay to Toronto. Yet it remains to be seen how much Memphis is willing to spend to keep him.
Doubts about Hollins' willingness to work for new Grizzlies owner Robert Pera and CEO Jason Levien have likewise been in circulation since the coach's multiple critiques of the Gay deal in its immediate aftermath. Sources told ESPN.com that Hollins' relationship with star forward Zach Randolph has been strained at times throughout the season as well.
Stein reported last month that assistant coach Dave Joerger would receive strong consideration to take over if Hollins departs.
Information from ESPN.com's Marc Stein was used in this report.by
J. D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy became a best seller, and the author was a media presence during the 2016 presidential campaign. Hillbilly Elegy blends a story with a message. The story is a memoir featuring a vivid portrait of Vance’s dysfunctional family. The message purports to draw social and political lessons from the memoir.
There is substantial overlap between Vance’s profile and mine. Both of us grew up in Appalachia and have Scotch-Irish ancestry. Our families were poor. (My father was a coal miner.) Each of us was the first in his family to earn a college degree: Vance from Ohio State University and I from West Virginia University. Each of us went on to another more prestigious institution: Vance to Yale and I to Oxford. Both of us left Appalachia after completing our education. Vance has become a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley. I became a Philadelphia lawyer (now retired).
One striking difference between Vance and me is that I did not have a dysfunctional family. Vance’s racy account of his family is entertaining in a cringe-worthy way but will not seem novel to anyone who is familiar with Jesco White and his family, who were chronicled in the videos “Dancing Outlaw” and “The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia.”
One may doubt, therefore, that the family story alone would have landed Hillbilly Elegy on the bestseller list or Vance on the television screen. More likely, it was the political message that made Vance and his book the darling of The National Review and like-minded media outlets. As summarized by Mona Charen in The National Review:
Though the name Donald Trump is never mentioned, there is no doubt in the reader’s mind that the people who populate this book would be enthusiastic Trumpites. But the book is far deeper than an explanation of the Trump phenomenon (which it doesn’t, by the way, claim to be). It’s a harrowing portrait of much that has gone wrong in America over the past two generations. *** The American character has been corrupted by multiple generations of government dependency and the loss of bourgeois virtues like self-control, delayed gratification, family stability, thrift, and industriousness. Vance has risen out of chaos to the heights of stability, success, and happiness.
In other words, government dependency has produced the ills of Appalachia, but Vance’s story shows that such ills can be overcome simply by rejecting the dependency and adhering to “bourgeois virtues.”
I suspect that Vance intended Hillbilly Elegy to be interpreted in that way, but there are internal contradictions. Consider, for example, the following excerpt:
Of course, the reasons poor people aren’t working as much as others are complicated, and it’s too easy to blame the problem on laziness. For many, part-time work is all they have access to, because the Armcos of the world are going out of business and their skill sets don’t fit well in the modern economy.
The more telling contradictions are found in Vance’s personal story. His climb from Appalachian poverty began with a stint in the Marine Corps — a government program. After that, he acknowledges, “the GI Bill [another government program] paid for a significant chunk of my education” at Ohio State. When he was accepted by the Yale Law School, he found that “the financial aid package Yale offered exceeded my wildest dreams. In my first year, it was nearly a full ride. That wasn’t because of anything I’d done or earned — it was because I was one of the poorest kids in school.”
Vance may have “risen out of chaos to the heights of stability, success, and happiness,” as Mona Charen put it, but his talent and industriousness had plenty of government and institutional support. As Vance finally acknowledges:
I had Pell Grants and government-subsidized low-interest student loans that made college affordable, and need-based scholarships for law school. I never went hungry, thanks at least in part to the old-age benefits that Mamaw generously shared with me.
Hillbilly Elegy also notes that Appalachia’s economic woes may not be the result of government programs. For example:
Efforts to reinvent downtown Middletown always struck me as futile. People didn’t leave because our downtown lacked trendy cultural amenities. The trendy cultural amenities left because there weren’t enough consumers in Middletown to support them. And why weren’t there enough well-paying consumers? Because there weren’t enough jobs to employ those consumers. Downtown Middletown’s struggles were a symptom of everything else happening to Middletown’s people, especially the collapsing importance of Armco Kawasaki Steel.
Hillbilly Elegy paints an accurate picture of hopelessness and despair in Appalachia but fails in its attempt to blame that on a culture of dependency created by government programs. It relies on tales of welfare recipients unwilling to work and users of food stamps who have phones that the young Vance cannot afford, an argument that is not unlike Reagan’s citation of “welfare queens” as evidence that abuses by some beneficiaries of a program justify its elimination.
Some reviews of Hillbilly Elegy have been neutral about its message. For example, Jennifer Senior in The New York Times wrote: “Mr. Vance doesn’t have all the answers. But he’s advancing the conversation.” I have found only two reviews in major publications that were hostile to the message — one by Sarah Jones in The New Republic and another by Alec MacGillis in The Atlantic. Jones wrote that the book “is little more than a list of myths about welfare queens repackaged as a primer on the white working class. Vance’s central argument is that hillbillies themselves are to blame for their troubles.” Jones asked, “How do you get off the dole when there’s not enough work to go around? Frequently, you don’t.”
MacGillis was more illuminating, writing that Vance is wrong
that the burden of fixing things falls entirely on his people. The problems he describes—the reasons life in Middletown got tougher for his mom’s generation than it was for Mamaw and Papaw when they came north for work—have plenty to do with decisions by “governments or corporations.” The government and corporations have presided over the rise of new monopolies, the effect of which has been to concentrate wealth in a handful of companies and regions. The government and corporations welcomed China into the World Trade Organization; more and more economists now believe that move hastened the erosion of American manufacturing, by encouraging U.S. companies to shift operations offshore.
The government and corporations each did their part to weaken organized labor, which once boosted wages and strengthened the social fabric in places like Middletown. More recently, the government has accelerated the decline of the coal industry, on environmentally defensible grounds but with awfully little in the way of remedies for those affected.
I agree with Vance that there is a sense of despair in Appalachia, but I vehemently disagree with his diagnosis that government programs are the cause and his implied prescription that government withdrawal would enable Appalachians to throw off their dependency and recover a mythical past of prosperity and happiness.
I wonder whether my disagreements with Vance may be related to another difference in our profiles. I grew up when Roosevelt’s New Deal was lifting the prosperity, spirits and aspirations of my family and our neighbors. Vance experienced the Reagan-Bush-Clinton years when government became “the problem, not the solution.”
Like Vance, I rose from poverty to success and relative affluence. Unlike Vance, I want the ladders he and I used to remain available, and I would provide more assistance to those whose circumstances or condition prevent their using any ladder.Bono has defended U2's use of overseas tax breaks, saying wealthy people who do not take advantage of them are being "stupid in business".
The band employs “smart people” to make “sensible” decisions about how much tax they should pay, the singer said as he justified basing some of U2’s business affairs in the Netherlands where the tax rate on royalty earnings is far lower than in their native Ireland.
According to his bandmate, The Edge, the decision is logical because U2 perform and record outside Ireland so there is no reason for them to base all of their affairs in Ireland.
The pair spoke to Sky News on the eve of their first tour in four years, which began this week in Vancouver.
Asked about U2’s tax affairs, Bono said: “The smart people that we have working for us are trying to just be sensible about the way we’re taxed. That’s just one of our companies, by the way.
“And we pay a fortune in tax, just so people know. We pay a fortune in tax and we’re happy to pay a fortune in tax – people should.
“Because you’re good at philanthropy, I think, and because I’m an activist, people think you should be stupid in business. I don’t run with that.”
• Gary Barlow apologises for tax row
• Vivienne Westwood accused of hypocrisy over offshore tax base
• Twitter turns on Jimmy Carr over tax scheme
The Edge added: “So much of our business is outside of Ireland, it’s ridiculous to make a big deal about the fact that we operate outside of Ireland. Everything we do is outside of Ireland.”
A recent rich list put U2’s combined wealth at £431 million. Their last tour, which ended in 2011, was the highest-grossing of all time, playing to more than three million fans and raking in an estimated £445 million.
The new Innocence & Experience tour is more modest.
It marks Bono’s return to performing after falling off his bicycle in New York’s Central Park last November. He broke his arm in six places, requiring five hours of surgery.
The singer said: “There’s nothing at all cool about falling off your pushbike. I have a titanium elbow. I just feel so stupid.”When Lauren Ash and her friends heard that Mayor Rob Ford invited everyone in Toronto to his mother’s Etobicoke home for a barbecue, they immediately decided they would attend. Ash saw the open invitation as a good opportunity for members of the LGBT community to meet the mayor and talk to him about issues in their community.
Ford welcomes guests to his annual barbecue last year. He told a radio audience Thursday that he was inviting the "whole city" this year, for an event that will include hot dogs, hamburgers, beer, pop and even pony rides for kids. ( LUCAS OLENIUK / TORONTO STAR )
“He’s been too busy to attend our events, so why not bring the event to him?” Ash said. “We don’t want anyone to cause any trouble. We want to be respectful. This is his private property… we just want to show up as invited guests,” Ash said. Ford missed this year’s Pride parade, officially to go to his family cottage, an annual tradition.
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The mayor invited the “whole city” to his annual Ford Fest barbecue during a radio interview with Newstalk1010 on Tuesday. Ford told the radio audience the Sept. 7 event at Diane Ford’s Weston Wood Rd. home will be “a great time,” with hot dogs, hamburgers, beer, pop and even pony rides for kids. Ash and her friends created a Facebook event to get other people on board with their plan. A few hours after its creation, more than 3,500 people had been invited to a “Backyard Pride Parade at Rob Ford’s.” “Bring your Pride in whatever form you like and let’s show Rob what our community is all about! Above all, let’s keep this peaceful, fun, and political,” the event’s description says.
Ash and fellow organizer Leigh Williams said the group hasn’t figured out the logistics yet. They may meet and walk to the Ford house together or arrive in a big pink bus. “We just want to take part in the diversity the Fords are trying to create at this event and represent our community,” Williams said.
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Read more about:Much to the dismay of panda lovers around the world, the National Zoo's panda cams are down.
"The cams (incl. the panda cams) require federal resources, especially staff, to run. They have not been deemed essential during a #shutdown," the National Zoo tweeted Monday afternoon.
The zoo is part of the Smithsonian network of museums, galleries and research facilities, which are 70 percent funded by federal money. The two panda cams are among the zoo's 15 live web cams.
Thousands of viewers log on each day to check in on female panda Mei Xiang and the cub she gave birth to on Aug. 23. At times, traffic has grown so heavy that the website had to limit viewing time.
Healthy panda cub at the National Zoo
The National Zoo is one of four zoos in the country that feature live-streaming panda cams. It's not the most exciting webcast, because pandas prefer to spend their days eating and sleeping, but that doesn't stop true fans from logging in.
"There are people that are panda lovers, so they really take an interest and want to see what they are doing. There are several hundreds who watch for hours at a time," Memphis Zoo spokeswoman Laura Doty explained to CBSNews.com. The Memphis Zoo also has a panda cam.
After the National Zoo's announcement, panda cam fans quickly took to Facebook to express their dismay. "A world without the panda cam is a world without happiness," wrote Caitlin Bauer.
"Congress, get your act together. For the love of the baby panda," pleaded Lauren Jenkins.
Among hundreds of comments about loving animals and hating politics, Facebook user Mark Haycook raised a good question: "Why would you stop the panda cam?" he asked. "It costs nothing to keep running. Typical misuse of the public trust to make a political point."
Panda diaries: Behind the scenes with a baby panda
Funding does not appear to be the issue here, because the National Zoo's panda cams are sponsored by the Ford Motor Company Fund, as part of a two-year, $400,000 grant to study giant panda health. The majority of the grant covers research into disease transmission, but the cameras are factored in.
"The new system will continuously record the pandas, allowing behavior research to continue even while researchers are not physically at the David M. Rubenstein Family Giant Panda Habitat, and enable virtual Zoo visitors to watch live video of Mei Xiang and Tian Tian on any smart phone and tablet PC," Ford announced in a 2012 press release.
So if funding isn't the main hurdle in keeping the cameras on, it must be staff salaries. But the Zoo's cameras are operated by volunteers.
The Zoo's announcement said that the cameras were not deemed essential. Only essential staff, mostly animal caretakers and security guards, will be permitted on Zoo grounds during the shutdown. Non-essential staff are furloughed, along with volunteers.
On Facebook, users wondered if Congress fully understood the fallout of the shutdown.
"If Congress knew they were risking the shut down of the Panda Cam if a resolution wasn't passed, I think things would be moving a LOT faster!," wrote Drew Winner. "I could care less about anything else they are trying to tack on, but PLEASE don't let me suffer even one day without the Panda Cam!!!"
Winner doesn't have to stay completely in the dark. He can always watch the panda cams from Zoo Atlanta, the San Diego Zoo, and Memphis Zoo.
"This isn't really going to effect hardcore panda fans," Doty said. "The real panda lovers check them out all four cameras."Nearly 50 years after The Beatles invaded America, a new collection of unreleased Fab Four radio show recordings is set for release.
In 1994, Apple Records issued "Live at the BBC," a two-CD collection of 69 songs and promo bits that The Beatles performed live on BBC radio between 1962 and 1965. The set included performances of oldies like "The Hippy Hippy Shake," "Johnny B Goode," and "Glad All Over," as well as unreleased John Lennon and Paul McCartney composition "I'll Be on My Way."
The reliable Beatlefan magazine and WogBlog are reporting that "Live at the BBC, Vol. 2" will arrive in stores on Oct. 3 from Universal Music, which now distributes Apple.
BBC radio had a practice of erasing and reusing their tapes, which meant most of the Beatles appearances were lost. However quite a few were preserved by listeners taping the shows at home and BBC transcription records, which were sent to radio stations abroad.
According to WogBlog, the BBC launched a campaign last year asking the public to bring those home recordings to the BBC for review.
The new batch of BBC recordings will coincide with an upcoming book, which will detail those radio sessions. "The Beatles: The BBC Archives: 1962-1970" is written by BBC and Beatles expert Kevin Howlett. It will be published on Oct. 10 by Random House.Oakland OKs $1.2 million settlement in fatal shooting by police
Shay Money and Irene Haines hold up signs during a march in protest of the shooting of Demouria Hogg by Oakland Police on Saturday, in Oakland, Calif., on Friday, June 12, 2015. Shay Money and Irene Haines hold up signs during a march in protest of the shooting of Demouria Hogg by Oakland Police on Saturday, in Oakland, Calif., on Friday, June 12, 2015. Photo: Mathew Sumner, Special To The Chronicle Photo: Mathew Sumner, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Oakland OKs $1.2 million settlement in fatal shooting by police 1 / 1 Back to Gallery
The family of a man shot and killed by Oakland police last |
homeland security adviser; Brock Long, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency; and Elaine Duke, who took over Homeland Security on an acting basis when Trump named John Kelly his chief of staff.
Trump’s nominee to head Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, worked for the agency during the Bush administration.
“Republicans who have White House experience or broader administration experience, they either got it under Bush 43, or they’re pretty old,” said Josh Bolten, White House chief of staff under Bush. “So it’s a natural place to look. It is the farm system.”
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On Twitter follow Ken Thomas at @KThomasDC and Catherine Lucey at @Catherine_Lucey.Four people, including a 34-year-old with two similar convictions in the past 15 months, have been fined a total of more than $22,000 for illegal hunting and unlawful outfitting.
The charges date back to Nov. 8, when conservation officers stopped a truck about 66 kilometres south of Red Pheasant First Nation, in the Biggar area. According to provincial government news release, the officers found four men inside the truck, including two American hunters. They also found two rifles, one of which was loaded, plus loose shells on the floor and on the back seat.
After all four were arrested and taken to the Biggar RCMP detachment, the two hunters said in a sworn statement that they were “actively hunting” with their guides and that their firearms were loaded at the time they were stopped.
Appearing Dec. 7 in Biggar provincial court, Elliot Meechance, 34, of North Battleford, pleaded guilty and was fined $10,000 for guiding without a licence and aiding and abetting unlawful hunting. He was also fined $1,650 for driving while disqualified. Meechance had two previous convictions for unlawful outfitting activities.
Tyson Adams, 25, of the Sweetgrass First Nation, pleaded guilty and was fined $7,000 for guiding without a licence and aiding and abetting unlawful hunting.
Jack Strange and Dave Nelson, both from Pleasanton, Texas, were each fined $1,880 for unlawful hunting and carrying loaded firearms in a vehicle. Their rifles and hunting equipment were returned after the hunters paid their fines.
The truck was towed and impounded at the scene.Julia Cordray, one of the founders of Peeple, an app on which you judge humans on the internet, is upset that she has been judged, on the internet.
Ms. Cordray and her best friend Nicole McCullough announced that they are launching a new app in November, wherein you give people you know star ratings.
This caused outrage and shock as people worried that their app would be nothing more than a platform for bullying.
Some were quick to point out that human beings are judged enough online without an app specifically for that purpose.
In fact, many have taken to their Facebook page to tell the two women what they think of their creation.
One person wrote: "One of my clients is a counsellor and your app is probably going to allow him to retire from the droves of people that are about to get their lives destroyed by your app. To be honest it is going to be pretty interesting to see how much of a legal disaster this turns into, might be a lesson for everyone else,"
"This is not Yelp for people. This is a harassment tool for abusers. You can talk about all the planned safeguards you want, but abusers live to game systems."
Another said: "We get that there may be folks out there who also think this is just a grand idea, but surely SURELY you can appreciate the ground-swell of hundreds of thousands of people who think this is just an appalling idea?? Doesn't it make you stop and think?"
And another: "This is not Yelp for people. This is a harassment tool for abusers. You can talk about all the planned safeguards you want, but abusers live to game systems, and you're handing them the biggest present they could ever hope for, guaranteed."
There are ruder posts that we will not reproduce, that just proves that however hard you try, if you provide a platform for people to give their views, some will abuse it.
Julia Cordray did not enjoy getting a taste of her own medicine and posted on her Facebook page:
"Anyone know how to prevent people from posting on the comments on a company Facebook page? I know how to prevent people from posting on our page just not commenting on our posts."
This caused someone else on their Facebook page to write: "If you can't keep up with this page how in the hell are you going to be able to moderate this monstrosity once it is nationwide?"
A perhaps valid concern - we'll see if and when the app launches in November.By Rachel Kimbrough*
Far as I can tell, you spend the first 18 years of your life not knowing what the fuck is happening, and the rest of your life trying to figure out what the fuck happened. My private nickname for my mother has been “Crazy Ma” for as long as I’ve been a thinking person. That used to be a term of endearment. Now that I’m a little older it’s just accurate.
Ma built her relationship with her children on fear instead of love or loyalty. Kids grow up. Stop being afraid. What’s left after that is: nothing.
My sister is now employing the same tactic with her own son, lacks the foresight to understand that what will be left of her relationship with him will soon be: nothing. My family denies the responsibility of telling the kid’s totally-not-crazy father, my sister’s ex, what my nephew’s home life is actually like. History repeats itself.
Recently I was driving home from work. I’d just received an update about Crazy Ma’s and my sister’s latest bullshit. I was fuming, white-knuckled at the steering wheel, eyes brimming with hot, bitter tears. I’d chewed the inside of my mouth so that it felt like raw hamburger meat against my tongue, left a metallic aftertaste.
And I kept being pissed when I just missed a green light, let out this stupid Johnson-County-bitch grunt at the world in general for not allowing me to reach my home about 30 seconds faster than I now would. I lit another cigarette.
A little boy and a woman caught my eye, bumping around the clear bus stop gazebo at the street corner farthest from me. I couldn’t see exactly what was happening for a second—the boy, probably about 4, was holding a metal pole and hitting the back side of the pavilion with it. Every so often the woman would gently put her hand over his and bump the pole around for him.
As they made their way around the side of the pavilion, he held his other hand in front of his face, palm-out, like a mime. His eyes were closed. He inched forward, wagging the walking stick in front of him, his outstretched palm and stick contacting the edge of the pavilion simultaneously. He walked around the structure instead of crashing into it. The woman recognized the achievement with applause.
They bonked around that way for a minute or so, turned the corner. I, mesmerized, snapped out of it only when the fellow in the truck behind me honked angrily at my not going at a green light—outraged that he, too, may now be home 30 seconds later.
I arrived home soon thereafter, chewed on what I’d just seen, a sight at once sad and somehow sweet. And I got to thinking about Crazy Ma and bipolar disorder and chronic depression and schizophrenia, got to thinking about my sister and bipolar disorder and PTSD and depression and desperation. Two women who never chose to be born with a condition or conditions, but just seem to have them anyway. Two women who will never change if nothing changes.
I called my nephew’s dad and told him everything.
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*Rachel Kimbrough is a writer and poet who lives near Kansas City, Kansas, with her son. Her first story for Tell Your True Tale was Smashing Plates, published in January, 2011.
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More fab TYTT stories:
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If you liked this story, please share it:And he believes the controversial track in Yeongam, which was only signed off this week at the 11th hour by the sport's governing body, is going to favour Red Bull over McLaren and Ferrari.
"It will be closer than last weekend in Suzuka as it is not quite so aero-dependent, but I still fancy Red Bull to win," Chandhok told Telegraph Sport.
"I think Korea is another Red Bull circuit. They proved by the end of Japan that they were a good half a second clear of the McLarens and Ferraris.
"In two weeks that is impossible to catch up, regardless of how many new parts you throw on a car."
Hamilton trails Red Bull's championship leader Mark Webber by 28 points going in to Korea, with Button a further three points adrift.
And while both Britons have talked up their chances this week, predicting that the circuit's characteristics should suit their car, Chandhok is not convinced.
"It does have three long straights, which will help McLaren, but from turn four it's basically just left-handers all the way home and gets a bit more fiddly - slow-speed, second-gear stuff, camber changes - which will play more into Red Bull's hands," he said.
"Fernando [Alonso] could hustle it up and get closer to them and actually I fancy [Renault's Robert] Kubica to do well again in Korea. He is a real street fighter and this kind of track will suit him.
"What could be interesting, though, is the start. Red Bull may well lock out the front row and still not be leading by the time we reach T4 because of the straights in that first sector.
"That would make it very interesting. I know it is something that Mark is thinking about because he told me when he asked me what the circuit was like."
There has been speculation that the Korean International Circuit, which is built on marshland about 300 miles south of Seoul, could prove hazardous.
The final layer of asphalt was laid only last week, even though FIA regulations stipulate that F1 tracks "should" be signed off at least 90 days in advance of grands prix, in order to allow a bedding-in period and some minor racing before the F1 circus arrives.
Chandhok, though, poured cold water on those fears as well as suggestions that the whole event will prove chaotic.
"Let's not kid ourselves, there will be teething problems, as there are in any new facility," said the Indian, who has been replaced by Sakon Yamamoto at Hispania Racing Team for financial reasons but remains confident of finding a race seat for 2011.
He added: "However, I don't think for one second that it will be disastrous. When I was there we went to the media centre and the internet was up and running. A lot of the rumours have been inaccurate.
"Nor do I think it will be dangerous. The grip levels will be lower perhaps than they might be in six weeks' time as it takes time for all the oil to come to the surface.
"If it is slippery then that will probably favour Red Bull, as downforce then becomes king. But we won't know for sure until [practice on] Friday."Fixing Bent Pins on AMD's Ryzen PGA CPUs
If you follow Hardware Canucks on Twitter (and you should!) youll know that a few weeks ago I shipped a Ryzen 7 1700X processor to Anthony aka AkG- and lets just say that things didnt quite go as planned. Even though it was securely packaged in a padded, form-fitting box and then packaged in another secondary motherboard box, the darn thing opened, spilling its precious cargo directly into harms way.
Long story short, the processor came out of the incident looking like it just got into a fight with Floyd Mayweather and was knocked out in the first round. Its pins were bent beyond recognition and it looked as dead as any processor had a right to be. However I was determined to get some content out of the newly minted paperweight.
Many of us old timers who have experience with AMDs processors have undergone the heart stopping moment when the CPU slips out of your hand and crashes into a hard surface. Like butter always lands bread-side down, the same old adage has been applied to AMD PGA CPUs too; if it drops those pins will hit first. But all is not lost since years of handling PGA processors has led to enthusiasts developing some pretty effective ways to repair bent pins and potentially restore and otherwise bricked processor to perfect working order. So what follows is his journey into the world of fixing the unfixable. -Ed.
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Fixing a PGA processor with bent pins may seem like a tall order at first but it is actually quite straightforward: use patience, determination and a steady hand without snapping anything off. But lets first discuss what PGA really is and why some were surprised that AMD decided to go this route with their Ryzen processors rather than LGA.
Without getting into a heated debate on the merits of Pin Grid Array vs Land Grid Array, the arguments for and against each of these two connector types boil down to one simple choice. Do you want the 'pins' on the motherboard or the CPU itself? Basically a PGA processor has its interface pins mounted in a pretty vulnerable position, right on its exposed underbelly. In AMDs case those pins then slide into receptacles on the motherboard socked and are then lucked in place with a simple lever. LGA on the other hand boasts a completely flat CPU surface whereas the pins are recessed within the motherboards socket area.
Since system builders always manipulate the processors more frequently than the motherboard it seems logical that LGA-based designs tend to be safer solutions. This is why AMDs move to retain a PGA design for Ryzen came as something as a surprise when we first saw it. Nonetheless, here we are with a ton of work to do.
Recently I had a perfect example of the inherent weakness of Pin Grid Array in action as it appears that UPS used our Ryzen 7 1700X's shipping container in a weekend Rugby tournament. Yes, it is pretty much toast. Or is it?
The main proponents of PGA state that re-bending pins into proper alignment is easier when they are on the CPU rather than part of the motherboard itself. Of course, LGA proponents point out that damaging pins on a motherboard but not causing any damage to the motherboard itself is a lot more difficult. Both sides of this argument do make good points, but as the old saying goes: the proof of the pudding is in the eating. So with such a golden opportunity presented to us, a more in-depth investigation is warranted. After all, this chip is a write-off so before we throw it in the trash bin or use for target practice let's walk you through the method of straightening those pins in an effort to get this little guy working again.
Straightening Pins the HWC Way
The first time anyone is presented with a damaged CPU can be rather scary. They have just spent a boat load of their money and now are facing the prospect of having to spend even more to fix their mistake. This certainly could be called a 'learning experience' but maybe things are not as bad as they first appear. Maybe spending double what they had budgeted for the CPU is not necessary. Maybe only a little bit of time and effort is all that is needed.
Over the years I have straightened dozens of bent CPU pins. Maybe even hundreds. Like anything practice does make perfect, but this experience may have colored our opinion of PGA so please take that into consideration when reading this article. I'm biased towards consumer-friendly devices and this certainly isn't the case with a PGA processor. You may feel differently. Some people love collecting stamps, others love spending an afternoon fixing tenth of an inch thick pins, one by one, by one. I would rather be using the CPU for something more constructive.
So these are the parts you will need. They will not cost a fortune, and are easily sourced out. If you plan on seriously getting into PC building they are good to have in your tool chest. Please consider these recommendations based on experience rather than being absolutely necessary since the same job can be done with a sewing needle or any other small device. I say this as there are numerous methodologies out there showing how to do this. This is simply the fastest, easiest way I have found through hard won experience. Your experiences may prove to be different than mine.
The list of parts you will need is:
- One pair of thin tipped tweezers
- One metal spudger used for 'iPhone' screen repairs
- One dual sided wooden cuticle pusher
- One bottle of aspirin
- One small magnifying glass (optional)
- A lot patience
- Enough adult beverage of choice to keep you calm and carrying on
- Even more patience
- A busted CPU
- The ability to resist the urge to throw the CPU in the garbage
Most of these parts are fairly self-evident on why they have been included but let's run down why I feel they are important. You will notice no credit cards, no mechanical pencils, nor even tooth picks in this list. This is because while all those methods and tools do work they are not as optimal a solution as the method I'm going to outline.
Before I do though, let's say I'm going to use a scale of 1 to 10 to describe how damaged pins typically are. This scale ranges from minor (aka 'no problem, be done in a jiffy') to major (aka 'you got to be kidding me, why god why?!') with '5' being the most common level of damage (aka'mostly dead'). The more pins that are bent the lower your chances of success, but one '10' is not the same as a half a CPU of easy fixes. Your success will vary greatly depending on the level of damage done to each pin. This particular processor was a solid 8 in my books.
Generally speaking however, the more pins bent the worse the odds of finishing with a working CPU are. All it takes is one broken pin to turn a mostly dead CPU into a truly dead trashcan item. If you do not feel comfortable taking this chance bring it to an expert who has experience in these kinds of fixes.
The tweezers are mainly used only in cases of extreme damage. Consider them the weapon of last resort in your repair kit. If you have to break out the tweezers the chances of success are low. Based on personal experience you will have about a 60/40 chance of not breaking a pin but the chances of success are actually higher than with the other methods. Not any pair of tweezers will do. They must fit in between the pins and yet still be strong enough to avoid flexing at the tips. This is because they are used to straighten extremely bent pins without putting too much strain on the pin's base structure.
These pins are somewhat malleable but their tensile strength is about the same as a thin reed they will flex and bend somewhat but can break on you at the worst possible time. This is especially true when the pins have already received a rather significant trauma.
To minimize unneeded stress, place the tips of the tweezers directly over the epicenter of the bend and gently straighten the pin. This is a delicate operation you are performing. Do not do this quickly or forcefully. Take your time and gently coerce the misbehaving miscreant back on the straight and narrow path.
The spudger on the other hand is your go to weapon of choice. We recommend a metal spudger instead of the plastic ones as they are thinner (so they fit between the rows easier) and yet not as flexible as the plastic models. This tool can easily fix minor damage to pins all on its own but it is mainly used in conjunction with the cuticle pusher as a support tool. Nevertheless, the spduger's role is vital and the three dollars it costs (
To use this tool on its own, for minor bends only, simply place it in a row of pins and move it up or down the row. When you come to a pin that is bent you will feel the resistance increase. Angle it up while moving forward and this will get underneath the bend in then pin and straighten it. After you have done every row rotate the chip 90-degrees and repeat the process. Even on a Ryzen CPU with 1,331 pins this will only take you a few moments, but do not rush things. If you go too fast you may notice the increase in resistance and actually make a slightly bent pin worse.
When dealing with severely damaged pins you do not use the metal spudger on its own. Instead when you come to a bent pin and try this trick you will find that the misbehaving pin simply will not straighten. It may bend somewhat but not enough to be considered straight. This is fine so don't panic.
Take a close look at this bent pin, preposition the spudger into your non-dominant hand and place the spudger so that it is directly behind the damaged pin with the bend pointing away from the spudger. As the spudger covers many pins we recommend placing the bent pin in the middle. While doing this grab your wooden cuticle pusher with your dominant hand and gently -using a slight lifting motion - bend it back into alignment while using the spudger for support. Based on experience this two-step process results in very high chances of success. Nothing is a guaranteed success though.
A wooden cuticle pusher can be purchased at any beauty saloon or major store that carries beauty supplies. Your significant other most likely already has one their medicine cabinet / beauty chest so you may not even have to spend any money. Look for one that is double ended and is fairly thick. One end should be narrow down to a point much like a pencil. The other should be flattened as if it was whittled to a point with a knife. The knife cut end is perfect for end pins that are bent, whereas the narrow pencil end is perfect for navigating the middle of the array.
The reason we recommend a cuticle tool instead of a toothpick is that a toothpick may be thinner but is also more fragile. They also have a tendency to bend so knowing how much force you are placing on the pin is more guesswork that science. It does not take much pressure to bend a PGA pin. More is not better. Just use enough force to get the job done as any additional force just translates into more stress on the point of failure the bend in the pin.
A small magnifying glass can help you see these little pins more clearly but is not absolutely necessary. Before finding a pair of tweezers that come with a magnifier I actually used to use a 3x Magnifier attachment from one of my Red Dot Sight equipped rifles. So do not be afraid to think outside the box as a magnifier is a magnifier. You can obtain these specialty magnifier tweezer combos at Lee Valley here in Canada but they do cost more than a hand-held magnifier and separate pair of tweezers. So unless you plan on doing this more than once it may not be worth the extra investment. Or,
As I already mentioned, the CPU I have here is almost beyond help in some areas and some pins were bend so badly their chance of recovery was basically nil. Remember, all it takes in one broken pin to ruin the CPU.
I started with the easy ones first to show you that it can be done. One hour and about hundred pins later you can see that, with the exception of a couple minor pins left, the end results are very encouraging. If it was only those 1-5's pins that needed some TLC the CPU would have been up and running with no long-term repercussions.
Unfortunately, I was not that lucky and had a corner of about 10 pins that were all pretty much begging to break and break they did with another 20-30 that were fixable if gentle persuasion was used and luck was on my side. But no luck and in this case the processor is toast.
As you can see it really will come down to luck when dealing with badly damaged pins. Some will indeed bend back into a resemblance of normality whereupon you can then spend more time making them perfectly straight, but some simply are too damaged to salvage. It really will depend on where the bend occurs. The higher up on the pin the less the chances are that it will break. The closer to the CPU substrate the lower the chances of success.
I've had numerous pins that bent right at their base and unsurprisingly they snapped off at the base. This is because the stress placed on them when they were damaged was almost too much for the pin to survive. If just a few grams of extra pressure had been at work while the CPU was in transit the blunt force trauma would have broken them off and saved us a lot of time. Needless to say, if the CPU has pins that look like this when you start we would recommend not even bothering. Its a dead CPU that simply too far gone to be brought back. You may get lucky and it certainly will be a great learning experience but do not expect success. The chances of success are simply too slim but there's not much to lose anyways.
A Few Last Thoughts
As I have clearly shown in this article proponents of PGA do indeed have a limited point when it comes to the ease of fixing a bent pin. Due to the ease of unencumbered access to the entire Pin Grid Array, minor repairs to just a few slightly bent pins is a relatively simple undertaking. The same cannot be said of LGA socket pins which are recessed in a socket housing, and are part of the entire motherboard. This to us makes PGA the superior choice when dealing with minor damage.
The above statement is indeed 100% factually correct, but does not necessarily tell the full story. The real world is simply too messy to be boiled down to a single data point. This is why LGA fans have an equally good point when they state that PGA pins may be easier to fix than an LGA motherboard's pins but the chances of damage are greater. Dropping a LGA CPU rarely results in damage to the CPU, and dropping a motherboard with a LGA socket rarely results in damage to the socket pins (that is unless you somehow manage to drop the processor ON the motherboard socket). This is not the case when dealing with PGA components. Minor falls can and will cause one or more pins to bend. So while it may be easy to fix a minor ding on a PGA CPU the chances of having to do so are dramatically higher than with an LGA configuration.
So with all of that being said, is trying to fix a Ryzen processor with bent pins worthwhile? Well that depends on how you approach it. If the CPU was damaged in shipping from the retailer to you, then by all means you shouldn't go any further and request a replacement. However, mistakes do happen and as we've seen damaging a pin grid array is certainly possible due to its very nature. If inadvertent damage does happen then you have nothing to lose so go ahead and try to salvage the situation like I did. Fixing a PGA processor with bent pins may seem like a tall order at first but it is actually quite straightforward: use patience, determination and a steady hand without snapping anything off. But lets first discuss what PGA really is and why some were surprised that AMD decided to go this route with their Ryzen processors rather than LGA.Without getting into a heated debate on the merits of Pin Grid Array vs Land Grid Array, the arguments for and against each of these two connector types boil down to one simple choice. Do you want the 'pins' on the motherboard or the CPU itself? Basically a PGA processor has its interface pins mounted in a pretty vulnerable position, right on its exposed underbelly. In AMDs case those pins then slide into receptacles on the motherboard socked and are then lucked in place with a simple lever. LGA on the other hand boasts a completely flat CPU surface whereas the pins are recessed within the motherboards socket area.Since system builders always manipulate the processors more frequently than the motherboard it seems logical that LGA-based designs tend to be safer solutions. This is why AMDs move to retain a PGA design for Ryzen came as something as a surprise when we first saw it. Nonetheless, here we are with a ton of work to do.Recently I had a perfect example of the inherent weakness of Pin Grid Array in action as it appears that UPS used our Ryzen 7 1700X's shipping container in a weekend Rugby tournament. Yes, it is pretty much toast. Or is it?The main proponents of PGA state that re-bending pins into proper alignment is easier when they are on the CPU rather than part of the motherboard itself. Of course, LGA proponents point out that damaging pins on a motherboardis a lot more difficult. Both sides of this argument do make good points, but as the old saying goes: the proof of the pudding is in the eating. So with such a golden opportunity presented to us, a more in-depth investigation is warranted. After all, this chip is a write-off so before we throw it in the trash bin or use for target practice let's walk you through the method of straightening those pins in an effort to get this little guy working again.The first time anyone is presented with a damaged CPU can be rather scary. They have just spent a boat load of their money and now are facing the prospect of having to spend even more to fix their mistake. This certainly could be called a 'learning experience' but maybe things are not as bad as they first appear. Maybe spending double what they had budgeted for the CPU is not necessary. Maybe only a little bit of time and effort is all that is needed.Over the years I have straightened dozens of bent CPU pins. Maybe even hundreds. Like anything practice does make perfect, but this experience may have colored our opinion of PGA so please take that into consideration when reading this article. I'm biased towards consumer-friendly devices and this certainly isn't the case with a PGA processor. You may feel differently. Some people love collecting stamps, others love spending an afternoon fixing tenth of an inch thick pins, one by one, by one. I would rather be using the CPU for something more constructive.So these are the parts you will need. They will not cost a fortune, and are easily sourced out. If you plan on seriously getting into PC building they are good to have in your tool chest. Please consider these recommendations based on experience rather than being absolutely necessary since the same job can be done with a sewing needle or any other small device. I say this as there are numerous methodologies out there showing how to do this. This is simply the fastest, easiest way I have found through hard won experience. Your experiences may prove to be different than mine.The list of parts you will need is:- One pair of thin tipped tweezers- One metal spudger used for 'iPhone' screen repairs- One dual sided wooden cuticle pusher- One bottle of aspirin- One small magnifying glass (optional)- A lot patience- Enough adult beverage of choice to keep you calm and carrying on- Even more patience- A busted CPU- The ability to resist the urge to throw the CPU in the garbageMost of these parts are fairly self-evident on why they have been included but let's run down why I feel they are important. You will notice no credit cards, no mechanical pencils, nor even tooth picks in this list. This is because while all those methods and tools do work they are not as optimal a solution as the method I'm going to outline.Before I do though, let's say I'm going to use a scale of 1 to 10 to describe how damaged pins typically are. This scale ranges from minor (aka 'no problem, be done in a jiffy') to major (aka 'you got to be kidding me, why god why?!') with '5' being the most common level of damage (aka'mostly dead'). The more pins that are bent the lower your chances of success, but one '10' is not the same as a half a CPU of easy fixes. Your success will vary greatly depending on the level of damage done to each pin. This particular processor was a solid 8 in my books.Generally speaking however, the more pins bent the worse the odds of finishing with a working CPU are. All it takes is one broken pin to turn a mostly dead CPU into a truly dead trashcan item. If you do not feel comfortable taking this chance bring it to an expert who has experience in these kinds of fixes.The tweezers are mainly used only in cases of extreme damage. Consider them the weapon of last resort in your repair kit. If you have to break out the tweezers the chances of success are low. Based on personal experience you will have about a 60/40 chance of not breaking a pin but the chances of success are actually higher than with the other methods. Not any pair of tweezers will do. They must fit in between the pins and yet still be strong enough to avoid flexing at the tips. This is because they are used to straighten extremely bent pins without putting too much strain on the pin's base structure.These pins are somewhat malleable but their tensile strength is about the same as a thin reed they will flex and bend somewhat but can break on you at the worst possible time. This is especially true when the pins have already received a rather significant trauma.To minimize unneeded stress, place the tips of the tweezers directly over the epicenter of the bend and gently straighten the pin. This is a delicate operation you are performing. Do not do this quickly or forcefully. Take your time and gently coerce the misbehaving miscreant back on the straight and narrow path.The spudger on the other hand is your go to weapon of choice. We recommend a metal spudger instead of the plastic ones as they are thinner (so they fit between the rows easier) and yet not as flexible as the plastic models. This tool can easily fix minor damage to pins all on its own but it is mainly used in conjunction with the cuticle pusher as a support tool. Nevertheless, the spduger's role is vital and the three dollars it costs ( via Amazon ) is money well spent.To use this tool on its own, for minor bends only, simply place it in a row of pins and move it up or down the row. When you come to a pin that is bent you will feel the resistance increase. Angle it up while moving forward and this will get underneath the bend in then pin and straighten it. After you have donerotate the chip 90-degrees and repeat the process. Even on a Ryzen CPU with 1,331 pins this will only take you a few moments, but do not rush things. If you go too fast you may notice the increase in resistance and actually make a slightly bent pin worse.When dealing with severely damaged pins you do not use the metal spudger on its own. Instead when you come to a bent pin and try this trick you will find that the misbehaving pin simply will not straighten. It may bend somewhat but not enough to be considered straight. This is fine so don't panic.Take a close look at this bent pin, preposition the spudger into your non-dominant hand and place the spudger so that it is directly behind the damaged pin with the bend pointing away from the spudger. As the spudger covers many pins we recommend placing the bent pin in the middle. While doing this grab your wooden cuticle pusher with your dominant hand and gently -using a slight lifting motion - bend it back into alignment while using the spudger for support. Based on experience this two-step process results in very high chances of success. Nothing is a guaranteed success though.A wooden cuticle pusher can be purchased at any beauty saloon or major store that carries beauty supplies. Your significant other most likely already has one their medicine cabinet / beauty chest so you may not even have to spend any money. Look for one that is double ended and is fairly thick. One end should be narrow down to a point much like a pencil. The other should be flattened as if it was whittled to a point with a knife. The knife cut end is perfect for end pins that are bent, whereas the narrow pencil end is perfect for navigating the middle of the array.The reason we recommend a cuticle tool instead of a toothpick is that a toothpick may be thinner but is also more fragile. They also have a tendency to bend so knowing how much force you are placing on the pin is more guesswork that science. It does not take much pressure to bend a PGA pin. More is not better. Just use enough force to get the job done as any additional force just translates into more stress on the point of failure the bend in the pin.A small magnifying glass can help you see these little pins more clearly but is not absolutely necessary. Before finding a pair of tweezers that come with a magnifier I actually used to use a 3x Magnifier attachment from one of my Red Dot Sight equipped rifles. So do not be afraid to think outside the box as a magnifier is a magnifier. You can obtain these specialty magnifier tweezer combos at Lee Valley here in Canada but they do cost more than a hand-held magnifier and separate pair of tweezers. So unless you plan on doing this more than once it may not be worth the extra investment. Or, once again head over to Amazon. As I already mentioned, the CPU I have here is almost beyond help in some areas and some pins were bend so badly their chance of recovery was basically nil. Remember, all it takes in one broken pin to ruin the CPU.I started with the easy ones first to show you that it can be done. One hour and about hundred pins later you can see that, with the exception of a couple minor pins left, the end results are very encouraging. If it was only those 1-5's pins that needed some TLC the CPU would have been up and running with no long-term repercussions.Unfortunately, I was not that lucky and had a corner of about 10 pins that were all pretty much begging to break and break they did with another 20-30 that were fixable if gentle persuasion was used and luck was on my side. But no luck and in this case the processor is toast.As you can see it really will come down to luck when dealing with badly damaged pins. Some will indeed bend back into a resemblance of normality whereupon you can then spend more time making them perfectly straight, but some simply are too damaged to salvage. It really will depend on where the bend occurs. The higher up on the pin the less the chances are that it will break. The closer to the CPU substrate the lower the chances of success.I've had numerous pins that bent right at their base and unsurprisingly they snapped off at the base. This is because the stress placed |
His fifty came right on the stroke of lunch, with a flashing cut off Lee, and by the time he brought up his hundred, powering Brad Williams through midwicket, he had hit 16 fours and a six. After getting to the landmark, he upped the tempo without doing anything excessive - by his standards - hitting another six off MacGill and clubbing Steve Waugh into the stands in the last over before tea.
The Indian batsmen followed the basic rule of giving the first hour of the day to the bowlers and then imposing themselves on the opposition. They made less than 30 runs in a testing first hour after Ganguly had won the toss and elected to bat, but they were 89 for no loss by lunch, and added another 130 runs in the post-lunch session, as Sehwag ran amok against some increasingly ragged bowling. Even though they lost three wickets in the last session, they added another 110 to the score. Sehwag made more than half the runs scored in each of these sessions.
The only wicket to fall in the first two sessions was that of Chopra, popping a catch off bat and pad to Katich off MacGill when just three short of a well-deserved fifty. A sentry at the gates of a city under siege could not have been more watchful than Chopra, who took the sting out of the Australian attack with his three-hour long vigil, mixing patient defence with nudges and deflections.
The Australians wasted a number of chances and half-chances through the day, most notably in the fifth over of the morning with Sehwag on just 4, when Lee missed the easiest of chances to run him out at the striker's end, with both batsmen stranded on the other half of the pitch.
If Australia were still in the game at the end of the day, it was partly due to luck, but also to a crucial breakthrough made by Waugh, playing his penultimate Test on the ground where he made his debut against India in the Boxing Day Test in 1985.
Waugh gave himself an extended spell after tea, but India progressed to 278 for 1, with Sehwag the cynosure of all attention as he rattled along merrily and Dravid, coming off his two splendid knocks at Adelaide, having worked his way unfussily to 49. Then, against the run of play, Dravid was suckered by Waugh into aiming a shot at a ball well outside leg stump, and chipped a catch to a fielder precisely positioned for that stroke just in front of square leg (278 for 2). Since Waugh had spent a good part of his spell bowling short balls at the two batsmen with a fielder on the square-leg boundary, Dravid possibly failed to note, and adjust his play for, the fielder coming up.
Waugh wasted no time in taking himself off and bringing on Lee to attack Tendulkar. Lee's first ball to Tendulkar was a loosener down the leg side. Trying instinctively to work it to fine leg, Tendulkar appeared to get the faintest of touches with the bat as the ball brushed his pad, and was caught down the leg side by a diving Gilchrist (286 for 3). The only Tendulkar-like stroke seen during his brief stay at the crease came from Sehwag, who whipped a Williams delivery to the square-leg boundary with the distinctive flourish common to him and Tendulkar.
Sehwag's response to the loss of two quick wickets was to swing the first ball of a new spell from MacGill over midwicket for six. Waugh was now prompted into bringing on the left-arm spin of Katich, bowling with several fielders on the boundary. Sehwag, on 189, lashed a full toss beyond the boundary for his fifth six, and moved to within one stroke of his double-hundred. The next ball was another full toss, and in trying to repeat the stroke, Sehwag holed out to Bracken at the long-on boundary (311 for 4). It was an utterly captivating innings, the highest score ever by an Indian batsman at the MCG.
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A top FBI official investigating the Russian cyberattacks on the 2016 election would not say Wednesday whether President Donald Trump acted as an “unwitting agent” of the Kremlin during his presidential campaign.
Bill Priestap, assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee that Moscow “employed a multifaceted approach intended to undermine confidence in our democratic process,” including efforts to “discredit” Hillary Clinton and help elect Trump.
Citing Priestap’s description of Russian efforts to “sow discord” in the United States, Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) asked Priestap about the term “unwitting agent,” meaning an official duped into doing the bidding of a foreign power.
“Did Donald Trump become an unwitting agent of the Russians?” Heinrich asked.
Priestap paused for several seconds, with the hearing room silent.
“I can’t really comment on that,” he said.
“I don’t blame you for not answering that question,” Heinrich replied, to laughter.
The exchange recalled an August 2016 op-ed by former CIA Director Michael Morell endorsing Clinton. “Mr. Trump has also taken policy positions consistent with Russian, not American, interests—endorsing Russian espionage against the United States, supporting Russia’s annexation of Crimea and giving a green light to a possible Russian invasion of the Baltic States,” Morrell wrote. “In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.”
Later in Wednesday’s hearing, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a vocal Trump supporter, tried to turn the tables by implying that Clinton had also undermined confidence in US elections. Cotton asked Priestap if Clinton had acted as an unwitting agent for Russia by blaming her electoral college loss in part on former FBI Director James Comey’s November letter suggesting the agency had reopened an investigation into her email practices, in addition to Russian hacking and other factors.
Priestap also declined to answer Cotton’s question.by
It isn’t just an issue of whether they have the jobs or we have the jobs. From a red-green, eco-socialist perspective we must ask: what are they producing, how does the product and process affect the health, happiness and self-esteem of the worker, how does it contribute to the health and happiness of the consumer, and what effect do product and process have on the environment and culture of the producing and receiving countries?
Globalization has benefits, undoubtedly. There are international human rights treaties that have enabled local activists to improve conditions for their fellow citizens; there are developments in medical treatments that are now widely available. But as the benefits of globalization are widely described, I will argue for the minority and indicate some of the serious problems that we don’t hear much about.
A red-green view advocates for a predominately local economy. What can be produced locally should be, even if imports are cheaper. Exceptions might be made for rare items that contribute substantially to the quality of life, when the production conditions can be ascertained.
How is it possible to provide for needs locally? Scientists, now employed mostly in weapons, pharma, and agricultural chemicals, can work with local residents to figure out how to provide for clothing, housing, food, fuel, medicine, and entertainment from local resources. Education might introduce children to all pacific and useful technology, and stimulate their creativity in providing for the needs of life (instead of the rocket building competitions featured in STEM recruitment, sponsored by weapons corporations).
Modern transportation would still be needed, but on a much smaller scale would produce far lower carbon and particulate emissions. Commuting could be greatly reduced, as well as the transportation of chocolate chip cookies from British Columbia to New Hampshire; I have encountered such an import. Vodka now shipped halfway across the earth turns out to be pure alcohol; given some grain and an old bathtub, a child could make it in her backyard (and would). Transportation of goods, even by sea, is a huge fuel consumer and environmental polluter.
An energy source that is hugely underutilized is human labor. If moderately extracted from all, it can provide great gains for health. Currently, many are idle, or engaged in pointless “workouts” or hazardous games. Food can be produced almost anywhere, with composting, raised beds, etc., and a diet based on legumes, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and small animals would provide appropriate exercise. No one needs 50 t-shirts; a small, durable, elegant supply of clothing can be fabricated even in the northern regions from wool, linen, and hemp. Given that millions of people have voluntary hobbies of gardening, macramé tying, and geegaw fabrication, this type of labor would not be unduly harsh or violate the human spirit.
Of course, if the enormous energy, resources, and brains now devoted to human destruction in the military-industrial complex were employed for human well-being, there would be a plenitude. Add to this all the resources used producing junk that earns profits for some, provides work and subsistence for others, and gives short term amusement to consumers.
What is wrong with a globalized economy and free trade based on cheapness? Adam Smith, Scottish philosopher of capitalism and free trade, said that each country should produce what it can best sell to the rest of the world, and trade with other countries for its other needs. At the time, 1776, Britain was the only industrialized country, so it naturally, or perhaps unnaturally, had a competitive advantage over countries exporting natural resources.
The early triumph of the British industrial revolution, cheap textiles made with cotton produced by slaves, put the skilled weavers out of business, hence the Luddites. T-shirts and curtain material were exported to India and Africa, destroying local textile production, creating fashions that were not needed by indigenous people, and in any case, were quite inferior to native fabrics.
One problem with the extreme specialization implied by Smith’s idea is that it reduces the range of occupations available to citizens of a country. In a similar way, high value crops: coffee, tea, chocolate, cocaine, ganja, flowers, tropical fruits, and exotic vegetables lead to monoculture. The lucrative luxuries draw all resources, labor, and capital away from basic food production.
Furthermore, mechanization, which cheapens products and makes them more exportable, results in massive unemployment. Today, as entire factories can easily be imported, comparative advantage lies with those places that have the lowest labor and environmental standards. As competition constantly leads to new lows, abandoned production sites and lost jobs are another cost to communities. Ghost towns were also a feature of early industrialization, as water power yielded first to coal and then to electricity as power sources.
Another problem is the nature of the products that really sell well: historically, and today, these have been guns and drugs (coffee, tea, sugar, tobacco as well as harder stuff), fossil fuels, lumber, and minerals. Information technology has costs as well as benefits; entertainment and news services can drown out local cultures and varied perspectives. Industrialized agriculture and farmed fish have environmental and health effects for both exporting and importing countries. Junk food floods the world with serious inroads on traditional diets, especially in poor countries where small incomes are diverted to snacks and sodas regarded as treats, even for babies.
Subsistence and mid-size farmers have a hard life, and must contend with erratic weather and harsh market conditions. They are under pressure to self-exploit and wear out the soil to produce the cheapest. It would be better if their hours were regulated and they were paid a living wage, rather than be dependent on the returns for their crop.
In France, the rules of free trade have been evaded by conservation subsidies to farmers, as the French do not want to abolish the countryside and eat only the cheaper imported food. In Mexico, farmers have been chased from the land by the more competitive industrialized agriculture. Some of them have migrated north; others have found jobs in the tourist industry, and often their diet comes from the only available source: processed food from convenience stores. Obesity is now a problem in poor as well as rich countries.
While we may be aware of the human and environmental costs of natural resource extraction, for example, oil and gas, mineral mining, and forestry, there is little that the ultimate consumer can do about it. In Australia, Canada, the US, throughout Africa, and elsewhere, uranium mining is a job for indigenous people; the wastes are also inflicted on their communities. Extraction of gold and other minerals has long poisoned the lands of Latin America and elsewhere. Now that the balanced economy of Mongolia has disintegrated, international mining companies are rapidly digging up the country.
As for the items that we purchase individually, it is difficult to research all the conditions of their production. Some organizations have done this for a few products, e.g., shoes, or fish, but even in these cases, the producers keep shifting locations and practices, so the information is quickly outdated.
Tourism is one of the largest items in international markets. Certainly it has educational benefits, but it is also energy intensive and polluting. It can provide a good living for artists, musicians, and cultural workers, but it requires armies of cab drivers, waiters, and janitors. It is a very competitive industry, and some countries find their comparative advantage in providing juvenile sex tourism. Another lure is gained by stripping forests and agricultural land to create golf courses. Caribbean losers of the“banana war,” have tried this, often on the advice of the World Bank.
Countries of the European Union, which now import most of their food, furniture, and clothing, are heavily dependent on tourism. They also import labor for service and factory work. However, an important contribution to “free trade” of the leading social democratic nations, e.g., France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, are weapons export industries.
Many of the 200 or so nations of the world have very little to offer in the international market. Toxic waste sites are attractive to foreign corporations, but not so much for the communities and workers that will operate them. Another handy earner of foreign exchange is the harboring of off-shore corporate headquarters for tax evasion purposes. Even Bermuda has resorted to this, as its fine beaches and coral reefs do not have enough zing for younger tourists.
The “banana war” has contributed to a strange export: citizenship. The war began in 1996, when the head of Chiquita bananas complained to the World Trade Organization that the European Union preference, a very small quota, for bananas from former colonies violated the rules of free trade. For some islands in the Caribbean, for example,
Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Trinidad, and Jamaica, bananas produced on small family farms were an important part of the economy. They could not compete in price with the Chiquita and Dole U.S. based corporations (which have no plantations inside the US). The WTO eventually ruled that the preferences had to stop, and similarly, preferences for the sugar exports of St. Kitts. There was some hope in exporting organic bananas, but that niche was dashed when the large corporations also went into that business. With island tourism a declining industry, St. Kitts, Antigua, St. Lucia, Dominica, and Grenada are now selling citizenship. In St. Kitts, the cost is $50,000 in processing fees and the purchase of a house worth at least $400,000. The wealthy buyers can obtain tax evasion benefits as well as visa free entry to many countries, especially those of the European Union.
The political costs of globalization are often unremarked. Democratic choice is more difficult to exercise when major decisions are made at higher levels, remote from ordinary citizens. For example, the US Metalclad corporation wished to develop and enlarge a leaking toxic waste plant in Mexico. The local community didn’t want it, and refused to issue a permit, but the rules of the North American Free Trade Agreement denied locals any choice in the matter. Mexico was required to pay a fine of $16 million. Even local and national laws may have to be jettisoned according to trade agreements. This has been notable in Canada’s experience with NAFTA; several of Canadian environmental laws have been ruled violations of “free trade.” Not only trade in goods, but investments, services, and ownership of land and natural resources must be open to all according to the rules of globalization’s institutions. There have been a few cases where citizen action has delayed or defeated trade agreements, but they require tremendous efforts.
The European Union imposes financial limitations on members, despite what might be best for their citizens. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization promotes militarization and participation in aggressive wars among its members—in this supposedly defensive alliance. In addition to members, “partners in peace” and other nations have been herded into a global army, devastating Afghanistan and wherever else it decides to punish. NATO’s bases (and those of the Empire’s other alliances) create local service economies but demand exemption from environmental and criminal laws. The United Nations, despite its great promise and outlawing of war, has not been able to end aggression in foreign policy or enforce nuclear disarmament treaties. International law is mocked, except where there is some commercial advantage to its enforcement.
Further erosion of democracy results from the very attractiveness of participation in international governmental organizations, their task forces, and the non-governmental organizations that shadow them. Local political parties and activities have declined and are neglected by the leading activists who would rather travel the world in the hopes of doing some good.
Not everything we need or strongly desire can be produced locally, but by limiting imports from abroad or even great distances within a nation, we can more feasibly be informed of their production conditions. As to the high costs of “localvore” items, we discover that it is what they really cost, given humane labor conditions and respect for the environment. Political decision-making at local levels can empower ordinary people and improve the prospects for democracy. Cultural and informational exchanges can create and enhance a cosmopolitan world, provided the people, their values, and their environments are respected.
Joan Roelofs is Professor Emerita of Political Science, Keene State College, New Hampshire. She is the author of Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism (SUNY Press, 2003) and Greening Cities (Rowman and Littlefield, 1996), which includes examples of local economy initiatives. Roelofs is the translator of Victor Considerant’s Principles of Socialism (Maisonneuve Press, 2006), and co-translator, with Shawn P. Wilbur, of Charles Fourier’s anti-war fantasy, World War of Small Pastries, Autonomedia, 2015. Web site: www.joanroelofs.wordpress.com Contact: jroelofs@keene.eduRuby
"No, I'm not doing this, Oz," My dad said to Professor Ozpin. I still had no idea what was going on, yet somehow my dad knew what it was.
"It's not for you to decide, Tai," Professor Ozpin rebuked. Jesus, it's like I'm no longer in the room. I bet that if I were to say anything, it wouldn't be heard at all. "Ruby is old enough to make this decision herself."
"I'm not going to go through this again," Dad said.
"Go through what again?" I tried to ask, though from the looks of things, my question was going to fall upon deaf ears.
"I can't be the one to deny someone their true calling, unless they choose it for themselves," Ozpin continued. Seriously, what the hell do I have to do to get their damn attention? Honestly, at this point I'm half tempted to take the dagger that is on display above the fireplace, and stab it into the desk.
"Don't try to tell me that I can't make this decision for my daughter," My dad said. As tempting as the dagger is, I really shouldn't ruin Professor Ozpin's nice desk. It looks like it's made of mahogany or something. "She's too young to be thrown into this life anyway!"
"You and Summer both started this when you were younger than she was," Ozpin said. That's it, fuck the mahogany, I'm getting the knife. As I stand up and walk over to pick up the dagger, the two of them continue to talk about me as if I wasn't there.
"That doesn't mean anything!" My dad shouted. "You and I both know what happens in this line of work, I'm not letting that happen to Ruby!"
By that point I had picked up the knife, walked over to the desk and slammed the blade down into the wood. "Will you two explain to me what the fuck is going on right now?!" I shouted after hearing the slam of the knife embedding itself into the table. That certainly got their attention, as they both finally turned to acknowledge me.
"My mahogany desk," Ozpin mumbled to himself, though I do manage to pick up on what he said since it was so quiet in the room.
"I want to know what the hell is going on!" I shouted. "No more arguing to each other about me, while I'm still in the goddamn room, no more hiding the truth from me. You two are both going to sit down, shut up and tell me what in the absolute fuck is happening!"
I could tell from my dad's expression that the way I'm acting right now is really unnatural according to him. It's rare for me to get mad, I know that already. So far as I knew, this was probably the worst that I've been. Too bad I deserve to get mad right now, all things considered.
"Ruby, please," Professor Ozpin said to me. "If you would sit down, then both myself and your father can explain what is going on. Just give us the chance to."
I take a deep breath and calm myself down, just enough so that I finally can relax and deal with this in a better way than before. "Fine, but the second you two start arguing with each other, I'm walking out, and asking someone else for an explanation. Maybe they would be more willing to help than you would."
"Ruby," Dad said to me. "Look, I don't know how to say this to you without it sounding terrible, but your mother and I, we...well…" What was it that my dad was trying to say to me, and why was it so hard for him?
"Your mother and father work as Huntsmen," Ozpin interrupted.
What?
"Worked, in Summer's case, at least," Dad definitely looked like he was about to lose his mind again. I remembered when Mom died, Dad didn't tell me what was going on, but I somehow I knew, I knew it was because of what was going on in this city. I just knew it. I guess I was right all along.
"Regardless, based off of what happened today, I think it's safe to assume that-" Of course, Professor Ozpin was bound to get cut off thanks to my dad.
"What, what the hell happened today?" Dad questioned.
"There was an, incident, in the city," Professor Ozpin elaborated. "A couple of our Huntsmen were on the scene and Ruby happened to stumble upon it. During the incident, she appeared to have moved at almost lightning speeds. It was by sheer luck that Miss Nikos happened to notice what had happened."
"I was only trying to save that child that was trapped in the middle," I rambled, unsure of what my dad was thinking. "I didn't think that would happen I swea-"
"Ruby," My dad said, interrupting me. "Is this true?"
"Er, well uh, you see," I replied, unsure of what I should say. So, I turned to the one thing I knew best, rambling like an idiot. "I was just walking, and the next thing I know I was in the middle of the fight and there were these guns and the Huntsmen were there and I saw this kid in the middle of the street and I wanted to help him and so I-"
I wasn't expecting to be interrupted by my dad, much less because he decided to give me a hug in response to what I had done. "I'm so proud of you, Ruby," He said to me after a few moments where I finally calmed down.
"What?"
"I know it may not seem like the best idea in my mind," Dad started to say. I knew where this was going, he was going to explain that he was fine with whatever was going on. "But, if you want to join up with the Huntsmen, then I'll support your decision."
HOLY CRAP THIS IS HAPPENING! It's been my dream to help these guys for god knows how long, and now I finally get the chance to do just that! I can't believe this! "Are you serious?" I had to ask, just to be sure he wasn't just yanking me around.
"Yes, as much as I don't like it," Dad mentioned. "Just, promise me that you will take care of yourself, i don't want to lose you like I lost your mother."
"I promise you, Tai," Professor Ozpin said, inserting himself back into the conversation. "She is in good hands. I'll make sure she stays safe."
"I'm holding you to that, Oz," My dad replied before standing up in his chair. As soon as he did however, we hear the door slam open, and in walks none other than my older sister Yang.
"Ruby, what the hell are you doing here?!" Yang said, immediately running over to my side and inspecting me from top to bottom as if I was just thrown into a blender.
"Yang, I'm fine," I replied, grabbing a hold of my sister and shaking her in order to calm her down. My sister works as a mercenary that often joins forces with the Huntsmen, so it was no surprise that she turned up here right now. Somehow, someone must've told her about me being her, and knowing Yang, she probably ran here instantly as soon as she heard the news.
"What do you just mean by, you're fine?!" Yang shouted at me. That's when she noticed Dad standing right next to me. "Dad?! What the fuck are you doing here?!"
"Hey, watch your language!" Dad joked with Yang, helping to cheer my sister up.
"Seriously, what is going on?" Yang asked again. "What are you doing here?"
"Well, Miss Xiao Long," Professor Ozpin said, walking around from his desk and over to our side. "Your sister has unlocked the powers that she most likely held deep within her for all this time."
"Wait, whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa," Yang said, shaking her hands in disbelief. "You mean to tell me that Ruby has superpowers? Neither of us had shown any signs of that kind of thing for as long as I can remember! Why does it happen now?"
"I can't tell you why, that's an answer that I do not know," Professor Ozpin elaborated. "However, given this recent development, it is in Miss Rose's best interest that she take up residence here, along with Mister Arc."
"Wait, Jaune's here too?" Yang asked. When I nodded to her, confirming what Professor Ozpin had just said, she just started to laugh. "Oh my god, I can't believe that tall blonde and scraggly managed to figure out that he has superpowers as well. Wait…" Yang must've had the gears in her brain turning, because she figured out that Jaune got powers, while she didn't "Are you kidding me, that idiot has powers and I don't? What kind of bullshit is this?!"
"Yang, you literally have a shotgun that spits out inferno bullets," I said in response.
"Not only that, but your shotgun has a flamethrower attached to the bottom of it," Dad said next.
"As of right now though," Professor Ozpin jumped back in. "Mister Arc has not discovered what his powers entailed, in fact I am under the impression that he hasn't even unlocked them fully yet. With training, it is my hope that he reaches the point where he is capable of doing so."
"He'll be lucky if he can find the bathroom in this place on his tenth try," Yang commented. To be fair though, Yang is right, Jaune certainly is special at times. "He isn't exactly the brightest of people."
"Regardless of his intelligence or skill level, he will receive the training needed to hone him into a proper warrior," Professor Ozpin replied. "Either way, Miss Xiao Long, I will speak with Miss Goodwitch about this, however, I believe that you should help your sister move her belongings into the estate. Tai, if you wish to do the same then feel free to do so."
"Relax, we'll get it done, Ozzie," Dad said to Professor Ozpin. "Come on kids, time for some family bonding."
"Don't family gatherings usually involve someone getting shot?" Yang asked. It isn't that she's wrong, but then again, I can't remember the last family gather where something happened that required Yang to shoot someone for whatever reason.
"Hopefully not this time," Dad said as he walked with the two of us out of Professor Ozpin's office. "Come on squirt, let's get you packed up and ready to move into your new home."
Pyrrha
Well, this past week has certainly been interesting to say the least. Not only did Ruby and Jaune move in, but now they were finally getting started on their training. I'm just glad that I get to watch how things were going, because I certainly didn't want to miss this. Ruby just screamed positivity with everything she did, so watching her fight was sure to be something I would enjoy.
I looked down at the training room floor, seeing Ruby standing there in the traditional training garbs we wear when first testing out our powers. I remember the look on the Headmaster's face, as well as Yatsuhashi's when I ripped his greatsword from his hands and held it as if it were light as a feather. Thank you polarity, you definitely have been extremely useful to me thus far.
Standing across the way from Ruby, was of course, one of the veteran mercenaries we have in our merry band of neerdowells, Coco Adel. She was of course, a heavy weapon specialist, though it's kinda hard to make that claim since her primary firearm was a handheld machine gun. That's the very definition of overkill if you ask me. Fortunately, she was using static rounds right now, the worst they would do is just cause a shock for whoever got caught in the crossfire.
"Miss Rose," I heard the Headmaster say from over the intercom. "Are you ready to begin?"
I could see Ruby smile and nod in his direction, signaling for the match to begin. The rules for this match were simple of course; avoid getting hit from Coco, and then find a way to make a strike on her in some capacity. Simple enough, but that machine gun wasn't going to make things easy for her.
"Begin!" The Headmaster called out.
As soon as she did, the barrel of Coco's minigun started to spin, the all too familiar hum it generated had started to fill the air. Soon afterwards, the hail of bullets started to fire. Ruby was just lucky that she was quick enough to dodge out of the way. Soon afterwards, she started to run in a circle, trying desperately to find out how her powers worked. I could see the struggle on her face as she narrowly dodged shot after shot that trailed just millimeters behind her.
Soon afterwards though, she finally cracked the code and started to run faster and faster. As she zipped across the arena floor, I could tell that Coco was having a much harder time keeping track of where she was. Pretty soon, dust started to kick up and create a cloud across the arena floor. It wasn't enough to help Coco, who was trying to use the dust trail to keep track of where Ruby was. Soon enough, Coco was slammed into from behind, thanks to a charging Ruby.
Unfortunately for Ruby, all of her work appeared to have taken its toll on her body. As soon as she slammed into Coco, she sent herself careening off into the side of the arena, her body propped up against the wall with her feet dangling in the air. Just looking at her, I couldn't help but laugh, and it was really hard to suppress the chuckle that was trying to escape my lips. It just looked so funny, and she really was a great person for being so carefree.
Soon afterwards, the Headmaster reported down to the arena floor and watched as Coco helped Ruby to her feet. "Miss Rose," He said to her. "I see you've made some progress, however, you still need to learn how to control your energy. If this were to happen in an actual combat scenario, you would be in quite a bit of trouble. That being said, well done on your work thus far."
"Thank you, Professor," Ruby said as she stumbled out of the arena. Immediately afterwards, Jaune walked in. Now what he was capable of, I had no idea. To be honest, he had no idea as well, so this was sure to be interesting.
"Are you ready Mister Arc?" The Headmaster asked, walking out of the arena to give the two some space.
"As ready as I'll ever be," Jaune replied. This was going to be good, I could tell.
"Then you may begin."
Immediately, Coco unloaded yet again with her gun. Unfortunately, Jaune failed to dodge any of them, and was struck with an uncountable amount of static rounds. Somehow, he wasn't knocked completely down to the ground immediately, but I could tell that all of the electricity was getting to him.
"Come on kid!" Coco called out to him, taking her finger off the trigger to give the guy some reprieve. "You're gonna just get yourself killed if you don't figure out what the fuck it is you're doing!"
I could tell that Jaune was having a hard time moving his left arm, it looked limp and out of his control. My guess was that it took too much damage and that the muscles in his body were practically paralyzed from the shock. Somehow, he still stood tall and defiant.
"Got to hand it to you kid," Coco said. "You got spirit." I could hear the hum of her gun start to whir again, and I just knew what was coming. "But spirit isn't going to help you win battles."
At that, the gun started to fire once more, but this time, things went differently. Jaune lifted his arm up to block the shots, the same arm that I figured was paralyzed from before. I could see the shock in Jaune's eyes as he just stood there, his arm taking all the shots Coco's gun could send his way, yet not once did he falter this time. With that newfound determination, he slowly started to move forward until he reached Coco and grabbed a hold of her wrist, pulling it from the trigger.
Now that was pretty impressive if you ask me.
"Mister Arc," The Headmaster called out. "I see you started to notice what it is that you're powers are."
"I guess so," Jaune said, his legs giving out on him, forcing the poor boy to fall flat on his back. What's surprising, was that Coco extended a hand out to help him to his feet. "Um, thanks?"
"No problem kid," Coco said to him. "The name's Coco Adel, by the way. I'm sure we'll be working together quite a bit while you're here. You need a lot of work though, but, I think I can manage."
Yep, things were really starting to heat up around here.
Unknown
The city was always a sight to see, yet everywhere I looked, I could only see the faces of people with everything they had kept hidden away. The work of terrorists had torn these people apart, and I am no less responsible for the part I played in their acts. I helped to cause their pain, and while I'm not sorry for my actions, I do feel terrible for the results. We aren't what we used to be when I first started, things are much different.
"Bull to Shadow Fang," I heard over the earpiece that was running into my ear. "You in position?"
Pulling the hood over my head, covering the cat ears that I was born with, I responded in kind. "Shadow Fang to Bull, I'm in position, heading out now." With that, I slinked back into the shadows, disappearing from sight in order to complete my task.
One of these days, I'll find a way out.
AN: One guess who this person at the end is?
Anyway, thanks for tuning in this long, I know it's been an interesting ride, and I really do appreciate all the guesses that you guys have thought of for what Jaune's power was going to be. For reference, his power is what I refer to as, Body Manipulation. This means that he can alter parts of his body to have different aspects than what they normally would be, this could be increased strength, resistance to electricity, etc. THIS IS A LIMITED THING THOUGH, SO HE CAN ONLY DO SO MUCH AT A TIME. If he were to push his powers past that point, well, let's just say you'll have to tune in and find out what happens.
Hope to see you guys again in the next update!AUBURN, Ala. -- Cam Newton and Auburn's football team put on one last Saturday afternoon show at Jordan-Hare Stadium.
With an estimated 78,000 fans on hand, including hundreds of students crowded onto the field before the stage, the Tigers celebrated their first national championship in 53 years.
It also turned into a farewell for stars Newton and Nick Fairley, both skipping their senior seasons to enter the NFL draft. Newton slapped hands as he danced along the line of students, then struck a Heisman pose at the podium and sang out, "War Eagle."
He thanked the fans for standing by him through the revelations that his father, Cecil, sought payment to sign with Mississippi State, a scandal that shadowed Newton for the season's final two months.
"You never stopped believing in me," Newton said. "People have asked me over and over, how did I handle the distractions. The simple answer is, God, family and you, my Auburn family. You never lost faith in me and that means more to me than words can ever say. You will be in my heart forever."
The biggest applause came when Auburn introduced Fairley and Newton. Both took turns at the podium, along with Gov. Robert Bentley -- who is from Tuscaloosa -- and others.
Coach Gene Chizik related a story that he said demonstrated what kind of teammates Newton and Fairley were.
"Thirty minutes before the national championship game, and I didn't know whether they were going to come back or not," he said. "I called them in |
was show Trump as plausible, as a strong leader and more importantly that he cares about people."
[No matter how garbage the poll, if it shows that Donald Trump won the debate, he’ll endorse it]
This was the going theory, before the debate, of how Trump could win it. No analyst thought that the business mogul would outwit the former secretary of state. The theory was that he would become a plausible president, a face and voice that it was possible to see in the Oval Office. The snap polls did not indicate this, but the hunt is on to prove that voters did.
5. Clinton missed the kill shot. The Democratic nominee's decision to goad Trump, then sit back as he tripped over his shoelaces seemed to deliver for her. But it did not deliver the sort of victory that ends a campaign, or starts a panic in the opposing camp, like Lloyd Bentsen's humiliation of Dan Quayle or Gerald Ford's tangled explanation of whether Poland was under Soviet domination. To some observers, it could have, had Clinton sprung on Trump when he glibly said he paid no taxes because he was "smart."
[When Trump said that not paying taxes ‘makes me smart,’ undecided voters in N.C. gasped]
"Clinton was on a roll, clearly hoping to get through prepared material, and she let Trump off the hook with all the people who play by the rules," wrote Jeb Lund in Rolling Stone. "Are they stupid? Are people who obey the law morons? Is everyone who thinks they should pitch in for roads and schools a chump? And how ethical are Trump's smarts? Is he legally paying zero taxes, or is he putting himself on the same plane of financial genius as Al Capone?"
Clinton's campaign latched onto the tax answer and clearly sees it as a weapon for the final stretch of the campaign. But it's not dominating coverage of the debate as it could have; accordingly, Clinton's frustrated attacks on Trump's refusal to release his taxes have not broken through.If you are like most fitness professionals, reading about exercise technique can be confusing with so many opinions floating around as fact. It is hard to get a grasp on what is right, what is fallacy and what really matters when it comes to exercise technique. One of the leading questions we see is the question of elbow placement when performing a bench press.
How far down should the elbows move when performing a bench press – what is the right range of motion?
The answer is simple, yet it is not black and white. The short answer to the question is simply that elbow position depends on the potential muscle imbalances of the exerciser and the amount of load the exerciser is lifting. However, to understand the answer more completely, it is imperative to know the anatomy and mechanics of the shoulder.
The major prime movers of the shoulder are the pectorals major and pectoralis minor, anterior, medial and posterior deltoid, trapezius (lower, upper, middle), rhomboids and latissimus dorsi muscles. The stabilizers consist of the subscapularis, supraspinatus, infraspinatus, teres minor, and teres major.
The shoulder consists of four joints that work together to allow proper movement. These joints are: glenohumeral, sternoclavicular, acromio-clavicular and the scapolo-thoracic joints. Each joint must move as the shoulder moves, allowing for the most range of motion of any joint. Several muscles attach to each joint, some serving as stabilizers and others serving as prime movers.
The shoulder is unique in that the musculature of the rotator cuff works to compensate for the lack of natural stability of the glenohumeral joint (1). When the glenohumeral joint is misaligned due to muscle imbalances (overactive and underactive muscles surrounding the joint), the shoulder becomes unstable, reducing the neural volume to the pectoralis major and minor, thereby not allowing the exerciser to produce optimum force (2).
Understanding Range of Motion
This is important when considering what position the elbow should be in when performing a bench press as the humerus should be aligned properly and move within the optimal range of motion without compensation to elicit the best neurological response. Simply stated, the elbows can move in the full range of motion of the shoulder so long as your client is not compensating. If, for instance, the exerciser suffers from a muscle imbalance where the pectoralis major and minor are shortened and the rotator cuff musculature are lengthened, the neural drive to the pectoralis major and minor would decrease, requiring a synergist muscle to become dominant (in this scenario the levator scapulae and upper trapezius may become dominant) changing the mechanics of the shoulder and lessening the strength and hypertrophy of the pecs (3). The range of motion of the bench press would therefore decrease, stopping the exercise at the first point of compensation (shoulders rising or the head juts forward).
What to watch for when your client is performing a bench press: When your client is decelerating the weight and moving the elbows down to the starting position, are your client’s shoulders elevating? Is the weight your client lifting too heavy to allow your clients elbows to drop below parallel?
Position depends on load
Second, elbow positioning during the bench press is highly dependent on load. Mechanically, when the elbows drop below parallel, the pectoralis major and minor are in a lengthened position, lessening their ability to produce optimum force and requiring assistance from the anterior deltoid. If the load your client is lifting is too heavy, this may put a large strain on the anterior deltoid (as the anterior deltoid was not meant to lift heavy loads) often leading to injury, or may require compensation from the low back (arching the low back to get into a better position to lift the load) leading to potential low back problems. If the load your client is lifting is low to moderate weight, the elbows should move through the full range of motion of the shoulder as long as compensation is not present.
If your client presents with muscle imbalances or shows compensations, a comprehensive flexibility and strengthening program will help to increase range of motion and create optimal alignment of the shoulder. As such, this will positively affect the strength and hypertrophy of the pectoralis major and minor, again dependent on the goals of the client and the acute variables utilized to meet the client’s goals.
Important program components to include in your program if your client has muscle imbalances that limit the range of motion at the shoulder:
Foam roll: (hold on tender areas 20 seconds)
Latissimus dorsi Thoracic spine
Static Stretch: (hold stretch for 30 seconds)
Pectoralis major Pectoralis minor Latissimus dorsi Upper trapezius Levator scapulae
Strengthening: (perform 2-3 sets of 15-25 repetitions)
Ball cobra Upper body step-ups Ball combo #2
Compensations that may limit full range of motion of the bench press: Over activity of the upper trapezius and levator scapulae (shoulders rising).
Short, tight pec muscles that are shown through rounded shoulders and internal rotation of the humerus.
When performing an overhead squat movement assessment, if the arms fall forward or bend at the elbows – this is indicative of tight latissimus dorsi and pecs – which may limit the range of motion at the shoulder.
References
(1) Neumann D, PT, PhD. Kinesiology of the Musculoskeletal System. St. Louis, MO: Mosby; 2002.
(2) Milner-Brown A, PhD. Neuromuscular Physiology. Thousand Oaks, CA: National Academy of Sports Medicine; 2001
(3) Hamill J, Knutzen JM. Biomechanical basis of human movement. Balimore, MD: Williams and Wilkins; 1995.On Saturday, network monitoring firms BGPMon and Renesys discovered a new stage in Turkey's governmental social media blocking as the country's citizens go to the polls this weekend. Turk Telekom is now rerouting requests to popular Domain Name Service servers outside the country—including Google’s public DNS server—so those requests instead go to a server within Turk Telekom’s network. Anyone within Turkey attempting to use Google DNS or a similar service as a way to gain access to Twitter or YouTube will instead be directed to a government DNS server where those services are blocked.
This means the Turkish government isn’t just blocking Twitter and YouTube, but it's now able to log the IP addresses of any device attempting to reach the two services using foreign DNS servers. As BGPMon’s Andree Toonk noted in a blog post, “The current situation is concerning, and we don’t see this type of hijacking for DNS network very much, the only note worthy exception is China where we’ve observed this several times before."
The Turkish government moved to block Twitter and YouTube because of alleged audio recordings of government officials, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, that were uploaded to the service along with written transcripts. The recordings included an alleged phone call between Erdoğan and his son discussing how to hide or get rid of large sums of money amid ongoing corruption investigations and a meeting of senior government officials discussing military options in Syria.
The recordings had been widely propagated by Erdoğan’s detractors via Twitter, which led to the prime minister declaring at a campaign rally that he would “wipe out” Twitter.
Users of virtual private networking services and the Tor anonymizing network are thus far unaffected by the Twitter and YouTube blocking. But this new level of censorship shows that the Turkish government is willing to push ISPs to essentially override the Internet’s central addressing service in order to censor political speech online. That could have wide-ranging implications for the country going forward, both politically and economically.One of Sean Hannity‘s guests tonight got so pissed off in the middle of a heated argument on the Walter Scott shooting that he just up and left entirely.
Leo Terrell, who’s blown up several times on Hannity’s show before, got really angry with Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson after he said people need to “stop overreacting” in cases like the Scott shooting, because of how much people overreacted in the cases of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown.
He shouted, “I am not going to sit here and listen to this hate! I’m not gonna listen to it!”
Hannity tried to calm things down and actually sided with Terrell, but when Terrell spoke again, the second Peterson piped up, Terrell flipped out again and shouted, “You quiet down! I’m done! I’m done!”
And then, he just left.
When Hannity told this to Peterson, the reverend said, “Leo’s a little coward.”
Watch the video below, via Fox News:
[image via screengrab]
— —
Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac
Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.comNext Game: #24 Notre Dame 9/22/2016 | 7 PM
FINAL: NC State knocks off No. 7 UNC 1-0 in Chapel Hill! #STATEMENT pic.twitter.com/ooF8BmxAxA — PackWSoccer?? (@PackWSoccer) September 16, 2016
More photos from the win! S/O Baird Photography. pic.twitter.com/LQbiO3HHwp — PackWSoccer?? (@PackWSoccer) September 17, 2016
Having a dance party in the parking lot is the only thing to do after upsetting your rival on the road! #STATEMENT pic.twitter.com/WJ9BKhxQ2B — PackWSoccer?? (@PackWSoccer) September 17, 2016
– The NC State women's soccer team knocked off No. 7 North Carolina 1-0 in Chapel Hill for its sixth win in a row and its fourth consecutive shutout.scored the only goal of the match after' pass opened up the UNC defense. Rankin ran onto the through ball and hit it past the UNC keeper for the goal in the 67minute.The Wolfpack defense came up big, holding off a pressing North Carolina attack. Goalkeepercame up with a season-high eight saves from 12 North Carolina shots.NC State moves to 7-2-0 with the win, while UNC falls to 6-2-1 with the loss. The Pack's six straight wins are the most since the 2008 squad won seven in a row, and the Pack's four straight shutouts are the most since the 2006 tallied four shutouts in a row to open the season.The historic victory marks the Wolfpack's biggest win over a ranked opponent since it took down the No. 1 Tar Heels in 2002. The victory is NC State's second career win over UNC and first since 2002. It's also the first ever win for the Wolfpack at Fetzer Field in Chapel Hill. The Tar Heels rarely lose at home, today's victory marked the 27loss the Heels have ever suffered at home.Seven Wolfpackers played the full 90 minutes in the shut-out victory and 13 players saw time on the field.Both teams struggled offensively in early stretches of the match. The two teams limited each other in the attack and entered halftime knotted at 0-0 with three shots each.Following halftime, NC State picked up its offensive pressure and threatened the Tar Heels early in the second half. The decisive goal came after UNC turned over the ball in midfield. Griffiths dribbled through the Tar Heel defense before slotting it to Rankin who kicked it past the keeper and into the back of the net. The goal is Rankin's third of the season and third in two matches.NC State held strong the final 24 minutes withstanding several North Carolina attacks. In addition to keeping the Heels off the scoresheet, the Wolfpack defense protected its area well and limited the home side to several difficult shots outside of the box.NC State will look for its seventh straight win, as it returns home to face No. 20 Notre Dame Thursday night at 7 p.m. at Dail Soccer Stadium.At the prompting of William Reece, a suspected serial killer, investigators continue to dig for human remains in Brazoria County.
Reece is a man who has spent half his life locked up for sexual assaults and kidnapping. While court records and police reports detail his crimes, what’s the story behind the Oklahoma native?
Those are answers that true crime novelist Kathryn Casey shed light on.
In what was a unique relationship between novelist and convict, Casey shared some of the many letters that Reece had written to her after a jailhouse interview in 2013.
More: "Deliver Us" by Kathryn Casey
“I went into the prison and sat down to talk to Bill Reece, which was a fairly disturbing experience,” Casey said. “He is a very cold, very calculating—a very manipulative man. At the same time—at other times, he was laughing and he was charming and he was very much the psychopath.”
Reece’s criminal past stretches back decades. In 1986, he kidnapped his first known victim at the side of an Oklahoma highway.
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“He had her perform sexual acts and he duct-taped her and zipped her up into a sleeping bag. She very wisely talked her way out of it,” Casey said. “The odd thing was that once he had done this to her, he talked to her about wanting to marry her.”
That victim was able to escape and Reece was charged, but his crimes didn’t end there.
“While he was under indictment on that case, he crawled in a window at another woman's home after seeing her at a bar and sexually assaulted her,” Casey said.
Kathryn Casey wrote "Deliver Us" a true crime book about William Reece.
Reece was sentenced to 25 years in prison but, according to Casey, because of a technicality flaw he only served 10 years and was released in 1996.
Casey says Reece grew up in the country outside Oklahoma City and was part of a fairly well respected middle-class family. His mother, father and sister died during his most recent stint in prison.
“At that point he had a sister and an ex-wife who were both living in the Houston area and Bill Reece relocated to Houston,” Casey said.
A few months later, girls began to disappear. In April 1997, 12-year-old Laura Smither of Friendswood vanished. Her body was later found in a Pasadena pond.
William Reece is linked to at least five murders or kidnappings from 1997.
Then months later, on July 15, Kelli Cox from Denton, Texas, disappeared. Authorities are currently digging for her possible remains in a private field in Brazoria County.
Eleven days later, Tiffany Johnston disappeared from Oklahoma—her body was also found. After 18 years, there was a break in the case that connected Reece and he was charged with Johnston’s murder.
“In the Johnson case, they did find semen, which is where they got the DNA,” Casey said.
And then there’s Jessica Cain, the 17-year-old La Marque girl who vanished after attending a theater cast party with friends.
In March of this year, Reece was spotted leading authorities around in a southeast Houston field, telling them where to dig for Cain’s remains. On March 18, remains were found; however, autopsy results are pending to determine if they’re Cain’s remains.
Jessica Cain.
Reece is currently in prison on a kidnapping conviction from 1997. That victim was able to escape. The question many people are asking: Why is Reece helping now?
“My understanding is he does not want to go to Oklahoma where the case is a death penalty case and that he is cooperating now with Texas officials, maybe to forestall that,” Casey said.
Authorities are staying tight lipped about why Reece is talking, but Casey believes it has nothing to do with remorse.
“He is a cold-blooded calculated psychopath and whatever he's doing he's doing for Bill Reece,” she said.Over $400 million in capital for startups will be deployed by venture capital firms located in Central Ohio in the next four years. This massive influx of capital sets the stage for the region to become a hotspot for startup innovation and job creation in the technology sector.
Beginning in 2013, three early-stage venture capital firms located in Central Ohio launched new funds: NCT Ventures began raising $50 to $100 million for NCT Ventures Fund II; Drive Capital closed $250 million for its debut fund; and Draper Triangle Ventures opened a Columbus office and began raising $75 to $100 million for Draper Triangle Fund III. Additionally, TechColumbus announced a first close of $7 million on an $8 million fundraise for its Catalyst Fund for seed stage investments, and Ohio TechAngels launched OTAF IV, a $7.32 million investment fund. This brings the total funds under management at TechColumbus to more than $40 million.
The cumulative $400 million in funds raised by early-stage and seed-stage funds in Central Ohio significantly expands access to investment capital for entrepreneurs. This is over four times the total capital for seed- and early-stage startup innovation that was previously available in the region. The timing of the funds raised and the significant increase in capital are both unique to this community. With all of the funds mentioned raising capital within the same year, the region is set for a noticeable increase in technology startup innovation over the next four-year investment period.
Preparing for Tech Entrepreneurship
Even with a windfall of capital in the Central Ohio region, there are still several challenges to overcome. More can be done to prepare entrepreneurs for growing technology companies. Some venture capitalists in the region have begun addressing this problem and NCT Ventures recently launched NCT University, an eight week Venture Highway training and development course for entrepreneurs. Venture Highway, one of NCT’s portfolio companies, develops online courses that teach entrepreneurs and college students how to grow a business from the inception of an idea to the growth and operation of a company.
There is a method to how NCT’s team has consistently built businesses over the course of the past two decades. Maintaining an 80% success rate on investments requires strategies that can be replicated, and that’s the goal of Venture Highway and the NCT University curriculum.
Additionally, NCT has made several investments in the community’s infrastructure over the past decade, helping to build a strong startup ecosystem. Now, organizations like Columbus2020 and the Columbus Chamber of Commerce, accelerators such as the 10X program, and incubators like Innovate New Albany are becoming increasingly effective at leveraging the community’s assets to support innovation. The Ohio State University and other research institutions like Battelle also make Central Ohio an increasingly fertile place to start technology businesses.
Opportunities Await
With a strong pipeline of great entrepreneurs and an increase in access to early-stage capital, there are more opportunities for corporations located in the region to engage with the startup community. Central Ohio boasts five Fortune 500 and 15 Fortune 1000 businesses. These companies can play a critical role in technology innovation by serving as first customers to up-and-coming startups. TechColumbus’ First Connect Network is an example of strategies being implemented to connect local entrepreneurs with corporations in the region.
All of the ingredients are coming together for Central Ohio to become a technology hub. With a four times increase in seed- and early-stage capital, totaling over $400 million, and a strong network of resources for entrepreneurs, now is the time for our region to realize its potential for startup innovation.
Resources:
Venture Highway / NCT University
NCT Ventures
Innovate New Albany
TechColumbus
First Connect Network
The Ohio State University Technology Commercialization Office
10X Startup Accelerator
Ohio TechAngelsWhen you are learning a language in immersion, you are taking on a tremendous amount of new information in a relatively short space of time.
It is perfectly natural that you should go through periods when you soak up new words and grammar easily and periods of consolidation. Knowledge needs time to sink in.
Brain turned to jelly? photo: skpy
While this can be really frustrating, bear in mind that the knowledge will become more deeply lodged and is more likely to stick if you take your time while learning.
Plateaus when in immersion
photo: Ed Yourdon
Learning in long-term immersion is the most effective way to develop functional fluency in a language. Even so, from time to time you may well feel that you have reached a plateau and those new words are just not sticking. Hey, you’re only human after all!
Here are some ideas that may help:
1. Try something different
A change is as good as a rest. If you are on a long-term language study trip, you will benefit from changing your surroundings, even if just for a weekend. Of course, many students find something new to see and do every single weekend.
New surroundings and activities naturally bring with them new vocabulary, which is much more likely to stick.
Also consider a change in your technique. If you spend most of your time learning with your head buried in a book, get out there and chat with people. If you never write in your target language, try sending some emails to people you have met. If you haven’t picked up a local paper, perhaps now is the time.
2. Stop hanging around with people who speak your mother tongue
Or at least try and spend more time with people who don’t speak your mother tongue. It’s perfectly normal to want to spend time with people who speak your first language, but it doesn’t help you to learn a second language. Make the most of your time abroad!
3. Read
Read the newspaper, read magazines, read a book… whatever you enjoy. Reading in the language you are learning will help develop your vocabulary.
4. Change of language
This sounds counterintuitive, but if you are on a long-term trip, you may benefit from a couple of days away from the language you are learning. For example, if you are learning Spanish in Latin America, take a week in Brazil.
Does that sound unusual? The feeling of being surrounded by another new language will help you to realise just how far you have developed with your original target language. Upon returning, you will have a fresh boost of confidence and a clear head ready to soak up more information.
5. Flashcards
Fun activities and short holidays are refreshing but to make maximum progress you should support them with some traditional techniques. Flashcards are superb. Use them on long bus journeys or flights, spend twenty minutes a day working with them… however you choose to take advantage of them, flashcards are a language learner’s best friend.
They may not be glamorous, but they are incredibly effective, both when you are away and when you get back from your trip.
After you return home
photo: Mike Baird, bairdphotos.com
Your language development will slow down when you are no longer immersed in the language you want to learn and it may stall completely if you are not careful.
You may still have those trusty flashcards that served you so well in Bolivia, but somehow it doesn’t feel the same reading them when you’re not on a rickety bus creaking through the Andes. Again, that’s perfectly normal.
The big risk is that you will start losing the skills you worked so hard to gain in the first place.
So, how can you keep your language skills developing when you are out of immersion?
1. Local media online
The internet is full of resources for language learners. Once you have attained a good standard of a language, some of the best resources are local and national media outlets, where you can read, watch or listen to news stories, opinion pieces and entertainment. This way, you will not lose the cultural aspects of the language, as well as keeping in touch with the grammar and vocabulary.
2. Podcasts
Instead of bopping to the latest bashment/gabba/Norwegian-disco mashups when jogging, you could download podcasts in the language you are learning. They are often free and many newspapers publish topical ones. Again, you will get that all important cultural aspect while developing new vocab.
3. Books
You can easily order foreign language books from Amazon. Alternatively, you could consider placing an advert in a local paper or forum asking if anyone has any old books they don’t want. You don’t even have to head to the great authors for a good read… often a thriller or romance will be easier to read and more enjoyable.
4. Language swap
Websites like the mixxer allow you to meet people who want to learn your language and to help you to practice theirs. If you are a university student, there will probably be some kind of language exchange program available if you ask at the international students’ office.
5. Get back!
Get yourself back into the language you have learned! Even just a couple of weeks of study in immersion will help you reconnect with the language you learned, rediscover your fluency and rebuild your links with the culture that comes with the language.
If you need a refresher to push your language skills further, you’re in the right place. Choose from our excellent selection of language courses in diverse destinations and combine an enjoyable break with language study.
What are your own tips for blasting through a language learning plateau?on •
LEXIE CANNES STATE OF TRANS — A blog run by a Cuban dissident reports that trans woman Yosvani Muñoz Robaina was stoned to death in a public park in Pinar del Rio, Cuba on April 26, 2015. A number of other Spanish-language media reports seem to confirm the death, however, I’m unable to tell if it’s a second confirmation or if each one sources the same blog.
The blogger, Yoani Sánchez, reports Robaina was taken to a hospital after the stoning and later died from her injuries. An autopsy has been performed and three men, an adult and two minors have been detained, apparently, by the police according to the victim’s mother. There are no further details, nor names of the detainees are available.
In Pakistan, trans woman Almaroof Bijli was found dead on May 5, 2015 by a Gungal bus stop. Although her body was found burned and mutilated, police have yet to declare the death a murder. A few days later, three trans women were killed when two motorcyclists fired into an area where trans people frequent in Rawalpindi. The victims were identified as Saima Shahzadi, Shah Zaib and Billi. Two others survived the attack. There are no suspects at this writing.
——-
Anyone with additional information or photos, please post in the comments section below.
Last month I wrote about two Pakistani trans women who were also gunned down: https://lexiecannes.com/2015/04/08/u-s-trans-woman-dead-in-london-two-gunned-down-in-pakistan/
—–
Cuba [Trigger Warning — misgender]: http://www.latintimes.com/cuba-lgbt-rights-trans-woman-yosvani-munoz-robaina-reportedly-stoned-death-country-316196
Blogger Yoani Sánchez [in Spanish]: http://www.14ymedio.com/nacional/Muere-transexual-apedreado-Pinar-Rio_0_1775822401.html
Pakistan: http://www.advocate.com/crime/2015/05/12/four-pakistani-trans-women-mysteriously-murdered-within-one-week-0
Watch LEXIE CANNES right now: http://www.amazon.com/Lexie-Cannes-CourtneyODonnell/dp/B00KEYH3LQ Or get the DVD: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0963781332
Read Lexie Cannes in The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/courtney-odonnell/
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Categories: Deaths, Murder, Transgender, Transsexual, TransA water shortage described as the most critical since the earliest days of Iraq's civilisation is threatening to leave up to 2 million people in the south of the country without electricity and almost as many without drinking water.
An already meagre supply of electricity to Iraq's fourth-largest city of Nasiriyah has fallen by 50% during the last three weeks because of the rapidly falling levels of the Euphrates river, which has only two of four power-generating turbines left working.
If, as predicted, the river falls by a further 20cm during the next fortnight, engineers say the remaining two turbines will also close down, forcing a total blackout in the city.
Down river, where the Euphrates spills out into the Shatt al-Arab waterway at the north-eastern corner of the Persian Gulf, the lack of fresh water has raised salinity levels so high that two towns, of about 3,000 people, on the northern edge of Basra have this week evacuated. "We can no longer drink this water," said one local woman from the village of al-Fal. "Our animals are all dead and many people here are diseased."
Iraqi officials have been attempting to grapple with the magnitude of the crisis for months, which, like much else in this fractured society, has many causes, both man-made and natural.
Two winters of significantly lower than normal rainfalls – half the annual average last year and one-third the year before – have followed six years of crippling instability, in which industry barely functioned and agriculture struggled to meet half of subsistence needs.
"For thousands of years Iraq's agricultural lands were rich with planted wheat, rice and barley," said Salah Aziz, director of planning in Iraq's agricultural ministry, adding that land was "100% in use".
"This year less than 50% of the land is in use and most of the yields are marginal. This year we cannot begin to cover even 40% of Iraq's fruit and vegetable demand."
During the last five chaotic years, many new dams and reservoirs have been built in Turkey, Syria and Iran, which share the Euphrates and its small tributaries. The effect has been to starve the Euphrates of its lifeblood, which throughout the ages has guaranteed bountiful water, even during drought. At the same time, irrigators have tried tilling marginal land in an attempt for quick yields and in all cases the projects have been abandoned.
"Not even during Saddam's time did we face the prospect of something so grave," said Nasiriyah's governor, Qusey al-Ebadi. Just east of the city, the Marsh Arabs are also on the edge of a crisis – unprecedented even during the three decades of reprisals they faced under the former dictator.
"The current level of the Euphrates cannot feed the small tributaries that give water to the marshlands," he continued. "The people there have started to dig wells for their own survival. There is no water to use for washing, because it is stagnant and contaminated. Many of the animals have contracted disease and died and people with animals are leaving their areas."
Nowhere is Iraq's water shortage more stark than in what used to be the marshlands. Towards the Iranian border and south to the Gulf, rigid and yellowing reeds jut from a hard-baked landscape of cracked mud.
Skiffs that once plied the lowland waters lie dry and splintering and ducks wallow in fetid green ponds that pocket the maze of feeder streams. Steel cans of drinking water bought by desperate locals line dirt roads like over-sized letter boxes.
The Euphrates, once broad and endlessly green, is now narrow and drab. In parts it is a slick black ooze, fit only for scores of bathing water buffalo. Giant pumps lay metres out of reach. Some are rusting. "Not long ago, the level of the Euphrates was at this rust line," said Awda Khasaf, a local leader in the al-Akerya marshlands, as he pointed at the dwindling river.
"It has now dropped more than 1.5m. This river feeds all the agriculture lands and marsh lands in Nasiriyah. It smells like this because it is stagnant," he said. "We turned to agriculture in 1991 after Saddam's rampage, but now the government has ordered us to stop rice farming."
Further up the river Sheikh Amar Hameed, 44, from Abart village said: "We have lost the soul of our lives with the vanishing water. We have lost everything. We are buying drinking water now. The government must find a solution. The young will all become thieves. They have no prospects."
Iraq's water minister, Dr Abdul Latif Rashid, this week estimated that up to 300,000 marshland residents are on the move, many of them newly uprooted and heading for nearby towns and cities that can do little to support them.
The Marsh Arabs are semi-nomadic and large numbers have remained displaced since Saddam drained the marshes in 1991.
"In the last 20-30 years our neighbouring countries have built a number of structures for collecting water or diverting water for their agricultural lands," Dr Rashid said.
"In some cases, they have diverted the path of the river for their internal use. This has had a very damaging effect. We have a large number of branches of the Tigris that we share with Iran. In most their volumes are low, or completely dried up. In 2006/07 [the marshlands] almost reached 75% of original levels. Now the surface water is around 20%. Water resources have this year become not only serious, but critical. Iraq has not faced a water shortage like this."
Officials have tried to compensate by digging wells and bores, especially in the ravaged provinces of the south and in Anbar, west of Baghdad. Delegations have also travelled to Turkey and Syria, where they were warmly received, but have achieved few changes. "We were expecting much more of a release from Turkey," Dr Rashid said. "Iran has been less receptive. We have had no response from them at all."
River wars
Nile Nine Nile basin countries are in dispute over water-sharing. Countries including Uganda and Rwanda are attempting to overrule a 1959 treaty that restricted building on the river without Egypt's consent. Egypt is reliant on the volume of water it currently receives.
Euphrates Iraq and Syria oppose the building of dams on the river by Turkey. Iraq is reliant on the river for irrigation, and damming upriver seriously affects water flow.
Jordan Israel and Palestine share a water aquifer along the West Bank, but Palestinians only have access to one fifth of the water held there. They are also in dispute over the river Jordan, with Israel claiming 90% control.
Indus Pakistan is in dispute with India over the Indus river that supplies water to millions. Reservoirs and dams have caused water shortages in downstream areas, such as Karachi. A presidential decision to provide more water to the population in Sindh by closing the Tarbela Dam also caused outrage in neighbouring Punjab, whose water was being diverted.
Katy Stoddard'Dickensian' boarding house hastened deaths
Updated
A New South Wales Coroner has found the conditions in a Sydney boarding house contributed to the deaths of six mentally-ill residents.
Six residents of the 300 Hostel in Marrickville died between 2009 and 2010.
Today the New South Wales Coroner Mary Jerram handed down her findings into the deaths, describing what she called a 'Dickensian' scenario where over-sedated people were reduced to a state of lethargy or inertia to keep them quiet.
The Coroner found the deceased each took two anti-psychotics daily and says the need for this medication was highly questionable.
She found the administration of the drugs to three of the deceased impacted adversely on their mental and physical health.
The Coroner said the deaths were not caused by the hostel's conditions but were hastened by them.
Asha Ramzan's brother was not discovered for two days after he died at the boarding house.
She says medical professionals were complicit in what happened at the 300 Hostel - and she is concerned that they have gotten off scot-free.
"For our family, there is so much grief, and I'm not sure these are the answers we're looking for," she said.
The Coroner gave broad support for State Government moves to tighten restrictions on boarding houses.
Topics: courts-and-trials, homelessness, mental-health, marrickville-2204
First postedAnimal Kingdom rules AFI nominations
Updated
Animal Kingdom has grabbed a record-breaking 18 nominations for this year's Australian Film Institute Awards.
David Michod's debut feature film, about a dysfunctional Melbourne crime family, received nominations in every category for which it was eligible including best film, best director and best lead actress for Jack |
dispute going? DW takes a look at the actors and their motives.
Kirkuk: Who's fighting in Iraq's Kurdish-controlled province? Iraq's army In 2014, Kurdish forces went into Kirkuk to fill in the void left behind after Iraq's army collapsed from the "Islamic State's" military campaign. But three years later, the Iraqi military has been rebuilt and ridden a wave of victories against the notorious militant group. They're the main instrument of hard power for the Iraqi government as Baghdad fights for control of the oil-rich province.
Kirkuk: Who's fighting in Iraq's Kurdish-controlled province? Shiite-dominated Popular Mobilization Units Even during the liberation of Mosul, the Iraqi army was backed by the Popular Mobilization Units – an alliance of mostly Shiite militias. The Popular Mobilization Units joined the Iraqi army when it advanced on Kurdish-controlled positions in and around the city of Kirkuk. Kurdish politicians have lashed at the units, saying they're serving Iran's goal to destabilize the region.
Kirkuk: Who's fighting in Iraq's Kurdish-controlled province? Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) is one of the main opposition political parties in Iraqi Kurdistan. Since the first Gulf War, the PUK has jointly administered Iraqi Kurdistan with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). Both the PUK and KDP have their own peshmerga forces. In Kirkuk, PUK peshmerga fled the city, leaving it virtually unopposed to Iraqi forces.
Kirkuk: Who's fighting in Iraq's Kurdish-controlled province? Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) led by Iraqi Kurdistan President Masoud Barzani is the ruling political party in Iraqi Kurdistan's parliament. Despite warnings from the central government, it was the KDP's Barzani who vowed to move forward on the independence referendum, infuriating Baghdad. KDP peshmerga fighters – like the PUK fighters – fled Kirkuk when Iraqi forces advanced on the city.
Kirkuk: Who's fighting in Iraq's Kurdish-controlled province? The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) was born in the 1970s out of an ambitious dream to create a Marxist-Leninist state in the Middle East to be called Kurdistan. In the 1980s, the group launched a bloody insurgency against the state of Turkey. While considered unwelcome in Iraq, the PKK has links with Iraq's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) – and likely appeared in Kirkuk to back them. Author: Lewis Sanders IV
What you need to know
Following a controversial Kurdish independence referendum, Iraqi forces gave Kurdish forces a Sunday deadline to retreat to positions agreed upon in a 2014 accord.
When Kurdish forces failed to do so, Iraqi security forces advanced on areas surrounding oil-rich Kirkuk, culminating in the capture of oil fields, regional government buildings, an airport and a military base on Monday.
Kurdish peshmerga forces retreated, effectively allowing Iraqi security forces and Iranian-backed Shiite militias to move into the city unopposed.
'Impose security'
Iraqi state TV reported that Iraqi forces had taken control of "vast areas" outside of Kirkuk city.
Kurdish peshmerga forces reportedly retreated back from positions outside the city, but were setting up defenses in the city as thousands of civilians fled in cars north to Erbil and Sulaymaniyah. The move by Iraqi forces prompted the German military to withdraw 140 military trainers deployed in northern Iraq to instruct peshmerga fighters.
Read more: What is the Iraqi Kurdish independence referendum?
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered security forces "to impose security in Kirkuk in cooperation with the population of the city and the peshmerga." He said that instructions were given for forces to stay out of the city.
The Kurdistan Region Security Council claimed peshmerga had destroyed several US-supplied Humvees belonging to the PMU. Hemin Hawrami, an adviser to Kurdish President Masoud Barzani, quoted the peshmerga command as saying Abadi's government would "pay a heavy price" for the assult on Kirkuk.
Thousands of Kurdish families fled Kirkuk to the Kurdish cities of Erbil and Sulaymaniyah.
US: 'Avoid additional escalatory actions'
The US Defense Department, which has supplied and trained both the peshmerga and Iraqi army, urged its two allies in the war against the "Islamic State" (IS) "to avoid additional escalatory actions." It added that it opposed destabilising actions that distract from the battle against IS militants.
Later, US President Donald Trump said the US will not take sides, but expressed disappointment at the escalating dispute between two allies.
Read more: The Middle East's complex Kurdish landscape
"We don't like the fact that they're clashing. We're not taking sides," Trump told reporters. "We've had for many years a very good relationship with the Kurds as you know and we've also been on the side of Iraq, even though we should have never been there in the first place."
The Iraqi troops and the Kurdish peshmerga fighters have been engaged in a standoff since Saturday, when they took positions on opposite banks of a river on the southern outskirts of the city of Kirkuk.
Kurdish forces were given a deadline of 2 a.m. local time Sunday (2300 UTC Saturday) to surrender their positions and return to their pre-June 2014 positions.
Turkey offers help against PKK
In a statement, the Turkish foreign ministry said on Monday it supported the Iraqi government in retaking control of Kirkuk, offering to aid Iraqi forces to oust Kurdish forces from the oil-rich city. "We are ready for any form of cooperation with the Iraqi government to end the PKK presence in Iraqi territory," the ministry said.
Baghdad said on Sunday fighters from Turkey's outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) were present in Kirkuk among Kurdish peshmerga forces, in what it said amounted to a "declaration of war."
Read more: In Iraq, minorities pin hopes on a Kurdish state
"It is impossible to remain silent" faced with "a declaration of war towards Iraqis and government forces," the National Security Council headed by the Iraqi prime minister said in a statement.
The PKK-affiliated ANF News Agency said its fighters had been called to mobilize and form a "defensive line to protect the people." The PKK has close ties with some Iraqi Kurdish parties, particularly the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Turkey's offer also stems from its support for its ethnic cousins, the Turkmen, which reside in the Kirkuk province.
Iraqi forces roll by a oil production plant outside Kirkuk.
Kirkuk: In Kurdish hands since 2014
Abadi has demanded that Kurdish leaders disavow the September 25 referendum, but the Kurds have rejected the demand. Baghdad called the referendum "anti-constitutional." Turkey, Iran and the United States were all against the vote.
After the referendum, the Iraqi parliament asked Abadi to use armed force to retake control of Kirkuk, which is inhabited by Kurds as well as Sunni and Shiite Turkmen and Arabs. Last week, Abadi said he would accept a "joint administration" with the Kurds in the province.
Read more: Opinion: Kurds find few friends in independence referendum
The Kurdish peshmerga have controlled Kirkuk since 2014, when it prevented the province's oil fields from falling into the hands of IS after the Iraqi army collapsed. With Baghdad weak, the Kurds moved to expand territory under their control outside the three provinces that officially make up the Kurdistan region.
The Kurds and Baghdad have long been in dispute over oil resources and revenue sharing. But the apparent collapse of the peshmerga within a day also led to bitter accusations between rival Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party, highlighting factionalism that has plagued the Kurdish camp.
US 'not taking sides'
US President Donald Trump said on Monday that the US was not taking sides in the conflict. "We don't like the fact that they're clashing. We're not taking sides," Trump told reporters at the White House.
"We've had for many years a very good relationship with the Kurds as you know and we've also been on the side of Iraq," he
said.
Kurdish government representative in Washington, Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, said the US had already helped isolate the Kurds by publicly calling for them to postpone the September 25 referendum on independence that staretd the current dispute with Baghdad.
"With every step (Washington) emboldened Baghdad, Iran and Turkey... each one of them thinking: 'Well, so the Kurds are on
their own, we can do whatever we like'," she told the news agency Reuters.
ls, cw/rt/jbh (Reuters, AFP, AP)Students brew up a success with local MP
Enterprising University of Sheffield students with a passion for real ale have brewed a new beer with Paul Blomfield MP, set to be sold across Sheffield and even in the Strangers Bar in the House of Commons.
The students brewed 2,500 pints of Bees Knees Bitter, a 4 per cent best bitter at Blue Bee Brewery in Neepsend, with the help of Mr Blomfield - a keen supporter of Sheffield’s thriving real ale industry. The beer will be officially launched this week (Wednesday 14 November 2012) at Sheffied Students’ Union.
The students are part of Sheffield Student Union’s Real Ale Society. President Nathan Rodgers said: “Taking a beer made by students in Sheffield to the bar in the House of Commons in Westminster is just an incredible prospect. Real Ale is often overlooked, but it's a big industry in Sheffield. In fact, the Sheffield Branch of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) found that Sheffield was the Beer Capital of the UK, so it's interesting to see how Sheffield, the former Steel City, has forged itself into this new artisan and cultural trade of brewing, with over 10 different microbreweries in Sheffield. It's really good to see a trade bucking the trend of the recession.
“Also, Sheffield is the only place in the UK to have the CAMRA best national pub of the UK, two years in a row - so it not only makes great beer, it also has many great and unique venues that sell the stuff.”
Paul Blomfield recently visited Blue Bee Brewery in Neepsend to try his hand at brewing, mixing the ingredients and throwing in the hops to the new beer.
Paul said: “It’s not every day that the opportunity to brew beer comes along, so I was delighted when the University of Sheffield’s Real Ale Society asked me to join in with their brewing. Sheffield’s growing micro-brewing industry is a real local success story so the plan is to promote this success by having the beer sold at Westminster as well as across Sheffield.”
Nathan said the Real Ale Society also want to challenge the stereotype of student drinkers and to bring people closer to the local origins of the product they consume. He said: “Whenever you see student drinking in the media it's always bad, it doesn't have to be that way – we like to promote a sensible and mature attitude towards drinking.
“By brewing our beer, it's a way of taking the anonymity out of that glass the bar man gives you in the pub. The drink has its own little story in a way- from the ingredients, to the farmers that grew the crops, to the people who made it.”
Additional information Bees Knees Bitter, brewed by the University of Sheffield’s Real Ale Society and Neepsend Brewery, will be on sale across Sheffield and in the Houses of Commons from 14 November 2012. To find out more, visit:
The Real Ale Society
The University of Sheffield
With nearly 25,000 students from 125 countries, the University of Sheffield is one of the UK´s leading and largest universities. A member of the Russell Group, it has a reputation for world-class teaching and research excellence across a wide range of disciplines. The University of Sheffield has been named University of the Year in the Times Higher Education Awards for its exceptional performance in research, teaching, access and business performance. In addition, the University has won four Queen´s Anniversary Prizes (1998, 2000, 2002, 2007). These prestigious awards recognise outstanding contributions by universities and colleges to the United Kingdom´s intellectual, economic, cultural and social life. Sheffield also boasts five Nobel Prize winners among former staff and students and many of its alumni have gone on to hold positions of great responsibility and influence around the world. The University´s research partners and clients include Boeing, Rolls-Royce, Unilever, Boots, AstraZeneca, GSK, ICI, Slazenger, and many more household names, as well as UK and overseas government agencies and charitable foundations. The University has well-established partnerships with a number of universities and major corporations, both in the UK and abroad. Its partnership with Leeds and York Universities in the White Rose Consortium has a combined research power greater than that of either Oxford or Cambridge.I thought federal prosecutors were supposed to be tough guys, like PJ Media's own Andrew C. McCarthy. But, following on the heels of fired FBI chief James Comey's whinefest last Thursday, here comes Preet Bharara, recently canned U. S. attorney for the southern district of New York:
Preet Bharara, the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York ousted by President Trump, said Sunday that he had become increasingly uncomfortable with Trump’s efforts to “cultivate some kind of relationship” with him and that his March firing came 22 hours after finally refusing to take a call from the president. In an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week,” Bharara said Trump called him twice as president-elect, “ostensibly just to shoot the breeze.” The calls took place after a meeting at Trump Tower in November at which Bharara, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, said Trump asked him to stay on in the new administration. The third call came in March, he said. After consulting with staff members, he said he decided not to return the call because he felt it was inappropriate. “It’s a very weird and peculiar thing for a one-on-one conversation, without the attorney general, without warning, between the president and me or any United States attorney who has been asked to investigate various things,” he said.
What is this, kindergarten? Honestly, the arrogance of these "public servants" is astounding. Here a new president arrives, one unschooled in the Mother-May-I niceties of the legal racket, and prissy Miss Preet pulls up her skirts and skitters away.
Mark Corallo, a spokesman for one of Trump's attorneys, said on Twitter on Sunday that it would not be unusual for Trump to contact Bharara and that if he refused to take Trump's call, “he deserved to be fired.” He accused Bharara of being a “resistance Democrat” with a political “axe to grind.”
After James Comey's pathetic performance on Thursday, what are we to make of these whiny lawyers? That they're unanswerable to their duly elected boss? That they think so highly of themselves that they can't be sullied by contact with a president of a different political party? That, appointed to enforce the law, they believe they are above the highest law of the land, the Constitution? Heroes in their own mind, they are Exhibit A in the unaccountability of the leftist mind.spring registration OPEN! LEAGUE REGISTRATION Tourney Registration Email info@cornholeatl.com All Seasons Include: 7 Weeks of Cornhole Fun Including Playoffs
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The Wi-Fi Vampires
Whether they’re students who’ll order endless cups of coffee, or stressed employees rushing to finish a project during their break, the first thing out of their mouths, even before their order, will always be: “Ano po ang Wi-Fi password niyo?”
The Food Pornographers
Watch as the food you just served them become progressively colder as they take photo after photo of their meal instead of actually enjoying it.
The Other Waiters
Usually seen fiddling with their phones, and constantly looking up in anticipation. They’ll request a glass of water or, if they’re trying to save face, the cheapest thing on the menu, whenever you awkwardly ask them if they’re ready to order.
The Lone Soul
On the other hand, unlike those who are visibly waiting (often in vain) for other people to join them, there are people perfectly content to ask for single-seat tables, order their food promptly and graciously.
The Gregarious Gang
As soon as their barkada walks in, you know the place is about to become a whole lot noisier. Be prepared to be conscripted into taking group photos, and try not to laugh while they struggle to split the bill.
The Picky Eater
If they could customize every single item on their plate, they definitely will, most likely while talking extensively about their gluten-free/lactose-intolerant/vegan/paleo diet.
The Fearless Foodie
These ones are sometimes fun to interact with since they’ll genuinely be interested in your recommendations on what to order. They can quickly get irritating though when they demand you to break down the components of the entire dish, recipes and ingredients included.
The Reliable Regular
These are the folks you become very familiar with quickly. They usually show up at the same time to order the same thing, and are more likely to throw you a smile and engage you in some friendly small talk than anyone else.
All sorts of people show up at restaurants, and their food demands can range from only the most exotic and expensive to what fits the newest diet fad to what looks the prettiest when photographed. Thankfully, it's not just up to the long-suffering waiters and waitresses to please the customers, but also the magicians in the kitchen who can whip up amazing dishes.
If you're interested in seeing more of the hectic goings-on happening behind the scene at restaurants, check out the newest season of Chef’s Table over at Netflix Philippines! You’ll get to meet the greats of the culinary world whom we’re sure are bound to have a few interesting dining service stories to tell as well.California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) took on protesters at a climate talk on Saturday, saying "let's put you in the ground" in response to the continual disruptions targeting Brown's environmental stances.
Protesters at the "America's Pledge" talk in Germany, an event in support of the Paris climate agreement that the United States withdrew from this summer, called for reduced oil drilling during Brown's talk. According to the Sacramento Bee, protesters chanted, "carbon trading is no solution,” in reference to the cap-and-trade system, as well as “poisoned wastewater” and “keep it in the ground.”
“I agree with you, ‘in the ground,’ ” Brown said amid the protests. “Let’s put you in the ground so we can get on with the show here."
“Anyway,” he later said, “This is very California. Thank you for coming. Actually, that’s very mild.”
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At one point in the speech supporters of Brown chanted against the protesters, resulting in chants of "we're still in," "Trump's still out," and "We love Brown."
Environmentalists have previously criticized Brown over his advocacy for hydraulic fracturing, a fossil fuel extraction technique, which some environmentalists see as contradictory to his strong stance on mitigating climate change through the reduction of fossil fuel use.
California led the charge of a coalition of individual states rebelling against the unpopular decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, vowing to maintain the pact's environmental goals independently from the federal government.
“Most of these critics ride around in cars and fly in airplanes, so what we have to do is get the end goal in sight," Brown later said of the protesters. The governor is on an 11-day trip through four countries.Religion of Peace™
KARACHI/LAHORE: A prominent cleric in Pakistan termed the “Protection of Women against violence Bill 2015”, passed by the Punjab Assembly on Wednesday, in contradiction to the Islamic Sharia and criticized the Sharif brothers for allegedly pushing the country towards ‘secularism’.
The bill was adopted by the provincial assembly on Wednesday, making all crimes against the women an offence including domestic violence, emotional, psychological and economic abuse, verbal abuse, stalking, abetment of an offence, and cyber crimes.
According to the new law, a toll-free number (UAN) will also be introduced to receive complaints while a district protection committee will be setup to investigate women’s complaints in this regard.
Reacting to the development, Chief of Jamia Binoria International Mufti Muhammad Naeem said in a statement that the bill was contrary to teachings of Holy Quran and Sunnah.
Terming the bill a bid to suppress men at the hands of women, he said violence against women can be controlled by giving them rights allocated for them in the Sharia.The House of Palestine needs real reform to put an end to the infighting and disunity within and the misconduct both within and without. There are raging accusations and sloganeering that may lead to further division and not to unity.
Some Palestinians forget the fact that the position of Saudi Arabia on the Palestine issue has not witnessed any change ever since the period of the Kingdom’s founder King Abdul Aziz. The kings who succeeded him also held fast to this position, considering Palestine to be the core issue of Arabs.
Indeed, there may not be any Arab government other than the Kingdom whose prime concern is the issue of Palestine and the situation of the Palestinian people. Saudi Arabia is holding fast to this firm policy with regard to Palestine and this is attributed to many factors. These include the fact that Palestinians are brothers of the Saudi people binding them together with their blood, language and religion. Moreover, the occupied Palestinian territories also include the holy city of Jerusalem, which houses Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holy mosque in Islam. The Saudi position supporting the Palestine issue reached its zenith with the Arab Peace Initiative, proposed by the late King Abdullah, and later adopted by the Arab summit held in Beirut in 2002 as the remedy to the longstanding crisis.
This initiative is still considered to be the roadmap to the so-called “two-nation solution” to the Palestinian crisis. Palestinians, Arabs and the international community, including the United States, are satisfied with this initiative, even though President Donald Trump came out recently with the stunning decision to donate Occupied Jerusalem to Israel as its “eternal and unified capital”.
However, at the same time, we see some Palestinians taking to the streets, not in protest against the United States and its president but against Saudi Arabia! It is unfortunate that some Palestinians, who migrated to Europe, find pleasure in attacking Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, and these include even members of the media. Some of them specialize in blaming the Kingdom and attempting to discredit it despite the fact that their close relatives still reside and work in the Kingdom! They also know that the Kingdom does not treat these Palestinian expatriates as refugees and that the Kingdom forbids the deportation of even those Palestinians who should be deported for one reason or the other. Moreover, some of them have obtained Saudi citizenship and are happy to live in the Kingdom as their second nation.
Saudi Arabia, in its capacity as a heavyweight in the Arab and Islamic world and one of the major economies in the world gives utmost importance to the Palestinian issue. The Kingdom is very keen to fulfill its responsibilities toward the Palestine issue with payment of its contributions to support the Palestinian Authority. It has also for several decades been very prompt in the payment of contributions to the Al-Aqsa Fund. The Kingdom treats all of this as one of its obligatory duties so as to uphold the Palestine cause and serve the interests of the Palestinian people. Hence, it makes the payment of all these contributions in a silent manner without making the hue and cry that is sometimes practiced by others.
Despite all of this, some Palestinians are involved in a malicious campaign against the Kingdom. These Palestinians have become millionaires after migrating not only to Western Europe, North America and South America but also to the Arab world, especially Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. They pay no attention or regard even to their close relatives who are residing in the Gulf, as well as to their interests.
Their main concern is apparently to double their wealth even by standing with a country, which is usurping their homeland! A few of these people are involved in selling their land to Jews in return for dollars and shekels and then they complain to others that Israel confiscated acres of the property that they inherited from their ancestors. This is the reality about which former Jordanian Prime Minister Abdelsalam Al-Majali spoke in a reliable television interview that can be watched on YouTube.
Of course, I do not wish to generalize as there are many noble Palestinian men and women who make great sacrifices for their fellow Arabs and Muslims in their heroic struggle to realize the dream of liberating the remaining territories of their historic nation of Palestine from Israeli usurpers. However, those Palestinians who show their effrontery in blaming the Kingdom are committing a great offense not only to themselves but also to their homeland and people through their impertinent and indecent behavior.
As for Saudi Arabia, it never behaved to Palestinian expatriates in an indecent way under any circumstances. Everybody knows the mistreatment and persecution meted out to Palestinian refugees by the Bashar Al-Assad regime in squalid Syrian camps. Similar is the case of refugees in Lebanese camps.
Saudi Arabia extends assistance to the Palestinian Authority or other organizations in the occupied territories in return for nothing. Also, the Kingdom sees it is a duty not only as an Arab and Muslim country but also as part of the international community. The Kingdom feels an immense sense of pride in playing a pioneering role in the heroic struggle to liberate Al-Aqsa Mosque and all the occupied Palestinian territories.
Nobody can remain silent in the face of such a shameful attitude on the part of some Palestinians toward the Kingdom and other Gulf states. If they continue persisting in such an arrogant and offensive attitude, it is our duty to expose this without doing any harm to most Palestinians who still maintain reciprocal respect with the Kingdom and its people.
The author is the editor-in-chief of Okaz.Canada is gradually shaping up as a viable migration choice for concerned Americans who are anxious over a possible Donald Trump victory in the U.S. presidential elections later this year, according to a recent study by a real estate franchiser.In a report released on Thursday (April 7), Royal LePage said that factors like strong foreign investment, rock-bottom interest rates, and the country’s attractiveness to migrants combine with many Americans’ fear of Trump’s publicly stated anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant stance to drive Canadian real estate growth.“[The] possibility of a Donald Trump presidency has put renewed global focus on the often stark differences in opportunity and attitude that exist on either side of our huge border,” Royal LePage CEO Phil Soper wrote in the company’s quarterly housing price survey, as quoted by BNN News.The Royal LePage report noted that the average price for a Canadian home rose to $512,000 in the first quarter of a year, an approximately 8 per cent increase over the previous three-month period. Much of this growth has been spurred by continuous gains in high-performing Toronto and Vancouver, the report added.“In what started as a media prank, Canada’s attractiveness as a more realistic place to pursue life, liberty and happiness is gaining traction even in America,” Soper said. “[This surge in popularity] reinforces the worldwide strength of brand-Canada as a prosperous and tolerant place to raise a family.”The “pranks” Soper referred to include a mock “Cape Breton if Donald Trump Wins” website launched in mid-February that offered lots in the island for sale to Americans who are contemplating to migrate to Canada. Between February 15 and March 4, visits to an online database of Cape Breton real estate pages broke the 450,000 mark, suggesting that many users are seriously considering the possibility of moving to the island.Learn About Us.
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UPMA is a Cooperative operating on a non-profit basis. To open an account and become a member, click here.A Polk County teacher has been arrested after students reportedly caught him watching pornography on a cellphone during class, and authorities believe it wasn't the first time, according to WFTS.
Vadi Velez-Gonzalez was teaching his ninth-grade reading class at Mulberry High School when a female student came up to his desk to ask a question and noticed he was looking at adult pornography on his cellphone.
Shocked, the student went back to the front of the class to throw something away, but this time she brought her phone so she could film him in the act. The video spread through the school on Snapchat and led to Velez-Gonzalez's arrest, the TV station reports.
Velez-Gonzalez has been charged with four counts of showing obscene material to minors, and Polk County deputies also say the teacher visited the same porn and hookup site 383 times in a two-week period.
Click here to read more on this story at ABCActionNews.com.Nintendo released its fiscal 2008 earnings, and the news was all good. The company reported sales in the 2008 fiscal year of ¥1.67 trillion (about $16 billion), 73 percent more than last year. Net income improved 48 percent to 257 billion yen ($2.6 billion), and the yearly dividend nearly doubled from ¥690 per share ($0.82 per American Depositary Receipt, which is what a U.S. investor would trade in) in 2007 to ¥1,260 per share ($1.51 per ADR) this year. The company now has ¥1.1 trillion ($10.5 billion) in cash and equivalents, up from ¥689 billion ($6.6 billion) last year.
Nintendo's forecasts for next year are also bullish: the company expects a 26 percent jump in net profit. These numbers mean that the business is doing very, very well, but they also paint the picture of a gaming juggernaut that is going to be harder to combat than Nintendo's competitors would have liked; nearly every criticism leveled against Nintendo has been answered with cold, hard numbers.
Wii owners buying games in droves
One of the ongoing bits of "accepted wisdom" in regards to the Wii is that no one is buying games; there is the perception that many casual gamers are simply using their system as a Wii Sports box. The New York Times recently ran a story claiming that Nintendo had low attach rates for the system; their source for these numbers, VGCharts, has gone on record to disagree with the analysis of its own data.
According to Nintendo's own data, each Wii owner has purchased 6.07 games for their system since launch worldwide, a figure that's in line with the competition. The US audience is even hungrier for Wii games, as the attach rates for systems in America is 7.48 games per system. In the past fiscal year, Nintendo increased its amount of million-sellers on the Wii from five to 26. Super Smash Bros. Brawl has sold 4.85 million units worldwide alone, and that's before the game even launches in the UK. This isn't counting the millions of Virtual Console games being sold, which amount to almost pure profit for Nintendo.
Wii hardware sells well internationally. Data source: Nintendo
There is also the fact that Nintendo is doing well in multiple regions, which is a large advantage against Sony and Microsoft's weak sales worldwide. Microsoft may sell well in the US, but it's death in Japan, and is beaten by Sony in Europe. Sony has a good hold on Europe and excellent PSP sales in Japan, but the PS3 usually brings up the rear in US sales. Contrast that with Nintendo's strong sales in Europe, North America, and Japan, and you have a company that does well worldwide. Nintendo's strength in multiple regions, as well as almost surreal sales of both its portable and console system, make it a very formidable foe in the market.
You can say that the Wii isn't particularly friendly to third-party games, and there might be some truth there; the majority of runaway successes on the Wii have been published by Nintendo itself. You can, however, find titles by third parties that have sold over a million units each: titles like Guitar Hero III, Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition, Carnival Games, Rayman Raving Rabbids, and even Red Steel have all surpassed the million mark. This isn't including the scores of games such as Lego Star Wars that move huge numbers; focusing on the NPD's top-ten list is rather shortsighted when it comes to gauging how games are doing: there is a huge margin between the million sellers on the list and failure.
The arguments against the Wii's apparent success—that players aren't using it after it's purchased, that game sales are low, and that it's a fad—are starting to ring hollow, and the latest data from Nintendo should go a long way towards silencing the critics. While developers are struggling to understand the Wii, trying to figure out how to deal with its prominence in gaming, or simply slamming it to the press, one thing is apparent: gamers know exactly what to do with the console.OWC Slim
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Forty years ago this month, bombs in Dublin and Monaghan, in the Republic of Ireland, killed 33 people and an unborn child - it was the most deadly attack in the political violence known as the Troubles. Victims and relatives have just announced their intention to sue the British government.
No-one was ever charged in connection with the atrocities on 17 May 1974. Survivors and relatives of victims have never given up trying to find out the truth - with continuing allegations of collusion between the UVF militants responsible and elements of the British security and intelligence services.
Dublin city centre was busier than usual just before 17:30 that Friday evening. A bus strike meant the streets were packed with people travelling home on foot.
There was a big flash up in the sky and the bomb just exploded Bernie McNally, Survivor of Dublin bombing
Derek Byrne was just 14 and only a week into his first job working as a petrol pump attendant. Just as he was filling a car with petrol, a huge explosion struck on Parnell Street. His injuries were so horrific that emergency services thought he had died. He recalls waking up in a hospital mortuary.
"I just remember pulling back the sheets and then the lady in the morgue, she ran out," he says.
"I don't know whether it was hospital porters or doctors who came in. I was put on a trolley and brought straight to theatre. I was 18 hours in theatre and then 12 weeks in a coma after that."
The scars of that day remain: "Only five weeks ago I got the all-clear to have surgery around the heart to remove shrapnel. I'm still waiting to get the shrapnel removed - they also found some in my arms and then in my knee and that has to be removed, they said."
Image caption Derek Byrne today
Nearby, Bernie McNally was a 16-year old working in a shoe shop on Talbot Street. She heard the first bomb - before another huge blast outside. Two |
Massad. In 1967, he was named Director of the School of Political and Administrative Sciences, a position he held until 1973, when he became Secretary General of the University of Chile. Lagos subsequently began work as a professor of economics in the School of Law of the University, and between 1971 and 1972 he was Director of the Institute of Economy. He was later named Director of the Latin American Council of Social Sciences.
During the 1970s, Lagos declared himself an "independent of the left" and abandoned the Radical Party of Chile, which he had joined in 1961, when this party supported Jorge Alessandri's government. Although he did not possess great diplomatic experience, he worked with Hernán Santa Cruz as an ambassador to the United Nations, where he presented an outstanding speech on the international financial crisis. During the speech, he strongly criticized the decision of U.S. President Richard Nixon on the nonconvertibility of the U.S. dollar into gold, a measurement that would end in the rounding up the Asian crisis. In 1972, President Salvador Allende appointed Lagos as the Chilean Ambassador to the Soviet Union in Moscow, but the appointment was never ratified by Congress.[6] As a Regional Director of the training program of post graduate studies in social sciences, he was later put in charge of Project UNESCO, of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Buenos Aires. As a public servant he also served Chile as a United Nations delegate with rank of ambassador at the 26th United Nations General Assembly. In addition, he was a delegate to the UN's 3rd Conference of Commerce and Development (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development).
Soon after the 1973 coup d'état, he and his family were sent into exile in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he took the position of Secretary General of the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO). He moved for a year to the United States, where he became visiting professor of the William R. Kenan chair for Latin American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 1975, he worked as a consultant for the United Nations Development Programme.
Lagos returned to Chile in 1978, and worked for the Regional Program of Employment of the United Nations, PREALC. During the implementation of policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund his mission was to advise all the governments in the South American continent on the matter of employment.
Political career [ edit ]
During the 1980s, Lagos assumed a fundamental role in the fight for the recovery of democracy. In addition to being one of the leaders of the Socialist Party of Chile, he became President of the Democratic Alliance, a force that grouped the majority of the democratic parties opposing the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. In 1983, he decided to leave his position as international civil employee in the United Nations. In December of that year, he became president of the Democratic Alliance. In 1987, as the president of the Committee of the Left for Free Elections, he called on all citizens and parties to enroll in the electoral registries to vote "no" in a 1988 national plebiscite on whether Pinochet should be allowed to remain president of Chile.
Lagos became the undisputed leader of Pinochet's opponents after appearing in Canal 13's first political debate show since the 1973 coup d'état, De cara al país (towards the country), where he stated; "With the triumph of "No", the country will prevent General Pinochet from being 25 years in power, it will mark the start of the end of the dictatorship." Lagos then looked directly into the camera and accusingly raised his index finger to say directly to all viewers:
General Pinochet has not been honest with the country... So I will remind you, General Pinochet, that on the day of the 1980 plebiscite you said that "President Pinochet would not be a candidate in 1989".... And now, you promise the country another eight years, with tortures, murders, and human rights violations. It seems to me inadmissible, that a Chilean can have so much hunger for power, to aim to stay 25 years in power! Never before has a Chilean done so. And you asked me to answer either Yes or No, and that's what I did. Please excuse me, Raquel, but I'm speaking after being silent for 15 years already! — Ricardo Lagos
To this day, in Chile the phrase "Lagos' finger" refers to this memorable event; on that night, many people were convinced that the man would not survive to see the next day.
After the triumph of the No alternative and the subsequent resignation of Pinochet, Lagos declined to be a candidate for the presidency in spite of being the main leader of the opposition. Instead, he supported Patricio Aylwin's candidacy and ran for a seat in the Senate for the Santiago-West district. On December 11, 1989, the day of the elections, he obtained the district's second majority. Nevertheless, he did not win a seat because his alliance's list did not double the vote of the second most voted list; this being a requisite in the Chilean electoral system created by Pinochet.
In 1990, Lagos was named Minister of Education by President Patricio Aylwin. In this position, he initiated reform aimed at increasing equality in access and improving education levels. In June 1993, he pushed for the notion of using primary elections in order to select the Concertación coalition's candidate for the following presidential election. He lost this primary to Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, who went on to become President of Chile. In 1994, Frei himself named Lagos Minister of Public Works. In this role, he developed an innovating system of road concessions, integrated the private sector in the construction of works and its later operation. During the Frei administration, he continued to be a leader of opinion and was a sure option for the following presidential election. His status was later ratified by his appointment as one of the members of the Committee of Twelve Distinguished Members of the Socialist International, which he shared with such personalities as Felipe González and Gro Harlem Brundtland. This committee was set up to process proposals for the renovation of the social democratic thought for the 21st century.
In 1999, Lagos resigned as minister in order to begin his presidential campaign. In the primaries, he defeated senator Andrés Zaldívar, of the Christian Democratic Party to become the Concertación's sole presidential candidate. In the first round of the presidential election in December of the same year, he defeated right-wing candidate Joaquín Lavín, by only 30,000 votes. Since he failed to obtain an absolute majority, as is required to be elected President, a presidential runoff was subsequently held in January 2000 for the first time ever in Chile. Winning 51.3 percent of the vote, Lagos became the new President of Chile.
Presidency [ edit ]
Internal issues [ edit ]
During the first year of his term in office, Lagos had to confront a high level of unemployment, generated by the political instability of the region, in a process that began to revert during the end of 2003. He also promised to keep the budget deficit in check and interest rates and inflation low.[7] Lagos enjoyed great popular support, bordering on 55%, and ending around 60-70% during the last six months of his term. The policy of proximity with people was pronounced in the opening of the doors of the Palacio de La Moneda, that had remained closed since the 1973 coup d'état.
Beginning in 2002, his government had to face suspicions of political corruption due to the prosecution of one of his ministers, Carlos Cruz, and of other civil employees of the Public Works Ministry, in the denominated MOP-GATE case. Gloria Ana Chevesich, the judge in charge of this case, discovered that ministers, undersecretaries and other officials of exclusive confidence of the President, received additional payments to their regular remuneration: the so-called "extra payments". This irregularity was acknowledged by Lagos, who specified that the practice had also developed during the governments of Frei Ruiz-Tagle and Aylwin. The official position of the government consisted of not acknowledging the criminal nature of these practices and establishing a legal reform that increased the pay of ministers and undersecretaries of the government, a matter that was approved in its legislative proceeding.
Foreign relations [ edit ]
During 2004, Lagos faced a series of tensions in his relation with other South American countries, caused by recurring Bolivian aspirations for access to the sea. This situation was linked with the power crisis taking place in Argentina, an important supplier of natural gas to Chile. In bilateral meetings between Bolivian President Carlos Mesa and Argentine President Néstor Kirchner, the former agreed to the sale of Bolivian gas to Argentina under the condition that "not a single gas molecule be sold to Chile". Additionally, the Venezuelan President, Hugo Chávez, has supported in various instances the Bolivian sea claim, causing a diplomatic impassé between Chile and Venezuela. The tension between both governments had dissipated during July 2004.
Legacy [ edit ]
During Lagos' presidency, Free Trade Agreements were signed with the European Community, the United States, South Korea, the People's Republic of China and New Zealand, Singapore and Brunei (though some of his supporters in the center-left Coalition of Parties for Democracy consider that these agreements may have negative effects on the country); the incidence of extreme poverty was significantly reduced;[8] the legal workweek was reduced from 48 to 45 hours;[9] improvements were made in infrastructure and transport; an unemployment insurance scheme was created; as well as the AUGE health program guaranteeing coverage for a number of medical conditions; the Chile Barrio housing program; the Chile Solidario program;[10] compulsory schooling was extended to 12 years; the first divorce law in Chile was approved;[11] monetary compensation to victims of torture under the Pinochet regime identified in the Valech Report was authorized; and, recently, a recast constitution was signed. He finished his six-year term with historic approval ratings above 70%.
Cabinet [ edit ]
Post-presidential career [ edit ]
Political [ edit ]
On March 24, 2006 Lagos inaugurated his own foundation called Democracia y Desarrollo ("Democracy and Development") in Santiago. Three days later he began a two-year term as President of the Club de Madrid— an exclusive organization of former presidents created by a Spanish philanthropist to promote democracy across the world. He also assumed co-chairmanship of the Inter-American Dialogue's Board of Directors.
On May 2, 2007, Lagos, along with Gro Harlem Brundtland and Han Seung-soo, was named by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as a Special Envoy on Climate Change. His appointment was and still is very controversial among Chilean environmental groups who questioned his track record on the matter, claiming that he'showed an utter lack of consideration for the environment, promoted policies against environmental sustainability and favored the interests of big economic groups, even defending crimes against nature internationally', favouring large corporations every single time there was a clash between local communities, environmental concerns and perceived economic benefits.[12][13]
On January 14, 2017, Lagos accepted the Party for Democracy's nomination to run for president in 2017.[14] However, he withdrew soon after the Party for Democracy, publicly backed Alejandro Guillier. Following this he announced his retirement.
Publishing [ edit ]
In early 2007, Lagos became a member of the editorial board of Americas Quarterly, a policy publication focused on relations and development in the Western Hemisphere. Lagos contributes regularly.[15][16]
Academic [ edit ]
After abandoning power, Lagos taught a one-month special seminar at UC Berkeley's Center for Latin American Studies, called "Democracy and Development in Latin America."
On May 2007, Brown University announced that Lagos would take a teaching position at the Watson Institute for International Studies for a period of five years, starting on July 1, 2007.[17]
In 2013, Lagos was a visiting professor at the University of Sao Paulo assuming the “José Bonifácio Cátedra".[18]
Honours and awards [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF
If you break it down, a lot of what living is about involves evaluating situations and then making the best decision you can. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Leverne Doran of Nottingham, Maryland, failed pretty dramatically by this definition of living, since he crawled onto the hood of a middle school bus and screamed about an alleged thrown bottle.
Because we live in an age of magic, of course there’s video of the incident:
As you can see in the video, the guy on the hood is screaming to the bus driver to “OPEN THE DOOR” while he pounds on the hood, like some kind of very irate walrus. I guess he’s thinking the bus driver might think it’s somehow a smart move to have the screaming, belligerent man clinging to the front of the bus gremlin-like actually inside the bus full of middle school kids.
The kids seem delighted by the situation, because of course they are. This was pretty much exactly the kind of thing I hoped would happen on every boring ride to middle school.
The whole mess started because Doran alleges that a bottle was thrown from the bus and hit his car while both vehicles were waiting at a red light. It remains unclear if any bottle was thrown or not.
While the bus and car were still stopped, Doran left his car and approached the bus door, banging on it and demanding it be opened. Of course, no school bus driver is going to let some random, screaming adult into their bus, so the driver began to slowly drive away when the light changed, as Doran beat on the bus with his fists.
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Doran then climbed onto the bus’ front bumper, and the driver, while yelling back at Doran through the windshield, slowly drove to a nearby police station. Luckily, the situation was taken care of before he got to the station.
As Baltimore County police Sgt. Andrea Bylen told WBAL-TV,
“We happened to have an off-duty officer who was present in the area who assisted and intervened quickly. He came over, separated all of the parties, and at that time, the suspect was arrested on scene without incident.”
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This is just idiotic. What did this guy think the bus driver was going to do, let him in and beat kids until one of them confessed? Did he think the driver would see him clinging onto the hood like a geriatric T.J. Hooker and think, “Oh. This guy seems to have a point. I’ll just let him in.”
No, man, no. There’s no vehicle easier to track than a school bus; if he thought something was thrown at him, all he had to do was see what number was on the school bus and make one phone call. I guarantee he could have gotten a whole busload of kids at least scolded, even without any proof.
It’s a schoolbus. There’s pretty much no vehicle people freak out more about strange old screaming dudes trying to get into.
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Dumbass.Note: This is a guest article contributed by frequent TIFO visitor and owner of DumpADay, Jon.
Today I found out that the dragonfly can fly up to 60 miles per hour, which makes it the fastest insect on the planet.
Interestingly, dragonflies only have their wings for about 3 to 4 weeks of their lifespan. Dragonflies lay their eggs in small ponds or other bodies of water and spend most of their lives in the larva stage (up to 3 years, depending on the species). It’s not until they go through a metamorphosis process that they grow wings. So when you see a dragonfly with wings, you know his days are numbered.
As young dragonflies, they feature a special appendage on their heads that they use to spear small fish or larva, making them predatory insects practically from birth. In the adult stage, (or winged stage), when you see two dragonflies chasing each other, it’s often two males, as the males are known to be territorial. When you see two dragonflies stuck together while flying… Well that one is pretty obvious, let’s just say, love is in the air.
Being an insect that can fly 60 miles per hour (97 km/hr) and being able to see 360 degrees at all times, there aren’t a lot of natural predators around that can catch the dragonfly; however, there are some. Among those are frogs, which use a quick flick of their tongue to catch the tasty protein filled snack. Many types of frogs can flip their tongues out and back in less than 15/100ths of a second, which is faster than most eyes in nature can follow movement, let alone escape from.
Bonus Facts:
Adult Dragonflies have been useful in controlling mosquito populations. Mosquitoes are one of their primary food sources.
The largest dragonfly fossil (one of the earliest) had a wingspan of nearly three feet. That makes it the largest flying insect in known history.
One of the most distinguishing features of dragonflies are its eyes. Because of their large, multifaceted eyes, the adult dragonfly can see 360 degrees around it at all times.
There are about 5,000 different species of dragonflies all over the world, except in Antarctica. Four hundred and fifty of the species can be found in the United States.
Dragonflies are known as beneficial insects because they eat so many harmful insects such as mosquitoes, gnats, ants, termites and even butterflies, spiders, and other dragonflies.
Dragonflies do not harm people. They do not bite and they do not sting.
Dragonflies can fly moving in all directions, forward, backward, up and down. They can also hover.
Expand for References:
Disclaimer: Guest Articles are written by various people and while I do my best to make sure they are factual by checking their sources and as well as weighing the plausibility of the thing before allowing them to be posted, I do not guarantee that everything in them is going to be 100% accurate as I myself didn’t do the research for these articles and it’s possible their sources, even if they are reputable, are themselves inaccurate.The exceptionally well-preserved fossil primate known as "Ida" is not a missing link as some have claimed, according to an analysis in the journal Nature. The research is the first independent assessment of the claims made in a scientific paper and a television documentary earlier this year. Dr Erik Seiffert says that Ida belonged to a group more closely linked to lemurs than to monkeys, apes or us. His team's conclusions come from an analysis of another fossil primate. The newly described animal - known as Afradapis longicristatus - lived some 37 million years ago in northern Egypt, during the Eocene epoch. And the researchers say it was closely related to Ida. This study would effectively remove Ida from our ancestry.
Erik Seiffert, Stony Brook University Ida lived some 47 million years ago and was given the scientific name Darwinius masillae. Dr Seiffert and his colleagues say that both Afradapis and Darwinius were in a sister group to the so-called "higher primates", which includes humans. This extinct sister group, they say, was more closely related to lemurs and lorises. Cul-de-sac ''The suggestion that Ida [was]... specifically related to the higher primates, namely monkeys apes and humans, was actually a minority view from the start. So it came as a surprise to many of us who are studying primate palaeontology," said Dr Seiffert, from Stony Brook University in New York, US. ''Ida, which is a member of this genus called Darwinius, is in a fossil group called the Adapiforms which have traditionally been seen as more closely related to the lemurs and lorises - which live today in Madagascar, Africa and Asia - than to [monkeys, apes and humans]." This group, including this new specimen described in Nature, has a lot of traits that are found in apes and monkeys
Jorn Hurum, Natural History Museum, Oslo He added: "We have analysed a large data set based on observations we have made on almost 120 living and extinct primates and what we find... [is that] Darwinius and this new genus that we've described are not part of our ancestry. "They are more closely related to lemurs and lorises than they are to tarsirs or monkeys, apes and humans. This study would effectively remove Ida from our ancestry." Dr Jorn Hurum, from the Natural History Museum in Oslo, Norway, was one of the authors of the paper about Ida published in the journal Plos One this year. Responding to the study in Nature, he said: "It's a very interesting paper, and - at last - this is the start of the scientific discussion around the specimen we described in May nicknamed Ida." He added: "What the authors say is that this is an extinct side branch of the group leading to lemurs that is not in any way related to apes and monkeys. "What we said in our scientific paper in May is that this group - including this new specimen described in Nature - has a lot of traits that are found in apes and monkeys." However, Dr Seiffert and his colleagues regard such features as examples of "convergent evolution". This involves features arising independently in separate lineages, possibly as a response to similar evolutionary pressures.
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Some may have rooted for the star-spangled superhero, while others were team Iron Man while watching Captain America: Civil War. Other Marvel fans may have chosen to be like Black Panther in the film and stay neutral.
If Black Panther is one of your favorite superheroes, you are going to be pleased to hear that you will be seeing a lot more of him in Marvel's gaming portfolio.
Marvel announced on Wednesday that a Civil War-inspired version of Black Panther will be joining the cast of a few mobile games and one for PC.
Marvel decided to release this new version of Black Panther from the recent movie to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the character's debut.
"Through his breakout debut in Marvel's Captain America: Civil War, the excitement surrounding Black Panther has reached a world-wide fever pitch," Marvel Games creative director Bill Rosemann said in a press release. "Marvel Games is proud to join the 50th Anniversary celebration of Black Panther by allowing gamers to become the brilliant King of Wakanda, using his razor-sharp claws and mind to battle evil."
The Civil War Black Panther is launching in several titles that include:
• Marvel Contest of Champions: the free-to-play mobile fighting game that puts characters like Iron Man vs. Captain America for iOS and Android, developed and published by Kabam.
• Marvel Future Fight: the RPG mobile game starring the Avengers, Daredevil and the Guardians of the Galaxy for iOS and Android that is published by Netmarble Games. • Marvel Avengers Alliance 2: the turn-based social game where gamers assemble a team to take on the enemy, available for iOS and Android, developed by Offbeat Creations and published by Playdom.
• Marvel Heroes 2016: the free-to-play online multiplayer RPG game for the PC, developed by Gazillion Entertainment and Secret Identity Studios.
Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Black Panther made his first appearance in July 1966 in Fantastic Four #62, and is known for being the first black superhero in mainstream American comics. The superhero also stars in the new best-selling comic book series written by acclaimed author Ta-Nehisi Coates.
From the pages of the comics, to the big screen and now our mobile screen, fans of all ages will be able to play as the iconic character.
Black Panther (played by Chadwick Boseman) will star in his own movie that is slated for July 6, 2018.
ⓒ 2018 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.This past week, eight teams from around the globe faced off in Katowice, Poland for the IEM championship. They were Cloud 9 and Team SoloMid from North America, SK Gaming, GE Tigers and CJ Entus from Korea, Team WE from China, Gambit Gaming from Russia and yoe Flash Wolves from Taiwan.
The games kicked off on Friday, March 13th and went on all weekend. Sunday, March 15th was the finale. All of the teams performed honorably, but only two teams made it through. WE are notably the lowest team in the Chinese league on the professional tier and they were using some substitute players. They went up against TSM, a fan favorite. The two teams faced off in a best of five competition earlier today infront of thousands of spectators in the Katowice arena, and hundreds of thousands on websites such as Twitch and AlphaDraft.
TSM made an incredible turnaround during their first match against the Chinese team, after a very close call at about the 30 minute mark. They landed themselves a sly victory with a quick push up mid lane. GG TSM. Game two was highly in their favor, with WE surrendering with honor. Both teams played very well. Match three was one for the books. The heat was on; if TSM won this game, they won the championship.
When the match started, WE was on the blue side, which can give them a slight advantage due to where certain jungle camps are. Santorin, TSM’s jungler, landed a first blood on WE’s Hecarim at only 5:33 into the match. Wildturtle proceeded to get the first turret only 20 seconds afterwards. It was a good bot lane. TSM seemed to play really well that game; their synergy was on par, and Lustboy’s Annie was perfect as usual.
All in all, a very entertaining best of 5. So without further ado, the winners for IEM Katowice 2015 for League of Legends are…
Team SoloMid from North America! GGWP to Team WE from China! Very well played from both of these teams.
The 2015 mid-season invitational will take place in Tallahassee, Florida May 7-10 and the teams competing will be those who win their split playoffs from the EU LCS, LCK, LMS, LPL, and NA LCS. The sixth and final spot will go to the winner of the International Wild Card Invitational (IWCI), another new event to be held in Istanbul, Turkey, in late April. The community hopes to see both teams there.
If you would like to set up your own fantasy league team for free for the tournament, head over to AlphaDraft’s website and create an account! The chat is kept to a limited amount of users, so there is no spam and the streams don’t lag, so you never miss a moment of your favorite League of Legends games! You can also discuss this match on Reddit.The march toward musical empire began on Oct. 22, 2003, in a bar in Milan, Italy, 4,300 miles away from Detroit. Fans of Club Brugge K.V., in town for their team's group-stage UEFA Champions League clash against European giant A.C. Milan, gathered to knock back some pre-match beers. Over a stereo blared seven notes: Da...da-DA-da da DAAH DAAH, the signature riff of a minor American hit song.
By normal pop-music expectations, the White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army" had already passed its peak. Released in March of that year, the single reached No. 1 on Billboard's alternative rock chart in early July, stayed there for three weeks, then had begun to fade out. But the members of the Blue Army, a Brugge supporters group, liked what they were hearing and began to sing along. "It's a very catchy tune," Blue Army spokesman Geert De Cang wrote in an email.
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Eight years later, the riff-turned-anthem is ubiquitous and seemingly inevitable, an organic part of global sports culture. On Thanksgiving night, 71,000 fans at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore chanted the riff in unison. You'll likely hear it again when the Ravens host the Texans on Sunday, in the background of the broadcast.
But in Milan, at the beginning, it was purely spontaneous and local. Kickoff was coming. The visiting Belgians moved out into the city center, still singing. They kept chanting it in the stands of the San Siro—Oh...oh-OH-oh oh OHH OHH—as Peruvian striker Andres Mendoza stunned Milan with a goal in the 33rd minute and Brugge made it hold up for a shocking 1-0 upset. Filing out of the stadium, they continued to belt it out.
The song traveled back to Belgium with them, and the Brugge crowd began singing it at home games. The club itself eventually started blasting "Seven Nation Army" through the stadium speakers after goals.
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Then, on Feb. 15, 2006, Club Brugge hosted A.S. Roma in a UEFA Cup match. The visitors won, 2-1, and the Roma supporters apparently picked up the song from their hosts.
"I had never heard the song before we stepped on the field in Bruges," Roma captain Francesco Totti told a Dutch newspaper later. "Since then, I can't get the 'Po po po po po poo pooo' out of my head. It sounded fantastic and the crowd was immediately totally into it. I quickly went out and bought one of the band's albums."
So "Seven Nation Army," having gone from Milan to Bruges, marched back to Italy again. Italians call it the "po po po po" song. By the time the World Cup kicked off in Germany that June, it had become the Italian national team's unofficial theme. Sports Illustrated reported that fans had serenaded Totti with the song during Italy's group-stage win over Ghana. The Azzurri beat France in the final on July 9, and amid the ensuing celebration, "Seven Nation Army" chants popped up on the streets of Rome.
On July 11 in Milan, Italian soccer stars Alessandro Del Piero and Marco Materazzi—the victim of Zinedine Zidane's head butt—led a crowd rendition of "Seven Nation Army" from the stage at a Rolling Stones concert. Soon, Jack White himself weighed in: "I am honored that the Italians have adopted this song as their own," White said. "Nothing is more beautiful than when people embrace a melody and allow it to enter the pantheon of folk music."
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"It's still hard for me to digest," said Ben Swank, an executive at Third Man Records, White's label, on the phone from his office in Nashville. Swank was present at the birth of "Seven Nation Army," in January 2002—a moment whose significance was notably lost on him.
"[H]e was with us on tour in Australia when I wrote that song at soundcheck," White told Rolling Stone in 2009. "I was playing it for Meg and he was walking by and I said, 'Swank, check this riff out.' And he said, 'It's OK.' [Laughs]."
"Weirdly enough," Swank said, "I didn't like it. I said, 'I don't know man, you can do better.'" But the finished product, the opening track on Elephant, made him a believer. "It's the directness and simplicity of it," he says. "That's the appeal of their band across the board. I feel that way about all my favorite music of theirs. It's more emotion-based than thought-out or planned."
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What makes "Seven Nation Army" different from most stadium anthems is that it actually has replay value. In February 2004, it won a Grammy for Best Rock song. The Grammys aren't the ideal barometer of cool, but "Who Let the Dogs Out?" never won a little gilded gramophone, did it? [CORRECTION: "Who Let the Dogs Out?" won Best Dance Recording in 2000. Deadspin regrets overestimating the Grammys.] It's not syrupy like "Sweet Caroline," or melodramatic like "We Are the Champions," or gimmicky (or performed by a horrible, horrible person) like "Rock and Roll Part II." A few years ago, The Guardian wondered if it was "the indiest football anthem of all time."
"Seven Nation Army" made a beachhead in American sports in State College, Penn. According to a 2006 story in the Harrisburg Patriot-News, Penn State spokesperson Guido D'Elia—who is still the director of communications and branding for the embattled football program—was inspired by hearing a Public Radio International story about A.S. Roma's use of the song. D'Elia, who also introduced the now unavoidable German techno track "Kernkraft 400" to Nittany Lions fans, had found something new:
D'Elia had the Blue Band try it out during the soggy Blue-White scrimmage. And he's preparing a dubbed version of Jack White's seven-note guitar lick from the song in hopes the students will start in with their own wohhh-oh-oh-oh-oh-ohhh-ohhh. If they don't, he'll scrap it. If they do, he'll keep it.
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By the middle of the 2006 season, "Seven Nation Army" was a Beaver Stadium staple. (This year, as Penn State students gathered on Nov. 8 outside the university administration building, they began singing Joe Paterno's first name over the riff.)
At the same time, Arrangers' Publishing of Nashville had begun selling "Seven Nation Army" sheet music for marching bands, turning the angry one-guitar song into ensemble music. The hypnotic riff—which White reportedly produced by feeding his guitar through an effects pedal to make it sound like a bass—fit the new arrangement nicely. "The doom of it," Swank says, "makes it perfect for a marching band."
The Boston College band picked it up immediately, and the song has kept spreading. "It was very simple to play, angry, very loud, and kind of aggressive," Arrangers' Publishing vice president Jeff Hearington said. "The minute I heard it I said, ‘We need to try to license this.'" The company has sold about 2,000 copies, Hearington said.
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Today, there are few athletic venues the song hasn't invaded. "Seven Nation Army" has appeared at both Michigan and Ohio State, and also at obscure schools (check out this rendition by St. Cloud State's band). At Euro 2008, it was played and chanted incessantly at stadiums in Austria and Switzerland. It's popped up in NBA arenas and at NFL stadiums, competing with standbys like "Hells Bells," "Welcome to the Jungle," and "Crazy Train" for time on the endless loop.
This past summer, the Ravens polled fans about what song should rally the crowd into the fourth quarter at home games. "Seven Nation Army" beat out "Enter Sandman" and Joe Satriani's "Crowd Chant," among others, in the final balloting, and it is now a ritual. The Detroit Lions joined in, too, playing the song at Ford Field. In October, coach Jim Schwartz mentioned it on Twitter. "I rarely notice music during timeouts," he wrote, "but I did enjoy #WhiteStripes 7 Nation Army last night. Great response by crowd."
Swank is still bemused by the song's all-conquering success. He glimpsed the extent of its reach more than five years ago, while vacationing on the island of Formentera during the 2006 World Cup. There, on a 32-square-mile dot in the middle of the Mediterranean, he heard a group of Italians chanting the riff White had composed at that Australian soundcheck. "He accidentally wrote a folk song," Swank said. "You do the best you can, but you can't predict where it's going to go."
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Alan Siegel is a writer in Washington, D.C. Contact him at asiegel05@gmail.com; follow him on Twitter @alansiegeldc. Image by Jim Cooke.Two fish-bearing creeks will be used for 2.3 billion tonnes of toxic tailings from the proposed Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell (KSM) mine in northwest B.C., wiping out habitat for several populations of small Dolly Varden fish.
Seabridge Gold Inc. has been given federal government approval to use upper tributaries of the North Treaty and South Teigen Creeks, which flow into the Nass and Bell-Irving rivers, for tailings from the planned gold, copper and molybdenum mine 65 kilometres northwest of Stewart and 30 kilometres from the Alaska border.
Once in operation, KSM is set to become the largest open pit mine in North America. Construction is set to begin in 2017.
While the company has pledged to compensate for the loss with development of additional fish habitat in nearby streams and will relocate about 30,000 fish from the affected creeks, Alaskans say they were not consulted, despite a recently-signed Memorandum of Understanding between B.C. and Alaska.
There are also growing concerns on the Alaskan side of the border that Canada is making a habit of allowing fish-bearing streams to be used for tailings.
“This just underscores our frustration about really being shut out of the process,” said Heather Hardcastle of Juneau-based Salmon Beyond Borders, pointing out that fish do not abide by national boundaries.
Seabridge plans to build 23-kilometre tunnels to take the mining waste to the approved watersheds on the Canadian side of the border but the closest watershed is the Unuk River, one of Alaska’s premier salmon rivers.
Rendering of the KSM mine showing the tailings management area. Image: Rivers Without Borders
Chris Zimmer of Rivers Without Borders emphasized that what happens to salmon and steelhead trout in the Bell-Irving and Nass rivers affects Alaska fishermen.
“Tailings are the most toxic of materials and they would be draining into world-class salmon and steelhead rivers,” he said.
Hardcastle and Zimmer question why the Canadian government is handing out amendments to the Metal Mining Effluent Regulations (MMER) to allow fish habitat to be used for tailings.
“These MMER amendments have become almost a de facto process. The extraordinary has become the normal way of doing business,” Zimmer said.
“It seems like this is becoming the standard in Canada and B.C., to authorise the filling-in of fish-bearing water bodies with toxic tailings in perpetuity. We saw the same authority granted at Red Chris last year |
: You might notice the toolbar slides off the top of the screen along with the menu. To fix this, click View > Always Show Toolbar in Full Screen.
The screen goes black to indicate Edit mode is activated and the toolkit appears at the right of the program window, while a zoom control appears at the top left. When zoomed you can navigate around the image by clicking and dragging, or via a two-fingered scroll if using a trackpad. Pro tip: Holding down Cmd while tapping plus and minus on the keyboard lets you zoom in and out without using the mouse/trackpad.
The zoom control at the top left lets you look closely at an image, and clicking and dragging will scroll around
Non-destructive editing of photos
Photos uses non-destructive editing, which means the original is always stored alongside your edits, no matter how extensive these are - or even if you quit the app after making them. Just open the photo for editing at any time and click Revert to Original.
Warning: Undoing individual actions in Photos via Ctrl+Z, or Edit > Undo, isn't quite the same as other apps. Undos when editing an image are limited to the current tool you're working in. For example, if you alter the brightness and then switch to the Retouch tool, you won't be able to undo the brightness alterations you just made other than reverting to the original image as described above.
If you find you're unhappy with any edits you can click Revert to Original at any time - even after you've finished editing, or even restarted your Mac
Editing tools
The Photos interface saw some welcome changes in the High Sierra update, from a new selection counter, batch rotation and favouriting within the library views, to some pro-level photo editing features worthy of Aperture. To reach them click on Edit then Adjust.
In previous versions you had options to Enhance, Rotate, Crop, Filters, Adjust, Retouch, and Extensions. Now you'll find Levels, Curves, Definition, Sharpen, Noise Reduction, Vignette and two new editing tools: Curves and Selective Colour.
To view the editing options within each tool, click on the disclosure triangles beside them.
Colour Curves
With the Colour Curves adjustment you can adjust the tonal range of your image. It's a little more complicated to use than some of the other tools, but you could use it to lighten a dark scene, boost contrast and colour, or make colour shifts.
To use Curves, scroll down the list and click on its disclosure triangle to reveal the tools and a graph. The images tonality is represented by the line, the highlights of the image are found in the top right section of the graph, the low lights are found in the bottom left segment.
You can choose RGB, or focus on Red, Green and Blue separately, dragging the anchor points on the graph until you get the affect you are after.
For example, to brighten up the image, click on the line in the bottom left and drag it upwards until you see a curve form. The image will change in real time so you can decide when you have achieved the designed effect.
You could also create an S-curve, dragging one anchor point up in the highlights, and another anchor point down in the shadows. This would boost contrast and the colour saturation.
You can also use the pipets to pick a colour to set as a black point, grey point, and white point, just as in Photoshop. You can also choose a colour in the image to set as a point on the curve.
Filters
Photos in High Sierra also brings with it nine new pre-built image filter presets.
Where previously Photos offered Instagram inspired filters, such as Fade, Chrome, Process, Transfer, and Instant, now the filters are variations of three different styles: Vivid, Dramatic, and black and white, with warm and cool options.
To access these filters click Edit > Filters and click through the options until you find one you like.
When you have selected your filter you can continue to edit it using the Curves and other editing tools until you have the style you are after.
Open a Photo and edit in Photoshop
As of High Sierra, the Photos app lets you make edits using Photoshop and other third-party editors.
From Photos right click on the image you wish to edit and choose Edit With > Other, and then select Photoshop from your applications (or any other photo editor you might prefer).
The image will open in the third-party photo editing app and you will be able to use all the features of that app to edit it. For example, you could choose a Photoshop filter and apply that to your image.
Any edits you make will automatically be saved to your Photos library.
Editing in macOS Sierra and earlier
If you're on an older version of the software you won't have the above editing options. Instead, you'll see six icons in the toolkit at the right of the screen; you can see what they are by hovering the mouse cursor over each. Some work via a single click, while others open an additional set of tools. All are pretty simple to use, though.
Enhance: Auto-adjusts the colour balance, brightness and contrast of your image. You're not given control over this. To control brightness, contrast, colour etc you'll need the Adjust tool, discussed below.
Rotate: Turns the image counter-clockwise 90 degrees. Holding down the Alt key (Option on some keyboards) switches it so it rotates clockwise 90 degrees. It's not possible to flip the image vertically or horizontally here, although these options are available on the Image main menu and in the Crop tool, described below.
Crop: The least-accurately named of all the tools because, as well as dragging the frame to crop the image, this tool also lets you rotate the image to various small degrees - just click and drag the dial at the right of the image. You can also flip it and adjust it to fit particular aspect ratios such as 3:2 or simply "square" by clicking the Flip or Aspect buttons at the bottom right. Adjusting the aspect ratio can help crop a photo slightly for printing via commercial photo printing outfits - the popular 6x4in print size is 3:2 ratio, for example, while a standard iPhone image is slightly larger at 16:9. The Auto button will attempt to automatically rotate and crop the image so lines within it (horizons, poles, walls etc) look straight. On other types of images, such as portraits, it has no effect.
The Crop tool also lets you rotate an image by small degrees, as well as flip it and adjust its aspect ratio
Filters: Various readymade one-click filters that apply visual styles to your image, such as Mono, Instant, Chrome, and so on. Again, you have no control over any of them.
Adjust: The meat of the editing tools, and discussed in more depth below.
Retouch: Known as the "heal tool" in image editors like Photoshop, this lets you click (or click and drag over a wider area) to remove elements from an image such as skin blemishes. How it works is magical, as are the results, which are usually extremely impressive. However if you find it doesn't work quite as it should then holding down Alt (Option on some keyboards) and selecting a nearby point in the image for a sample will improve accuracy. Clicking the Reset button at the bottom of the screen undoes any edits you've made using the Retouch tool.
Making adjustments to your image using Light, Colour & Black & White
Clicking the Adjust tool opens a new set of controls alongside the image. By default three are shown: Light (combined brightness and contrast control), Colour, and Black & White.
Clicking and dragging the white bar within each control lets you make adjustments, although if you hover the mouse cursor over each you'll see an Auto button appear. This attempts to auto-adjust to the best settings based on the image data, as well as the Histogram graph shown above. Hovering the mouse cursor over the control shows a down arrow that, when clicked, reveals more fine-grained options - under the Light slider you'll see additional sliders for Exposure, Highlights, Shadows and so on.
There's also a new tool in macOS Sierra, Brilliance. This tool, according to Apple, brightens shadows, pulls back highlights and reveals hidden details in an image.
Clicking the Add button at the top right lets you reveal even more tools including some to sharpen the image, remove noise, and add a vignette effect. Perhaps the most useful for those used to Aperture or other pro-level tools is the Levels tool. Drag the handles beneath the levels histogram to adjust the darkest, lightest and mid-points of the image.
Clicking the down arrow alongside each control's heading shows finer-grained controls
Advanced editing tricks in Photos
Right-clicking on the image lets you copy to the clipboard the current set of edits you've made, and you can then paste them onto a different image in the same way by right-clicking. This is useful if you find yourself correcting many images with a similar low-light fault, for example.
Perhaps one of the best advanced tricks for using Photos is to hold down Alt (Option on some keyboards) while using any of the tools. Doing so while adjusting the cropping box will cause it to resize in a different way, for example, and doing so whilst adjusting the rotation dial will decrease the severity of your drag. Just give it a try!
Edits made on one image and be copied and then “pasted” onto a different image - just right-click and select the option
Using the new People feature
Click on the People album, listed in the left sidebar under albums, to see a grid of the faces Photos has identified. Double-click on on face to see the photographs associated with it. To name a face, hover over it and click 'Add Name'.
People is good at identifying faces, but it's a long way from perfect and there will be many faces in your photos not shown here. To add one, click on 'Add People' and then choose someone from the grid that's displayed. (Pro tip: you can select multiple people by Cmd-clicking. They will then all be added to the People album.)
If you have lots of versions of the same person in the People album, you can Cmd-click them, then Ctrl- or right-click on one image and select Merge x People, where x is the number of faces you've clicked. All the photos identified in the different versions of the face will then be grouped and identified as the same person.
To set favourite People, Cmd-click the ones you want and drag them into the favourites section at the top of the album.To hide someone in the People album, right-click and select Hide this Person.
You can set a 'key' face (the one that's displayed on the from of a person's album) by double-clicking on the person, right-clicking on the the photo you want to use and selecting Make Key Photo.
To tell Photos that a person it's identified in a photo isn't in that photo, right-click on the photo and select 'xxx is not in this photo' where 'xxx' is the person's name. To tell Photos a person is in a photo when it hasn't recognised that, right-click on the photo, select Get Info and click the '+' next to the faces that have been identified. Drag the circle that appears on the photo over the face and start typing the person's name. When the dropdown list of names appears, select the one you want.
Creating a Slideshow
A brilliant new feature of Photos for Mac is the Projects tab that lets you create print products, manufactured by Apple itself, as well as slideshows that you can export as HD movie files.
To create a new project, select the images you want to use via the Photos tab - you'll need to hold down Cmd or Shift to select multiple images - then click the plus button at the top right of the Photos program window and select the type of project you want. Once created, any new project will subsequently be listed when you click the Projects tab.
A slideshow is perhaps the simplest kind of project because it doesn't involve buying from Apple and the results are immediate.
Slideshow projects can be created by clicking the plus button at the top right of Photos' program window
The first choice upon choosing to create a slideshow is to give it a name. Anything will do, although this text will appear within the opening frames of the slideshow. Instead of creating a new slideshow, you can also choose via this dialog box to add the photos to a slideshow you've already created, selectable from the Slideshow dropdown list.
The layout of Photos' slideshow construction window is pretty simple - the photos are listed along the bottom, while dominating the screen is a preview of the slideshow. Clicking the Preview button will start it playing within the Photos window.
At the right of the program window are three icons that let you choose the Theme, Music, and Duration. When any of them are clicked a slide-out panel will appear showing options.
The icons to the right of the slideshow preview allow you to configure various aspects, such as its theme
Choosing a slideshow theme in Photos for Mac
Six slideshow themes are available. These not only add interest to a slideshow via motion effects but also let you make better use of photos that might be shot in portrait mode, or other aspect ratios - the individual frames of some slideshows involve multiple photographs better disposed to portrait shots, for example.
The themes are as follows:
Ken Burns: Each photo displayed is either slowly zoomed into, or zoomed out of (a technique pioneered by documentary maker Ken Burns). You can set the start and end zoom points in each photo by selecting it within the thumbnails at the bottom of the program window, and clicking the square icon the bottom left of the large preview above. Selecting either the start or end icon will show a zoom slider.
Origami: Photos in the slideshow seem to fold into view from the side of the screen.
Reflections: Photos appear to be sitting on a shiny surface that reflects their contents.
Sliding Panels: Photos slide into and out of view - from the sides, top, bottom and out from the middle of the screen.
Vintage Prints: Photos are shown as a series of virtual photographic prints, as if stacked on top of each other. A similar effect to that in the Ken Burns slideshow is used to zoom slowly in and out in order to add interest although no control is offered over the zoom effect.
Classic: The traditional slideshow in which individual photos fill the screen, and briefly crossfade into each other.
Magazine: Somewhat similar to the Origami and Sliding Panels except the transition between slideshow frames is quicker and there's a more dynamic feel to match a supposed magazine layout.
The Ken Burns theme zooms in and out of photos slowly, and you can set the start and end zoom points using the slider controls
In most themes the thumbnails at the bottom show how the photos will be arranged when two or more appear in a single slideshow frame, and clicking and dragging individual photos within the thumbnails will rearrange their order. Clicking and dragging photos within the large preview above will allow you to centre each individual picture within its frame in the slideshow.
Pro tip: The title of the slideshow can be edited by clicking it in the first frame of the large preview, and the font can also be changed by tapping Cmd+T to bring up the fonts palette. Unfortunately, although the palette includes controls for change the text colour and shadow, these don't appear to have any bearing on the text.
The text in any on-screen captions in a slideshow can be modified by bringing up the Fonts palette - just hit Cmd+T
Adding text to a slideshow in Photos for Mac
In addition to the title text, which is added automatically based on what you type, you can also add individual captions to each image. This is done by clicking the plus button at the right of the thumbnail listing and typing into the text box. Unfortunately, the text box is fixed and can't be moved around.
Changing a slideshow's theme and duration in Photos for Mac
Each slideshow has a unique piece of music that plays while it runs, but you can choose your own song from your iTunes library by clicking the Music icon at the right-hand side and expanding the Music Library heading. You can also select Theme Songs from the dropdown list to mix and match any of the seven theme songs with your slideshow.
The Duration control works in concert with the music (if you'll pardon the pun) because you can make the slideshow last as long as the music, or choose set times for each frame.
Exporting a slideshow as a movie in Photos for Mac
As you progress creating your slideshow it'll automatically be saved under the Projects tab but you can also choose to export it as a QuickTime (MP4) movie file, playable on all Apple devices and most modern computers/handhelds. Three resolution options are available: Standard Definition (640x480), High Resolution 720p (1280x720), and High Resolution 1080p (1980x1080).
Slideshows can be exported as movie files in a range of formats, but be aware that you'll end up with large files if choosing High Definition 1080p!
Live Photos
Introduced with the iPhone 6s range, Live Photos is an option within the Camera app that augments snapshots by niftily recording a second or two of movie footage before and after the shutter is tapped. It's saved as a single image file that looks like any other, including syncing via iCloud.
To view the Live Photo's movie component you simply tap and hold the photo within the Photos app on the iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch.
When viewing a Live Photo's thumbnail within the main photos listing or an album view of Photos on your Mac hover the mouse cursor over it to start the Live Photo playback. After clicking to open the photo you'll need to hover the mouse cursor over the Live icon at the bottom left to trigger playback.
To trigger a Live Photo you'll need to hover the mouse cursor over the Live Photo icon at the bottom left of the image
Photos in macOS Sierra allows you to edit Live Photos - short video clips that grab a second and a half of audio and video before and after you press the shutter button.
In previous versions of Photos, editing a Live Photo meant converting it to a still image, but no more. To edit a Live Photo, double-click on it and select the editing tool as normal. If you want to turn off the Live Photo and make it a still image, click the yellow circle to the right of the location and time and date information.
Live Photos also become regular image files should they be copied out of Photos to a Finder window or the desktop.
Turn a live photo into a Gif
There's a new Media Types folder in Photos for High Sierra which makes it easy to find your videos, selfies, Depth Effect images, Panoramas, Time Lapse, Slow-mo, and Live Photos. A new feature in Photos in High Sierra is the ability to turn those Live Photos into a Gif-like repeating loop.
You can also manually change the Live Photo's representative image to a different segment of the video, trim the Live Photos video, and, in addition to the new Gif-like Loop, you can set one of three other effects: a traditional live photo, a back-and-forth bouncing effect, or a Long Exposure image that mimics a photo taken with the shutter left open for a long time.
To turn a live photo into a looping 'Gif', open your Live Photo in Edit mode. Below the photo you will see a slider (this allows you to change the still image associated with the Live Photo, as well as change the start and end points of the Live Photo).
Next to that is a dropdown box with the options: Live, Loop, Bounce and Long Exposure. Choose Loop. Immediately the image will start to loop. If you were hoping to change the start and end points unfortunately you can't, but you can choose to turn the audio back on (it's turned off by default in Loop mode).
The other similar option is Bounce. Where loop sort of fills in the gap between the different movements, in Bounce the sample is shorter and the one movement is repeated over and over. You cannot play audio in Bounce.
We have a complete guide to turning Live photos into Gifs here: How to make a GIF on iPhone.
Create a long exposure
If you have a Live Photo of something like a waterfall or fireworks you can make a Long Exposure image from it.
Note: this image won't be any good if you moved the camera. Ideally you want to keep the camera completely still when taking the live photo (as you would if you were taking a Long Exposure shot the traditional way.
As before, select the Live Photo, choose Edit and in the box beside the sliders choose Long Exposure.
We'd like the option to make a Long Exposure photo out of a Slow-Mo video. Live Photos by their nature aren't really long enough to give a really good Long Exposure effect.
Extensions & plugins
Photos in El Capitan addressed the issue of a lack of extensive editing tools within the app by letting app developers create add-ons that appear under an Extensions heading when you click the Edit button while viewing a photo. Just look to the bottom of the tool list at the right of the screen and click the Extensions heading to make your choice.
Some developers have chosen to create dedicated extensions. A good example is Noiseless from MacPhun, that aims to improve images taken in the dark. Others developers, like the people behind the Pixelmator image editing app, let users access one or more functions from their app within Photos.
As with all OS X extensions those for Photos can be activated, deactivated and listed within System Preferences. Just click the Extensions icon and then the Photos entry in the list. Remove the tick alongside any you want to disable within Photos. Extensions are installed by either downloading the installation package directly from the developer's website, as with any app, or by downloading offerings found within the Mac App Store.
Extensions allow you to enhance the editing power of Photos using third-party add-ons
Unfortunately, the extensions used with Photos are incompatible with those used in other image editing apps such as Adobe Photoshop.
Using the Places feature
The latest version of Photos has an album called Places.
Click on it in the Albums list and you'll see a map with thumbnail images in different locations and a number next to them. The location on the map is the location stored in the photo's metadata (usually the place where it was taken) and the number is the number of images in Photos at that location. You can pinch and unpinch on a trackpad to zoom in and out or drag with two fingers to pan around the map. Double-click anywhere on the map to zoom in on a specific spot or click a photo to see all the photos at that location.
To change the location of a photo, right-click or Ctrl-click on it and choose Get Info. You'll see a map with a red pin in it. Drag the red pin to a new location to change the Place with which the photo is associated. (Pro tip: you can change location for multiple photos at once by shift-selecting them and choosing Get Info, as long as they're all in the same location.)]
Making memories
The Memories feature is new in macOS Sierra Photos. It groups together photos from an event which can be a location or date, or person, for example, and puts them together in a slideshow.
To see the Memories Photos has already created, click on Memories in the left sidebar, under Photos. Double-click on one and press the Play button in the toolbar. A dropdown menu will display options for themes. Choose one for the slideshow. You can also choose your own music by clicking the Music tab. When you're ready, click Play Slideshow.
To create a new Memory, choose an album, open it and click Show as Memory in the toolbar. To delete a Memory, go to the Memories view, right-click on the one you want to remove, and click Delete Memory.
You can add photos to a Memory you've created by adding them to the album from which the Memory is created but the only way to remove an image from a memory is to hide or delete it, by right-clicking on it and selecting wither Hide or Delete.
The Memories feature learns what you like as you use it. You can train it by favouriting Memories, adding new ones, or removing those you don't want.
Minor updates in Photos for macOS Sierra
Search has been significantly improved in macOS Sierra. Start typing a search term like, say 'boat' and Photos will start showing you photos in your library that it thinks have boats in them. All the data crunching is down on your Mac, rather than on Apple's servers, but it doesn't seem to slow things down at all.
The introduction of Siri is macOS Sierra means that instead of typing a search term into the text box, you can click in the Dock or menu bar and ask it to search for you.
You can now markup photos in Photos, in the same way you markup PDFs or images in Preview. Open a photo and click the Edit button in the toolbar. At the bottom of the list of tools, you'll see the Extensions option - a circle with three dots in it. Click on it, then click on Markup. You'll now see the familiar markup tools along the top of the image allowing you to draw freehand, add shapes or a text box and change the colour and style of text and shapes.Getty Image/Ascot Elite Entertainment Group
Since taking a break from his mixed martial arts career in 2013, Georges St-Pierre has finally taken some time for himself. Following in the footsteps of his childhood hero Jean-Claude Van Damme, GSP tried his hand at being an action star. He played Batroc the Leaper in 2014’s Captain America: Winter Soldier and now he plays a pivotal role in JCVD’s Kickboxer: Vengeance. In an example of life coming full circle, the French-Canadian GSP fought Van Damme, the man who inspired him to become a martial artist, in the film. We talked to him about trading fake blows with JCVD, and his seemingly inevitable return to real fighting in the UFC’s cage.
Was it difficult to choreograph fake fights after really fighting for so long?
Georges St-Pierre: It’s a totally different thing. Fighting for real is just such a different thing, especially when you’re fighting for the camera, but I’m here to learn and everyone on the set was very nice, and I’m fortunate that people were there to help me a lot. Yeah, I look forward to doing this more and learning as much as I can.
Was there ever any close calls or accidents with you getting hit or you hitting someone during filming?
Oh no, no, not at all. The camera angle makes it look like it’s real, so you never punch near the guy.
There are some long takes in these fight scenes, and everyone was clearly in incredible shape for the movie, so was there any similarities in a fight camp and getting prepared to shoot the movie?
Nah. I’m always in good shape, so I don’t need to prepare myself. I was very well-prepared.The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel Shows Its Story And Gameplay Videos
By Casey. October 16, 2015. 7:30am
Xseed Games recently released two new videos for The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel by Falcom for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita. Here’s a look at both of the videos.
The first video gives us a glimpse into the game’s story and setting, and also showcases the large and diverse cast of characters.
The second video shows us more of the title’s gameplay, including how battles unfold, as well as a look into what types of enemies you will encounter.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel is releasing in North America and Europe this holiday season for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita.Listen, if you guys weren’t drug testing Nick Diaz, while he’s smoking weed at a weed dispensary, he might have a better chance at passing.
I’m no expert.
But…Come on guys. That seems like day one shit.
MyMMANews: Nick Diaz said…“They know where I’m at though. Somebody over there is not doing their job. I mean realistically, they showed up to one of my dispensary signings. Like I said, I gotta do what I can with what I have to work with when I’m not fighting. The whole cannabis industry thing is a hit right now, so yeah, I’ll book an appearance over there and I’ll go and smoke a bunch of weed and it’s a good time. So of course, word is out I’m gonna be here, they show up.”
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commentsTaylor Swift in legal row with blogger who suggested she encouraged white supremacy groups
Taylor Swift in legal row with blogger who suggested she encouraged white supremacy groups The American Civil Liberties Union has come to the defence of a blogger who said the star was "an icon of white supremacists".
Image: Taylor Swift has threatened a blogger with legal action
Pop star Taylor Swift has been accused of "unacceptable intimidation tactics" after threatening legal action against a blogger.
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The singer's lawyer wrote to Meghan Herning regarding an article she wrote for online politics and culture magazine PopFront, which suggested that lyrics from Swift's new album Reputation, due for release on Friday, encouraged white supremacist movements.
Citing posts on far-right blogs and websites, Ms Herning discussed the idea that Swift was "an icon of white supremacist, nationalists and other fringe groups", performing lyrics that spoke to their "anger, entitlement and selfishness".
She said imagery in the music video for Look What You Made Me Do, the first single released from Reputation, bore "uncanny and unsettling" similarities to the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany.
The article, dated 5 September and titled 'Swiftly to the alt-right: Taylor subtly gets the lower case kkk in formation', also criticises the singer for not endorsing Hillary Clinton ahead of last year's US presidential election.
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It says that her relative political silence could be seen as a "subtle encouragement" of the far right.
Image: Reputation is due for release on Friday
In a letter dated 25 October, Swift's lawyer accuses Ms Herning of defamation and demands the article's removal, alongside the publication of a full retraction. The letter states that the blog post is "replete with demonstrable and offensive falsehoods" that "completely misrepresent" the award-winning star.
The letter also threatens a lawsuit and warns Ms Herning against making it public by citing US copyright law, but the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has now waded into the dispute on behalf of the blogger and published the lawyer's letter.
The ACLU has written to Swift and her representative demanding that they refute their "meritless legal defamation threats" and asking them to confirm that they will not pursue a lawsuit by 13 November. The union says that the blog post is opinion protected by the First Amendment.
The ACLU's letter says that her public profile leaves her open to "adverse as well as favourable comment" and - quoting one of Swift's most popular tracks - says that she should be able to "shake it off".
ACLU attorney Matt Cagle said: "Intimidation tactics like these are unacceptable.
"Not in her wildest dreams can Ms Swift use copyright law to suppress this exposure of a threat to constitutionally protected speech."
Sky News has contacted Swift's publicist for comment.A body washes up on a beach in eastern England. Then another. And another. Soon, people living in two coastal communities have five deaths on their hands.
Things take a further macabre twist when it emerges that more than a dozen bodies are littering the shores of the Netherlands and Germany. What could possibly link the deaths? A CSI team, dispatched to hunt for clues, faces a race against time. Scavengers and saltwater will devour the carcasses and destroy potentially vital evidence.
No, it’s not a plot lifted from the latest series of The Bridge. This is life at the gory end of zoological research. The CSI team are not crime scene investigators, but members of the Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme, a specialist team based at the Zoological Society of London in Regent’s Park, whose work was thrown into sharp relief last week when five sperm whales were found stranded on beaches in Hunstanton, Norfolk, and Skegness, Lincolnshire.
“We weren’t the ones who gave it the name; it’s entirely fortuitous that the initials are CSI,” said Rob Deaville, the programme’s project manager. “But there is a degree of truth in it. You’re trying to find what happened to bodies on a beach.”
Set up in response to a 1988 virus that killed thousands of European seals, the CSIP – cetacean is the collective noun for aquatic placental mammals – is celebrating its 25th year. It continues work begun by the Natural History Museum in 1913 in response to a mass stranding of 50 sperm whales in Cornwall.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest At least 21 dolphins died in a mass stranding in the Percuil river, Cornwall, in 2008. Photograph: Barry Batchelor/PA
Now, with more than a century’s worth of data to draw on, the programme has become a zoological treasure trove. In the quarter of a century it has been operating, the CSIP has recorded almost 13,000 strandings of porpoises, whales, turtles, seals and basking sharks, conducted 3,500 postmortems, and collected 80,000-plus samples.
Funded by the Department for the Environment and the Scottish and Welsh governments, the programme carries out between 100 and 150 post-mortems on the 600 or so strandings that occur each year around the UK shoreline. Selecting which creatures to examine depends on several factors.
Whale mania in Skegness: 'the car park was full and the beach was packed' Read more
“Thankfully, everyone now has camera phones,” Deaville said. “We try to ascertain what it is and ask whether it is in a fresh enough condition. Can we access it safely? Often they are stranded in inaccessible locations.”
In the latest strandings, Deaville and his team were able to examine four of the sperm whales. A fifth was too far out on mudflats which may have been littered with ordnance from a nearby military range. But this was not the only explosive risk to the team, Deaville explained. The whale carcasses, insulated by blubber, were storing a potentially dangerous buildup of gases.
“Sperm whales are like pressure cookers; they keep everything locked in. Two of the ones in Skegness were so distended we were concerned about the risk to us and the public.”
The programme’s chief remit is to establish causes of death, but Deaville said that, as distressing as it is to see the carcass of a whale or porpoise washed up on a beach, much good can come from it. “We use the opportunity to learn more about species which are incredibly hard to study in the wild. The sperm whale is a case in point. They spend a fraction of their life at the surface, most of it at depth. So although it’s a tragic event, it does give us a great chance to collect a range of material.”
This can yield important breakthroughs. An examination of porpoise carcasses found the presence of specialist chemicals used to make sofas flame-retardant. This led to a ban on the chemicals in 2004. Other work has suggested dolphins may be subject to decompression syndrome and that whales are affected by the use of military sonar, research that has led to paradigm shifts in how zoologists think about cetaceans.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A sperm whale in the Caribbean Sea. Photograph: Reinhard Dirscherl/Visuals Unlimited/Corbis
Often there are prosaic explanations for why whales and dolphins end up stranded – they may have been caught in fishing gear or been struck by a vessel. But it is the strandings of seemingly healthy creatures that pose the biggest challenge to investigators.
“In terms of the sperm whale events, we will have discussions with our Dutch and German colleagues,” Deaville said. “We’ll look at what may or may not have been going on. It may be that after months of research we are none the wiser as to what caused them to come into the North Sea in the first place. I suspect this is a strong possibility.”
Investigators will check for marine earthquakes with the British Geological Survey and examine underwater noise levels to see if these could have been triggers. They will also study whether there was a change in the distribution of prey that might have encouraged the whales to come into UK waters.
That the amount of strandings remains fairly stable each year seems reassuring, but the number masks wide variations in the fortunes of different species. Humpback whale strandings were unheard of for 80 years, but in 1986, following a ban on large-scale commercial whaling operations, the population started to increase.
“The corollary is that we see strandings; it’s terrible for the individual, but good news –it means there are more of them out there,” Deaville said.
UK whale strandings: why did they happen? Read more
Indeed, it is the species that the CSIP never encounter which cause the most concern. In the UK there is now only one small population of killer whales, off Shetland. Once the species was observed off Wales and England too. But harmful chemicals known as PCBs – which, despite being banned, are still present in the world’s oceans – have had a severely limiting effect on the species’ ability to reproduce.
More recently the CSIP has been concerned by a spate of turtle strandings along the Atlantic coastline. These include several Kemp’s Ridley turtles, the most endangered marine turtle in the world. In the 1960s the species had 40,000 nesting sites around the world. This was down to just 200 by the 1980s. Man-made climate change is to blame, Deaville believes.
“The probable driver [of the turtle strandings] was the extreme weather over Christmas. They’ve been around for hundreds of millions of years and we are having a big impact on them.”
But a century’s worth of research into cetacean strandings continued by the CSIP offers hope that humankind’s relation with the creatures of the sea can change. Ten years ago this month, tens of thousands of people flocked to central London to see a five-metre northern bottlenose whale swim up the Thames.
“If the whale had come up the Thames 60 years ago, there would not have been the same response,” Deaville said. “London used to be at the centre of the whaling industry. They’d tow them up the Thames and boil them up to power the streetlights. It’s really not that long ago since we moved from being a nation of whalers to whale conservationists.”
The CSI Programme can be contacted on 0800 652 0333.
Most common cetacean strandings in British waters between 2003 and 2007
1,924
Harbour porpoises
685
Short-beaked common dolphins
76
Minke whales
72
Atlantic white-sided dolphins
52
Long-finned pilot whales
48
Striped dolphins
|
come to fight, and he pulled something straight from the playbook of American evangelical Christianity. “I have selfish reasons”, he said. “Back home I found no purpose or meaning in life, so I prayed. America is different, you know; it’s just money. So I prayed for a purpose and meaning in my life. Here I find myself—I don’t know how else to explain it—finding purpose and meaning in helping these people to overcome Daesh.” He had arrived in Iraq two weeks earlier, on January 3, he said; his comrade, another American army veteran who had arrived a month earlier, was lying beside him on a stretcher alongside an Australian. While Patrick was unhurt, both the Australian and the other American had been lightly wounded by a mortar that, according to the Australian, “landed in our faces.” Both the Americans had taken local names, derived from the names of Kurdish mountains. “The Kurds are a mountain people”, Patrick explained. His nom de guerre was Guevara, while his comrade had chosen Judy. “Judy’s a girl’s name,” I said. “Not around here,” said Judy.
Photograph by James Harkin.
Patrick was not the first American I had met. On my way into Sinjar via northern Syria, two days earlier, while trying to sleep in a trailer in atrocious weather conditions at a Kurdish military base in Hasakah province, I’d been kept awake by two Westerners who were waiting for a ride, also to Sinjar. Both were in their 20s. One was from Florida, the other was from France. For at least an hour they engaged in a heated conversation about the physical appearance of Lady Gaga. The Frenchman said that he’d once seen her as attractive but now found her “ugly.” The man from Florida was patriotically coming to her defense. I asked them if they might be journalists, and the Frenchman rapidly dissembled: “The only thing we can say about our mission is that we’re not journalists.”
Patrick, his American friend, and the Australian were different from those two, and keener to chat. Both the Americans were originally from Orange County, California, Patrick told me, but their meeting here was nothing more than a happy coincidence. Both had also done time as cavalry scouts—recon guys, with four years of U.S. military service apiece.
Photograph by James Harkin.
None of the three men wanted to have his picture taken or even give me his full name. If he returns home and the authorities find out where he’s been, explained the Australian, he might be treated exactly the same as a jihadi, and be threatened with a lengthy prison sentence. The subterfuge made all of them irritable. What he didn’t understand, Patrick told me, “is why the rest of the world is not here fighting against Daesh. One night I heard two missiles drop. That was about it. I don’t know what is going on with these politicians, but they need to come here. I understand that in the past they went to Iraq for imperialistic reasons; they got into fights for nothing. But this is a fight worth fighting, and they’re not here—it doesn’t make sense.”
The following morning, Patrick was less bullish. I mentioned that I’d visited the local P.K.K. headquarters in the city and he frowned. “You mean the headquarters that’s about to be hit?” he responded. Judy knows about mortars, he said, and he calculated that the Daesh were “bracketing” fields of fire to improve their accuracy and slowly target the building. That same day I found out the tally of casualties from the three suicide bombs—one dead P.K.K. fighter and seven wounded. Much like Kobani, however, by the time the local civilians come back to reclaim their city, there won’t be a great deal left of what they used to call home.
James Harkin reported from Iraq with support from The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute.
UPDATE (February 25, 2015): This story originally incorrectly identified the nom de guerre used by the American fighter Patrick. We've updated it to include the correct pseudonym, "Guevara."Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures as he acknowledges the crowd at the end of the Republican National Convention. McNamee/Getty Images The majority of viewers who watched Donald Trump's speech to the Republican National Convention on Thursday night said it made them more likely to vote for him in November, according to a CNN/ORC instant poll.
The poll found that 56% of speech viewers were more likely to vote for the New York businessman after seeing him formally accept the Republican nomination.
32% of viewers said his speech had little effect on them, and 10% said it made them less likely to cast their vote for Trump in November.
Overall, 57% of viewers said they had a "very positive" reaction to Trump's speech. Meanwhile, 18% said they were "somewhat positive" and 24% said it had a "negative effect."
The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5%.
Republican pollster Frank Luntz predicted that Trump's speech would propel Trump ahead or near Hillary Clinton in the polls within a few days.The proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, has been shrouded in secrecy, and the Bush and the Obama administrations have declared it unsuitable for public debate because divulging its contents could harm America's "national security."
A few recent leaks have showed that the unfinished agreement, which is being negotiated largely between the European Union and the United States, is likely to benefit the content industry. At the same time, it might pave the way for international guidelines that could lead to consumers losing their internet accounts if they are believed to be digital copyright scofflaws.
But we now know that the real reason for secrecy, the one suspected all along, was that the United States does not think it could reach an accord with Europe and the nearly dozen other nations if the proposal came under public scrutiny.
That's the story James Love, the director of Knowledge Ecology, tells on his blog and in a telephone interview Friday.
Love said Ron Kirk told him so.
Kirk is the United States trade representative whose office is the U.S. ACTA negotiator. The two spoke on an airline flight from Geneva on Thursday before lifting off to Washington, said Love, a prominent digital-rights and health care activist and lobbyist.
He has met Kirk before and they each knew one another. Love said while the plane was waiting on the tarmac, Kirk strolled from the front of the plane into coach to chat with other World Trade Organization meeting attendees, including Love.
Love said he asked why the administration would not lift the ACTA veil of secrecy.
"'The reason we can't make it public is people would walk away from the table,'" Love said Kirk told him.
The U.S. Trade Office confirmed Kirk was on the flight, but was not otherwise immediately prepared to comment. The office in March wrote Knowledge Ecology, in response to a FOIA on ACTA, that the negotiating texts were "properly classified" national security secrets.
Love said Kirk is a "charming guy, and he's a nice guy."
He said the conversation was brief and polite.
Kirk's concern that negotiating countries "would walk away" came a week after it was disclosed that the European Union is indeed troubled by the U.S. proposal, (.pdf) at least insofar as internet policy is concerned.
According to leaked documents, the European Union expressed alarm that the Obama administration is lobbying on behalf of the entertainment industry as part of the negotiations for the new international copyright accord.
The document, "European Union’s Comments to the U.S. Proposal," notes that the "most important provision" of the U.S.-proposed copyright section includes language noting that the United States' "overarching objective" is to "facilitate the continued development of industry."
The ACTA negotiating nations include Australia, Canada, European Union states, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland and the United States.
The countries are to meet again in January and are expected to have a final accord by the end of next year.
As proposed, the agreement does not need Congress' approval.
Love told Kirk, and also wrote on his blog, that the government does not always negotiate consumer-oriented agreements in private, and he cited the 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization copyright treaties as one of several examples. Kirk replied that ACTA "was different" and ACTA topics were "more complex," Love said.
Update:
A select handful of non-government types, such as the entertainment industry and a few digital rights groups, have seen the proposed text. Confidentiality agreements preclude them from spilling the beans. They viewed the documents ahead of the last round of negotiations in South Korea, now five-weeks old.
Here is the entire unedited text of Kirk's response, via an e-mail as relayed through United States Trade Representative spokeswoman Nefeterius Akeli McPherson, who declined to confirm Kirk made those comments to Love:
While developing the US proposals for the content of trade agreements, USTR has for many years worked with the Congressionally-created system of advisory committees, as it does in the context of all other trade agreements. Under the Obama Administration, USTR used an innovative approach, greatly expanding its process of consultations about prospective U.S. positions on enforcement of intellectual property rights in the digital environment to include advice from a broad group of experts, including representatives of intellectual property right holders, Internet intermediaries, NGOs, and others. Going forward, the Administration is committed to continuing to provide opportunities for the public to give meaningful input into the ACTA negotiating process. We won endorsement of the importance of meaningful public input from all of the participants at the Seoul Round of the ACTA negotiations in November. The Administration also recognizes that confidentiality in international negotiations among sovereign entities is the standard practice to enable officials to engage in frank exchanges of views, positions, and specific negotiating proposals, and thereby facilitate the negotiation and compromise that are necessary to reach agreement on complex issues. A unilateral release of text by one trading partner would risk breaching the mutual trust that is important to successful trade negotiations. All of these perspectives were influential in shaping our proposal. We therefore strongly disagree with any assertion that the Administration is only reflecting the views of a single industry or group.
See Also:Photo
Bernie Sanders on Saturday night called on former President Bill Clinton to apologize for drowning out protesters who confronted him about his administration’s role in incarcerating large numbers of black people and about Hillary Clinton’s use of the term “super predator.”
At a campaign event in Harlem’s Apollo Theater, which ended with a protester interrupting the Vermont senator with anti-Semitic remarks, Mr. Sanders was asked about Mr. Clinton’s recent confrontation with Black Lives Matter protesters over the term used by Hillary Clinton in 1996 to describe gang members.
Mr. Clinton had faced harsh backlash earlier this week for speaking over demonstrators’ chants at a rally in Philadelphia by aggressively defending his actions while in office.
“Unacceptable,” Mr. Sanders said to loud applause. “I think we all know what that term meant in the context that it was said years ago. We know who they were talking about.”
As the senator spoke, an audience member shouted, “Black people.”
“That’s exactly right,” Mr. Sanders replied. “And I think that the president owes the American people an apology for trying to defend the indefensible.”
Mr. Sanders has repeatedly attacked Mrs. Clinton for supporting a 1994 crime bill that her husband signed into law and which created tougher penalties for nonviolent drug offenders, erected dozens of new prisons, banned certain types of assault weapons and sent 100,000 more police officers to American cities. Mr. Sanders voted for the bill.
Mr. Clinton has since disavowed part of the legislation, saying that it went too far in sending even minor criminals to prison “for way too long.”
On Friday, Mr. Clinton also said he regretted drowning out the chants of black protesters at the Philadelphia rally. “I almost want to apologize,” he said.
At Saturday’s event, Mr. Sanders sat alongside some of his most famous black supporters, including actor Harry Belafonte and Nina Turner, the former Ohio senator, and Erica Garner, the daughter of Eric Garner, the Staten Island man who died during an arrest after police officers placed him in a choke hold.
Mr. Sanders offered a personal reason for being interested in issues of racism.
“I think most of you know, I’m Jewish,” he said. “I can remember as a kid, tears coming down my eyes knowing that much of my father’s family was wiped out by a lunatic in Germany.”
As the event ended, John Prince, 32, used Mr. Sanders’s heritage to interrupt the event.
“As you know, the Zionist Jews – and I don’t mean to offend anybody – they run the Federal Reserve, they run Wall Street, they run every campaign,” Mr. Prince said.
Mr. Sanders frowned, held up his hand, and began shaking his head. “Brother, brother, brother,” he said.
But, Mr. Prince went on: “What is your affiliation to your Jewish community? That’s all I’m asking.”
“That’s not what you’re asking,” Mr. Sanders said, before explaining that he was a strong defender of Israel but that people needed to also pay attention to the needs of the Palestinians.
Eventually, Mr. Prince began shouting over Mr. Sanders and walked off as Symone Sanders, the national press secretary for the Sanders campaign, invited him to speak with her. The two later talked, but Mr. Prince continued to shout about Jews buying properties across New York.
Earlier in the event, Mr. Sanders took questions about improving the lives of people of color and reforming the criminal justice system. He also criticized Mr. Clinton for signing into law the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act.The senator said that bill, a welfare reform act, hurt many Americans and was born out of misinformed stereotypes.
“The premise, which was a right-wing Republican premise, was that the problem was that all of these poor people were really living high off the hog,” Mr. Sanders said. “There were all the quote unquote welfare queens, remember that? All these poor people just living so well on welfare. That bill was passed and the result of it was poverty for the poorest of the poor went up very significantly in our country.”
Mr. Sanders said if elected president he would put an end to the mentality that “beating up on the poor” is a good way to win votes.
Mr. Belafonte followed that up by saying the country had already seen what damage a Clinton presidency would do to the country.
“I will just say, Hillary who?” Mr. Belafonte said, pausing as many in the crowd cheered. “We have been there and done that. Today is a new day. Bernie Sanders.”Flamboyant Pentecostal preacher Mark Randall “Mack” Wolford, who was one of the last serpent-handling preachers of his kind in the U.S., passed away on Sunday after being bitten by one of his snakes, according to the Washington Post. The Washington Post Magazine profiled Wolford in November of 2011, telling of his ongoing faith in his ministry in spite of his own father’s death by snakebite in 1983.
Wolford was holding a outdoor service at Panther Wildlife Management Area in his native West Virginia when he was bitten. The pastor promoted the event on Facebook on May 22, calling it “a homecoming like the old days. Good ’ole raised in the holler or mountain ridge running, Holy Ghost-filled speaking-in-tongues sign believers.”
On May 23, he wrote on Facebook, “Praise the Lord and pass the rattlesnakes, brother.” He had invited his congregation, his family and extended family to the event, which was located roughly 80 miles west of Bluefield, West Virginia.
Wolford’s sister Robin Vanover told the Post on Monday that snake-handling had been a family tradition, “At one time or another, we had handled [snakes], but we had backslid. His birthday was Saturday, and all he wanted to do is get his brothers and sisters in church together.”
Snake-handling Pentecostals claim that they use their practice as a means of getting closer to god by testing their faith. They take as their inspiration verses 17 and 18 from Chapter 16 of the Gospel of Mark, which reads, “And these signs will follow those who believe: in My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
The practice is legal in West Virginia, but not in most states. Wolford was struck on the thigh by a rattlesnake he had owned for years. It is a tenet of snake-handlers’ faith that they rely on only god for healing if they are bitten in the course of their worship.
After being bitten, Wolford halted the service and was taken to a relative’s home to recover, as he had on the four other occasions when he was struck by one of his snakes. This time, however, he was unable to shake off the effects of the rattlesnake’s venom.
Hours after the bite, frantic prayer requests began to appear on Facebook. Paramedics were called, but by the time help arrived, Wolford was dead.
Like his own father, Wolford lived approximately ten hours after being bitten. He described his father’s death to the Post in November thusly, “When he got bit, he said he wanted to die in the church. Three hours after he was bitten, his kidneys shut down. After a while, your heart stops. I hated to see him go, but he died for what he believed in.”
Wolford’s funeral will take place Saturday, June 2 at his church, The House of the Lord Jesus, in Matoaka, West Virginia.
(image via Shutterstock)The Bangladeshi taka (Bengali: টাকা, sign: ৳ or Tk, code: BDT) is the currency of the People's Republic of Bangladesh. Issuance of banknotes ৳10 and larger is controlled by Bangladesh Bank, and for the ৳2 and ৳5 banknotes, which are the responsibility of the Ministry of Finance of the government of Bangladesh. The most commonly used symbol for the taka is "৳" and "Tk", used on receipts while purchasing goods and services. ৳1 is subdivided into 100 poisha.
Etymology [ edit ]
The word taka is a tadbhava word, which is derived from Magadhi Prakrit "Tanka", which originally came from Sanskrit तन्कह् tankah.[2]. In the region of Bengal, the term has always been used to refer to currency. In the 14th century, Ibn Battuta noticed that people in the Bengal Sultanate referred to gold and silver coins as taka instead of dinar.
The word taka in Bangla is also commonly used generically to mean any money, currency, or notes. Thus, colloquially, a person speaking in Bangla may use "taka" to refer to money regardless of what currency it is denominated in. This is also common in the Indian states of West Bengal and Tripura, where the official name of the Indian rupees is "taka" as well. In other eastern Indian languages with the influence of Prakrit. In Assam it is টকা tôka and it is ଟଂକା tôngka in Orissa.
History [ edit ]
After the Partition of Bengal in 1947, in East Bengal, which later became the eastern wing of Pakistan union and was renamed to East Pakistan in 1956, the Pakistani rupee also bore the word taka on official notes and coins. Bangla was one of the two national languages of the Pakistan union between 1956 and 1971 (the other being Urdu in West Pakistan). The Bangladeshi taka came into existence since 1972, a year after the independence of the eastern wing of the union, as the independent nation of Bangladesh.
Prior to the Liberation war in 1971, banknotes of the State Bank of Pakistan circulated throughout Bangladesh, and continued to be used in Bangladesh even after independence for only about three months until the official introduction of the taka on 4 March 1972. During the war, it was an unofficial practice of some Bengali nationalists to protest Pakistani rule by stamping banknotes with "বাংলা দেশ" and "BANGLA DESH" as two words in either Bangla or English. These locally produced stamps are known to exist in several varieties, as are forgeries. On 8 June 1971, the Pakistani government declared that all banknotes bearing such stamps ceased to be legal tender. Furthermore, to prevent looted high-denomination notes from disrupting the Pakistani economy, the government also withdrew the legal tender status of all 100- and 500-rupee notes.[3]
Some foreign publications mention that there were rubber stamp "BANGLA DESH" overprints on different denominations of Pakistani bank notes during the a.m. period[clarification needed]. It may be mentioned that Pakistani postage stamps were rubber-stamped and used all over Bangladesh until 30 March 1973, but Bangladesh Bank or the Ministry of Finance never issued an order to overprint or rubber-stamp Pakistani currency.[4] It would be interesting to note here, that a counterfeiting gang is active, which uses a "washing system", whereby Tk100 notes are washed with a special kind of liquid, and the numbers are changed to give it the appearance of a Tk500 note.[5]
Since 1972 [ edit ]
Treasury banknotes [ edit ]
The first treasury notes in 1972 for ৳ 1 and notes of the Bangladesh Bank for ৳ 5, ৳ 10 and ৳ 100.
1 and notes of the Bangladesh Bank for 5, 10 and 100. In 1977, banknotes for ৳ 50 were introduced, followed by ৳ 500 in 1979 and ৳ 20 in 1982.
50 were introduced, followed by 500 in 1979 and 20 in 1982. ৳ 1 treasury notes were issued until 1992, with ৳ 2 treasury notes introduced in 1989.
1 treasury notes were issued until 1992, with 2 treasury notes introduced in 1989. ৳ 5 banknotes, previously issued by Bangladesh Bank, are now issued by the Government of Bangladesh.
Banknotes and issues [ edit ]
In 2000, the government issued polymer ৳10 notes as an experiment (similar to the Australian dollar). They proved unpopular, however, and were withdrawn later. At present, the ৳1 and ৳5 notes are gradually being replaced with coins, and in 2008, the government issued ৳1,000 notes.
In 2011, Bangladesh Bank began issuing a new series of banknotes denominated in ৳2, ৳5, ৳100, ৳500, and ৳1000. All are dated 2011 and feature a portrait and watermark of the Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, along the National Martyr's Monument in Savar at centre front.[6]
From 2011, the Bangladesh Bank introduced new notes denominated in ৳10, ৳20, and ৳50 on 7 March 2012. The notes bear the portrait of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the National Martyr's Monument in Savar on the front. On the back of the notes, the ৳10 will picture the Baitul Mukarram mosque, the ৳20 pictures the Shat Gombuj mosque in Bagherat, and the ৳50 notes feature Shilpacharya Jainul Abedin's famous painting "Ploughing."[7]
Commemorative banknotes [ edit ]
In 2011, Bangladesh Bank also introduced a ৳40 note to commemorate the "40th Victory Anniversary of Bangladesh". The commemorative note features a portrait of the Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the National Martyr's Monument in Savar on front, and six armed men on back. Curiously, this note has an electrotype 10 in the watermark, indicating it was likely printed on extra ৳10 banknote paper.[8]
On 15 February 2012, Bangladesh Bank has introduced a ৳60 note to commemorate "60 years of National Movement". The commemorative note measures 130 by 60 millimetres (5.1 in × 2.4 in) and features the Shaeed Minar (Martyrs' monument) in Dhaka and five men on the back. Like the ৳40 commemorative note, this note has an electrotype 50 in the watermark. It was likely printed on extra ৳50 banknote paper.[9]
On 26 January 2013, Bangladesh Bank issued a ৳25 note to commemorate the 25th anniversary (silver jubilee) of the Security Printing Corporation (Bangladesh) Ltd. On the front is the National Martyr's Monument in Savar, the designs of the previous series of the Bangladeshi taka notes and its postage stamps, three spotted deer and the magpie robin (doyel) bird. On the reverse is the headquarters of the Security Printing Corporation. Curiously, this note has an electrotype 10 in the watermark, indicating it was likely printed on extra ৳10 banknote paper.[10]
On 8 July 2013, Bangladesh Bank issued a ৳100 note to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Bangladesh National Museum. The commemorative note features an 18th-century terra-cotta plaque of a horseman on the front and the Bangladesh National Museum on the back.[11]
Coins [ edit ]
In 1973, coins were introduced in denominations of 5, 10, 25 and 50 poisha. 1 poisha coins followed in 1974, with ৳1 coins introduced in 1975. The 1, 5 and 10 poisha were struck in aluminium, with the 25 and 50 poisha struck in steel and the ৳1 in copper-nickel. The 5 poisha were square with rounded corners, and the 10 poisha were scalloped. Steel ৳5 were introduced in 1994, and a steel ৳2 coin followed in 2004.
1 and 5 poisha coins are rarely found in circulation. 10, 25, and 50 poisha coins do not circulate widely. Only the ৳1, ৳2 and ৳5 are regularly found in circulation.
Banknotes [ edit ]
Rarely used banknotes of the Bangladeshi taka are ৳1 (withdrawn as well since 1992), ৳25, ৳40 and ৳60, ৳70 and the most frequently used banknotes in circulation are ৳2, ৳5, ৳10, ৳20, ৳50, ৳100, ৳500 and ৳1000.
Bangladesh Bank has withdrawn the new ৳50 note after a spelling mistake of Shilpacharya Zainul Abedin (জয়নুল আবেদীন) which was identified on the back of the note. The note had just been introduced on 7 March, so it is likely that very few made it into circulation, even though 22.5 million pieces were printed.[12]
Bangladesh Bank has issued a new series of banknotes, phasing out the older designs for new, more secure ones. All banknotes other than the 1 taka feature a portrait of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on the obverse along with the watermark of the National Martyrs’ Memorial.[13]
The folder of the banknote for the 40th anniversary of the independence of Bangladesh had a spelling error of the name of the country. It was inserted as Bangldesh instead of Bangladesh.[16]
Commemorative banknotes of the Bangladeshi taka Obverse Reverse Folder Value Dimensions Main colours Description Year of issue Date of first issue Print volume Watermark Obverse Reverse no folder ৳ 10 Violet on multicolor underprint Atiya Jam-e Mosque in Tangali Spillway of Kaptai Dam 1996 Modified tiger head; overprint on obverse watermark area: "VICTORY DAY SILVER JUBILEE'96" ৳ 40 122 x 60 mm Dark red, orange, and green Bangabandhu; National monument (Savar) Soldiers 2011 21 December 2011 Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, electrotype 10 denomination and bank logo ৳ 60 130 x 60 mm Yellow, brown, violet, orange, and blue Shaheed Minar monument Veterans of the "Language Movement", first Shaheed Minar monument (1952) 2012 15 February 2012 20,000 (5000 in folders) Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on pixelated background, electrotype bank logo and 50 ৳ 25 123 x 60 mm Blue, purple and red National Martyr's Monument in Savar, Bangladeshi taka banknotes and postage stamps, three spotted deer, magpie robin (doyel) bird Headquarters of the Security Printing Corporation 2013 26 January 2013 Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, electrotype 10 denomination and bank logo ৳ 100 140 x 62 mm Blue and red 18th-century terra-cotta plaque of a horseman Bangladesh National Museum 2013 9 July 2013 100,000 (11,000 in folders) Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on a pixelated background, electrotype 100 denomination and bank logo ৳ 70 140 x 62 mm Purple, orange and green Sheikh Mujibur Rahman; map of Bangladesh; National Martyrs’ Monument in Savar; Betbunia Satellite Center Bangabandhu-1 Satellite in orbit above earth; Padma Bridge; Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina; bank logo 2018 22 March 2018 Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on a pixelated background, electrotype 100 denomination and bank logo
Exchange rates [ edit ]
Historic exchange rates [ edit ]
Upon Bangladesh's independence, the value of the Bangladeshi taka was set between ৳7.5 and ৳8.0 to US$1. Except for fiscal year 1978, the taka's value relative to the US dollar declined every year from 1971 through the end of 1987. To help offset this phenomenon, Bangladesh first used the compensatory financing facility of the International Monetary Fund in fiscal year 1974. Despite the increasing need for assistance, the Mujib government was initially unwilling to meet the IMF's conditions on monetary and fiscal policy. By fiscal year 1975, however, the government revised its stance, declaring a devaluation of the taka by 56 percent and agreeing to establishing the Bangladesh Aid Group by the World Bank.[17]
Between 1980 and 1983, the taka sustained a decline of some 50 percent because of a deterioration in Bangladesh's balance of payments.[17] Between 1985 and 1987, the taka was adjusted in frequent incremental steps, stabilising again around 12 percent lower in real terms against the US dollar, but at the same time narrowing the difference between the official rate and the preferential secondary rate from 15 percent to 7.5 percent.[17] Accompanying this structural adjustment was an expansion in trade conducted at the secondary rate, to 53 percent of total exports and 28 percent of total imports.[17] In mid-1987, the official rate was relatively stable, approaching less than ৳31 to US$1.[17] In January 2011, USD$1 was equivalent to approximately ৳72,[18] as of 21 April 2012, US$1 was worth close to ৳82, and as of 9 September 2015 US$1 valued ৳77.
Current exchange rates [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]The identity of the Sony hackers is still unknown. President Obama, in a December 19 press conference, announced: “We can confirm that North Korea engaged in this attack.” He then vowed: “We will respond.... We cannot have a society in which some dictator some place can start imposing censorship here in the United States.”
The U.S. Government’s campaign to blame North Korea actually began two days earlier, when The New York Times – as usual – corruptly granted anonymity to “senior administration officials” to disseminate their inflammatory claims with no accountability. These hidden “American officials” used the Paper of Record to announce that they “have concluded that North Korea was ‘centrally involved’ in the hacking of Sony Pictures computers.” With virtually no skepticism about the official accusation, reporters David Sanger and Nicole Perlroth deemed the incident a “cyberterrorism attack” and devoted the bulk of the article to examining the retaliatory actions the government could take against the North Koreans.
The same day, The Washington Post granted anonymity to officials in order to print this:
Other than noting in passing, deep down in the story, that North Korea denied responsibility, not a shred of skepticism was included by Post reporters Drew Harwell and Ellen Nakashima. Like the NYT, the Post devoted most of its discussion to the “retaliation” available to the U.S.
The NYT and Post engaged in this stenography in the face of numerous security experts loudly noting how sparse and unconvincing was the available evidence against North Korea. Kim Zetter in Wired – literally moments before the NYT laundered the accusation via anonymous officials – proclaimed the evidence of North Korea’s involvement “flimsy.” About the U.S. government’s accusation in the NYT, she wisely wrote: “they have provided no evidence to support this and without knowing even what agency the officials belong to, it’s difficult to know what to make of the claim. And we should point out that intelligence agencies and government officials have jumped to hasty conclusions or misled the public in the past because it was politically expedient.”
Numerous cyber experts subsequently echoed the same sentiments. Bruce Schneier wrote: “I am deeply skeptical of the FBI’s announcement on Friday that North Korea was behind last month’s Sony hack. The agency’s evidence is tenuous, and I have a hard time believing it.” The day before Obama’s press conference, long-time expert Marc Rogers detailed his reasons for viewing the North Korea theory as “unlikely”; after Obama’s definitive accusation, he comprehensively reviewed the disclosed evidence and was even more assertive: “there is NOTHING here that directly implicates the North Koreans” (emphasis in original) and “the evidence is flimsy and speculative at best.”
Yet none of this expert skepticism made its way into countless media accounts of the Sony hack. Time and again, many journalists mindlessly regurgitated the U.S. Government’s accusation against North Korea without a shred of doubt, blindly assuming it to be true, and then discussing, often demanding, strong retaliation. Coverage of the episode was largely driven by the long-standing, central tenet of the establishment U.S. media: government assertions are to be treated as Truth.
The day after Obama’s press conference, CNN’s Fredricka Whitfeld discussed Sony’s decision not to show The Interview and wondered: “how does this empower or further embolden North Korea that, OK, this hacking thing works. Maybe there’s something else up the sleeves of the North Korean government.” In response, her “expert” guest, the genuinely crazed and discredited Gordon Chang, demanded: “President Obama wisely talks about proportional response, but what we need is an effective response, because what North Korea did in this particular case really goes to the core of American democracy.”
Even worse was an indescribably slavish report on the day of Obama’s press conference from CNN’s Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto. One has to watch the segment to appreciate the full scope of its mindlessness. He not only assumed the accusations true but purported to detail – complete with technical-looking maps and other graphics – how “the rogue nation” sent “investigators on a worldwide chase,” but “still, the NSA and FBI were able to track the attack back to North Korea and its government.” He explained: “Now that the country behind those damaging keystrokes has been identified, the administration is looking at how to respond.”
MSNBC announced North Korea’s culpability on Al Sharpton’s program, where the host breathlessly touted NBC‘s “breaking news” that the hackers were “acting on orders from North Koreans.” Sharpton convened a panel that included the cable host Touré, who lamented that “that Kim Jong-un suddenly has veto power over what goes into American theaters.” He explained that he finds this really bad: “I don’t like that. I don’t like negotiating with terrorists. I don’t like giving into terrorists.”
Bloomberg TV called upon former Obama Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, who said without any challenge that “this is not the first time that North Korea has threatened Americans.” Blair demanded that “the type of response we should make I think should be able to deny the North Koreans the ability to use the Western financial system, telecommunications and system to basically steal money, threaten our systems.” The network’s on-air host, Matt Miller, strongly insinuated – based on absolutely nothing – that China was an accomplice: “I simply can’t imagine how the North Koreans pull off something like this by themselves.... I feel like maybe some larger, huge neighbor of North Korean may give them help in this kind of thing.”
vidence that North Korea
was responsible for the massive Sony hack
is mounting,” but also
.” The article
Here is Vox’s foreign policy guy laying out an article titled, “Here’s the real reason North Korea hacked Sony. It has nothing to do with The Interview.” Never mind the tone (and headline) of utter certainty in the face of numerous computer security experts extremely skeptical of the government’s story that North Korea hacked Sony.... Vox’s foreign policy guy thinks he can explain the reason the notoriously opaque North Korean regime conducted a hack they may well not have actually conducted!
Unsurprisingly, the most egregious (and darkly amusing) “report” came from Vox‘s supremely error-plagued and government-loyal national security reporter Max Fisher. Writing on the day of Obama’s press conference, he not only announced that “esmugly lectured everyone that “North Korea’s decision to hack Sony is being widely misconstrued as an expression |
an excuse as to why he couldn’t meet me.”
Hunter planned on attending Hayes’ birthday party Jan. 9, 2014, but cancelled last minute because of work scheduling. Hayes became suspicious.
“I’m not an idiot,” Hayes said. “I knew he was hiding something. After he didn’t come to my party, I shut off. I still acted like I was into it (the relationship) just because I had told this person a ton about my life, and I needed to know who he was.”
In April 2014, Hayes found a friend of Hunter’s who worked at the same place her sister worked. This other woman had also been speaking to a man who wouldn’t meet her. Hayes’ sister and Hunter’s friend compared the phone numbers and found more answers than they expected.
To this other woman, Hunter Anderson was a man named Hyrum Young who said he was originally from Texas and lived at The Village in Provo while attending BYU law school. Hyrum served a mission to Boise, Idaho.
When Hayes confronted Hunter, he said his name was actually Hyrum. They stopped talking in April, but he contacted her again in June. “It was out of the blue, and he said he’d do whatever it took to get me back,” Hayes said. She decided to play along just to discover the truth.
While looking for clues as to who Hyrum or Hunter really was, Hayes found other women looking for the same truth. One woman (who has asked to remain anonymous) had been talking to Hyrum for three years — even while he was on his mission in Idaho. She found Hayes in July, and the two teamed up to catch this catfish.
Hyrum told this woman to send missionary letters to his female district leader. Hyrum also used his district leader’s email because his “wasn’t set up right.” Most women received the same story from Hyrum and experienced romantic texts and lengthy phone calls. Hayes and her new friend compared stories and realized they both received an Edible Arrangement on Valentine’s Day from Hyrum/Hunter in 2014.
They called the Edible Arrangements company and asked who sent the gifts. The sender was Hyrum’s female district leader.
Evidence came together. Questions had answers. Hunter said he was sending gifts to all his “girls,” referring to his sisters. But he was really referring to the other women in his catfish hoax.
Hunter Anderson and Hyrum Young were not who they said they were. They were actually a 24-year-old woman from Texas.
Hayes and her friend called the Idaho Boise mission president and asked about Hyrum Young. The president said no one named Hyrum served during 2011, so Hayes asked about Hyrum’s female district leader. The mission president
confirmed her service and spoke praises of the woman.
“We would always talk about spiritual stuff and church,” Hayes said, “and she had a strong testimony, and she wanted that in her life. I think that’s why she went for BYU people; church was something she really valued.”
One victim’s friend served in Boise at the same time as the catfish, so Hayes reached out to him. He said he didn’t know Hyrum Young but knew of the woman. He said she went home early with a leg injury, which is why Hyrum returned home early, as explained in his letters.
Hayes found the catfish’s Facebook page through a friend. When the women looked at her “likes” on Facebook, they knew immediately this was the person pretending to be Hunter and Hyrum.
“He was obsessed with the Saints football team, certain TV shows and specific things like alligator hunting,” Hayes said. “It was too weird and too specific. Hyrum said he had a Dalmatian named Candy … and her Facebook showed her with a Dalmatian named Candy.”
Hayes and her friend called Hyrum’s number and asked point blank if he was a woman. The voice responded “yes.” They discovered the pictures of Hyrum were her male friend’s photos. Hayes found the man on Facebook and told him about his photos in this hoax.
“He was pretty freaked out and upset,” Hayes said. During the investigation, Hayes uncovered six other women who had been duped. Hayes said the catfish connected with these women through LDS-related Twitter accounts and even the BYU directory.
“She’s told me before she’s looked people up in the BYU directory,” Hayes said. Hyrum would ask Hayes to look up women because they were his friends and he lost their numbers.
Hayes and another victim went to BYU police about the issue in August 2014 and filed a “no contact” order but couldn’t pursue any criminal charges because the catfish lived outside Utah.
The Universe tracked down the catfish to see if she was willing to share her side of the story. In a phone interview Feb. 19, she agreed to talk if she remained unnamed. She said that first she wanted to make it clear she never “hunted” or searched for the women specifically.
“It’s not something like, ‘Oh I don’t like this person so I’m gonna play a trick,'” she said.
She then explained that she isn’t part of the “Mormon standard law of a family,” meaning marriage between a man and a woman. “When you aren’t a part of that alignment, you start to search for comfort outside of the zone,” she said, “and that’s basically what I did.”
She said it’s extremely hard to talk about what happened because she made an “honest mistake” by pretending to be someone she wasn’t. “The best way to put it is that I hurt people when I was trying to find myself. I went about it in the wrong way,” she said.
She said that she “doesn’t recall” the missionary letters or emails, though, and said she didn’t have much time as a missionary to respond to letters. She continually said what she did was “horrible” and that she was trying to move on in her life.
“Remember what you do in darkness will essentially come into the light,” she said. “What I did was wrong and unacceptable for those who I have hurt in the process of being comfortable with who I am as a person. Being gay and Mormon feels like it’s unacceptable. I catfished people to hide who I am inside, never with the intent to hurt anyone.”
The catfish said she is “fully aware” her actions have caused pain and heartache. “For that, I am sorry,” she said. “I can only pray and hope that they can find it in their hearts to forgive me one day.”
She said she lives in Texas and is studying law at the University of El Paso. She said she is still a member of the LDS Church but does not actively attend church.
Most of the victims have moved on, but they do not plan to completely forget. Hayes said most of the women were terribly hurt and even “destroyed” from the catfish’s actions.
The most recent relationship Hyrum had was with BYU student Whitley Smith. Smith began talking to Hyrum on Craigslist in February 2013 and ended July 2014, but Smith didn’t find out Hyrum was actually a woman until January 2015. Hayes said finding Smith reinforced her purpose to help others.
“I’m not supposed to let it go,” Hayes said. “I’m supposed to put my story out there, and I feel like I have something. Some of the girls have taken it really hard, and I’ve watched that happen. I don’t want that to happen to other people.”
Smith said coming to terms with the situation was difficult. “When I finally found out in July 2014 that Hyrum wasn’t actually Hyrum at all, I had to come to terms with the fact that I knew absolutely nothing about this person who knew literally everything about me,” she said.
Smith said she wanted to share her experience to help other people who may be in a similar situation. Some may question how believable the catfish’s story was and how vulnerable the women were. Hayes said Hyrum’s voice made the hoax believable. Hayes also said the “BYU bubble” kept any worries out.
“I think we wouldn’t expect this kind of thing to happen,” Hayes said. “Your initial reaction when you’re talking to someone isn’t, ‘Oh, they’re probably sending me pictures of someone else and lying to me about who they are.'”
Smith said she trusted Hyrum. “When you trust someone like that, it’s hard to listen to the doubts other people have,” Smith said.
Another woman named Kelsey had a three-year friendship with Hyrum that began before Kelsey’s mission and continued when she returned January 2014. Another Utah woman named Andy would discuss politics with the catfish throughout their years of friendship. Hyrum even shared dreams of marriage with some of the women.
Hayes, a native of Elko, Nevada, will graduate from BYU in April. She said she is “way way way” more cautious with people.
“I don’t do Tinder. I don’t talk to anybody I haven’t met in person,” Hayes said. “I do feel like it’s something that happens, and I’ve learned from that. I’m not going to let her ruin my life.”
Hayes has become friends with other victims and said there is a “really weird connection” they share.
“It’s not a negative connection,” Hayes said. “It’s nice to find someone who understands the manipulation. People say, ‘It must’ve been really hard’ and that’s great, but nobody really understands how we got in that situation.”
Hayes studies information systems and is using her experiences for her capstone project. Her project is called CyberIQ, a program teaching teenagers how to be safe online.
“I was super interested in it because of this whole ordeal,” Hayes said, “and it’s awesome to be able to go into classrooms and teach kids how to be safe and how not to do what I did. I thought that was something positive that I could share that came out of this whole experience.”‘Dotard’ vs. ‘Madman’: Kim Jong-un and Trump Trade Insults as Nuclear Anxieties Grow
by USJ Staff 882
President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un traded insults early on Friday, continuing a war of words that’s gone on for months, causing widespread anxiety over the possibility of a nuclear attack as North Korea conducts missile tests and Trump administration officials attempt to do damage control regarding the president’s threats of retaliation.
The two leaders’ statements have grown increasingly antagonistic, with Trump giving Kim the nickname “Rocket Man” last week and Kim introducing the arcane term “dotard” into the discourse Friday morning.
Three days after Trump’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly in which he threatened to “totally destroy North Korea” if the Kim regime continues to test its nuclear capability, as it’s done five times since July, Kim issued a lengthy statement comparing the president’s threats to the barks of “a frightened dog.”
Kim added that Trump “surely is a rogue and a gangster fond of playing with fire, rather than a politician,” and called him a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard,” using a relatively obscure word that Merriam-Webster defines as “a state or period of senile decay marked by decline of mental poise and alertness.”
Trump responded on Twitter with his own shot at Kim’s mental state.
Kim Jong Un of North Korea, who is obviously a madman who doesn't mind starving or killing his people, will be tested like never before! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 22, 2017
The U.S. announced its latest round of sanctions on North Korea Thursday, penalizing foreign companies from doing business with the country and likely adding to the impact of its food shortage.
Meanwhile, a number of diplomatic officials and prominent activists have called for peaceful negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea. Defense Secretary James Mattis has warned against military action on North Korea, and on Friday, nearly 300 female leaders from 45 countries called on the U.N. secretary-general to appoint a special envoy to de-escalate the brewing tension. In a poll conducted by NPR/Ipsos just before Trump’s speech at the U.N., 51 percent of Americans said they didn’t approve of how the president has been handling North Korea’s nuclear threats.Image caption Rotavirus kills more than 100,000 children in India every year
Scientists in India have unveiled a new low-cost vaccine against a deadly virus that kills about half a million children around the world each year.
Rotavirus causes dehydration and severe diarrhoea and spreads through contaminated hands and surfaces and is rampant in Asia and Africa.
India says clinical trials show the new vaccine, Rotavac, can save the lives of thousands of children annually.
An Indian manufacturer said the vaccine would cost 54 rupees ($1; £0.65).
International pharmaceutical companies GlaxoSmithKline and Merck produce similar vaccines but each dose costs around 1,000 rupees.
"This is an important scientific breakthrough against rotavirus infections, the most severe and lethal cause of childhood diarrhoea, responsible for approximately 100,000 deaths of small children in India each year," India's Department of Biotechnology official K Vijay Raghavan said.
"The clinical results indicate that the vaccine, if licensed, could save the lives of thousands of children each year in India," he added.
Rotavac will be made by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech. The company said it could mass-produce tens of millions of doses after clearance is given, expected in eight or nine months.(Image: © NASA, ESA, Garth Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz) and Rychard Bouwens (University of California, Santa Cruz and Leiden University) and the HUDF09 Team.)
Shown here is the Hubble Space Telescope's photo of a candidate galaxy that existed 480 million years after the Big Bang (the z~10 galaxy) and the position in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) where it was found. The galaxy is touted as the oldest, most distant one yet seen by Hubble. This field -- called HUDF09 – is the deepest infrared image ever taken of the universe.
This story was updated at 2:30 pm ET.
Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have peered further back in time than ever before, spotting a galaxy that formed less than 500 million years after the birth of our universe, making it the oldest and most distant ever seen.
The find, reported today (Jan. 26) in the journal Nature, should help astronomers better understand the early days of the universe, researchers said. In particular, the discovery should shed light on the evolution of early galaxies, which first formed just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.
"In essence, the most important aspect of this is, it provides us with some sense of how fast galaxies are building up," lead author Rychard Bouwens, of the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) and Leiden University in The Netherlands, told SPACE.com. "It provides a sort of measuring stick."
Peering backward through time
Bouwens and his colleagues analyzed observations made by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. They looked at infrared data gathered by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3, which was installed on the telescope in 2009. [Most Amazing Hubble Discoveries]
The researchers found evidence of a galaxy with a redshift of 10.3. "Redshift" is a measure of how much the expansion of space has stretched an object's light to longer (or redder) wavelengths. Light from objects moving away from us shifts to the red end of the spectrum as its wavelengths are stretched. The shift, known as the Doppler phenomenon, is experienced on Earth when sound waves from an ambulance change pitch when the ambulance moves toward you versus away from you.
Astronomers use redshift measurements to determine an object's distance, and by extension its age. The bigger the redshift, the greater the distance.
A redshift of 10.3 corresponds to a distance of about 13.2 billion light-years. That is, it's taken 13.2 billion years for the light from the newly discovered galaxy — which has been named UDFj-39546284 — to reach us.
That makes UDFj-39546284 the most distant known galaxy in the universe, beating out the old record-holder by about 100 million light-years.
These images zoom into the Hubble telescope's HUDF WFC3/IR image around the galaxy UDFj-39546284, which scientists say is 13.2 billion years old - the oldest, farthest galaxy yet discovered. This image was released on Jan. 26, 2010. (Image: © NASA, ESA, G. Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz), R. Bouwens (University of California, Santa Cruz, and Leiden University), and the HUDF09 Team)
Since the universe is roughly 13.7 billion years old, UDFj-39546284 was around nearly at the beginning — just 480 million years after the Big Bang, or when the universe was just 4 percent of its current age.
Officially, UDFj-39546284 remains a "galaxy candidate," requiring some more observations to confirm its existence and age with certainty. But after performing a number of tests, Bouwens and his team are confident that the galaxy is there, and that its redshift is around 10.3.
"Everything we found was completely consistent with it being a real source," Bouwens said. "It looks really good right now."
Understanding galaxy formation
In addition to studying UDFj-39546284, the researchers also looked at several galaxies that are slightly younger, dating to about 650 million years after the Big Bang. They saw dramatic differences between the older and younger galaxies, suggesting that the rate of star birth jumped by a factor of 10 in the intervening 170 million years.
"This is an astonishing increase in such a short period, just 1 percent of the current age of the universe," co-author Garth Illingworth, of UCSC, said in a statement.
The team also found big differences in the number of galaxies observed in the two epochs. They discovered just the one galaxy dating to 480 million years after the Big Bang, while previous searches found nearly 50 galaxies just 170 million years later.
The new observations could help astronomers better understand how the universe's first galaxies coalesced and grew, researchers said.
"We definitely see strong evidence for hierarchical buildup," Bouwens said. "It's quite striking."
Reionizing the universe
The new study also bears on an age-old question in astronomy. At about 300,000 years after the Big Bang, the hydrogen in the universe was neutral, meaning it carried no charge. By 1 billion years later, however, something had thrown off enough radiation to ionize most of this hydrogen, splitting it into its constituent electrons and protons.
"The results from this study imply that the stars and galaxies that they can detect would only provide about 12 percent of the radiation that you would need," Rachel Somerville of the Space Telescope Science Institute, who was not involved in the current study, told reporters today (Jan. 26). "So this is quite a mystery that needs to be solved."
The new results hint that early galaxies such as UDFj-39546284 may have played a role in this reionization of the universe. But their contributions alone were perhaps not great enough to do the job, suggesting that some mystery source is also partly responsible, researchers said.
The team's observations in this regard are not definitive. To get to the bottom of the reionization mystery, astronomers will need to gather more data, according to Bouwens.
"At redshift 10, we made a relatively conservative assumption about how many of these faint galaxies there were," Bouwens said. "If there actually turn out to be more, they could be more important."
This NASA graphic shows how astronomers have used the Hubble Space Telescope to see deeper into the cosmos than ever before and hope to see even farther with the future James Webb Space Telescope. (Image: © NASA )
Looking to the future
While the new study takes an unprecedented look into the past, new instruments will likely be required to go back even farther, to the first epochs of galaxy formation, researchers said.
One of the most promising future instruments is NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Bouwens said. The powerful successor to Hubble, JWST has long been hampered by cost overruns and delays.
Previously slated for launch in June 2014, JWST will be able to lift off no earlier than September 2015, according to an independent review panel convened last year to assess the telescope's problems.
Whenever it's finally cleared to take to the skies, JWST will have a huge impact, according to Bouwens.
"We're now just able to scratch the surface of what will be possible," he said. "We should be able to push out to redshift 12 or 13, and maybe further. It's unclear what we'll be able to do."
You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter: @michaeldwall.Final Fantasy XV Special Presentation at E3 shows off gameplay tenets, new Wait Mode in battle
Square Enix held a special presentation for Final Fantasy XV at E3 today, detailing the core tenets of gameplay. While the content at the press conferences was for a wide audience, director Hajime Tabata shared the following was intended for a core audience. He detailed three gameplay tenets that make Final Fantasy XV a “leading edge” game. That’s “Road Trip”, “Adventure”, and “Combat”. To illustrate that end, he showed off a bunch of new gameplay footage based around these points.
Noctis will be able to absorb energy from points in the field, and together with various components, will be able to craft magic. In the video footage, we see them craft a Fira spell that has healing properties.
We also learn that the game’s combat system will have a Wait Mode activated in the Options menu — similarly to previous Final Fantasy games that had an Active Time Battle system. In this instance however, time will pause so that you can assess your next action. A Wait Mode gauge will appear on screen, indicating that time will slow until the gauge runs out. This feature was added for players that are not so confident with action battle systems.
Check it all out in the videos below!
Final Fantasy XV Special Presentation – Day One
Final Fantasy XV – Wait Mode
Final Fantasy XV will release on September 30th for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Stay tuned to Nova Crystallis for more E3 coverage.(CNN) -- Trading two children for a bird landed three people in jail in Louisiana, authorities say.
The biological mother, who was not involved in the alleged trade, is to be interviewed by authorities Friday. Investigators seek further details about a case that they say unfolded this way:
Paul and Brandy Romero advertised that they were selling their pet cockatoo for $1,500.
A woman named Donna Greenwell responded and said she wanted to buy the bird. Greenwell then told the Romeros that she was taking care of three children whose biological parents were going through a separation.
Greenwell proposed selling two of the couple's children to the Romeros for $2,000, saying that her job as a truck driver made it hard to take care of the children, said Capt. Keith Dupre of the Evangeline Parrish Sheriff's Office in Louisiana.
Don't Miss FBI closing in on suspect in case of pilot thought kidnapped
The parties allegedly negotiated a trade involving the two kids, the bird and $175.
An anonymous tipster contacted authorities after the children began living with the Romeros.
As a result, Greenwell and the Romeros were arrested February 21 and charged with aggravated kidnapping, Dupre said.
The children were well taken care of when they were with the Romeros, who badly wanted children, according to Dupre.
Greenwell said she needed the cash for a lawyer to handle adoption paperwork, authorities said.
She had placed the third child with another Louisiana couple, Dupre said, but he didn't know whether bartering was involved.
The two children were ages 4 and 5, according to CNN affiliate WGNO.
Police did not identify the biological parents, and no other information was available. The children have been placed in foster care.
-- Sean Nottingham contributed to this report.
All About LouisianaLoading... Loading...
For many months the press has been feverishly searching for evidence of a Russian connection. The latest investigation from The Daily Caller now confirms that not only was there contact with the Russians, but there were cash payments directly from Russian banks in return for a promise to remove U.S. sanctions on those banks.
The problem for the official mainstream narrative is that the Russian connection has nothing to do with President Donald Trump or his surrogates, but rather, centers around none other than Tony Podesta, the brother of Hillary Clinton insider and campaign chairman John Podesta.
While Clinton served as Secretary of State, it was Tony Podesta’s firm that was lobbying the State Department and the Executive Branch in an effort to remove sanctions imposed by the Obama administration after the Ukraine/Crimea split in 2014.
Video report via The Daily Sheeple Youtube Channel:
Democrat super-lobbyist Tony Podesta was paid $170,000 over a six-month period last year to represent Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, seeking to end one of the Obama administration’s economic sanctions against that country, The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group has learned. Podesta, founder and chairman of the Podesta Group, is listed as a key lobbyist on behalf of Sberbank, according to Senate lobbying disclosure forms. His firm received more than $24 million in fees in 2016, much of it coming from foreign governments, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. … The lobbying campaign targeted Congress and the executive branch, with Podesta and other lobbyists arranging at least two meetings between Sberbank officers and Department of State officials, according to Elena Teplitskaya, Sberbank’s board chairman, who spoke to House aides in August. … Joining the Podesta lobbying campaign was David Adams, who describes himself on the Podesta Group website as a “trusted adviser” to Hillary Clinton, serving as her as assistant secretary of state for congressional affairs. Full report at The Daily Caller
Help Us Be The Change We Wish To See In The World.On July 28, 2009, Danielle Reed answered selected viewer questions about taste, its genetic roots, and more. Please note we are no longer accepting questions, but see Tour the Tongue and our Links & Books section for more information. Q: While I have overcome many of my food dislikes from childhood, one in particular escapes my every attempt to subdue it and that is (vegetable) peppers, red, green, yellow, chili, etc. Even the smell of peppers cooking I find distasteful. I can eat and enjoy other foods from this plant family such as potato, tomato, and eggplant with no problems. Could the "supertaster" theory explain this? I also don't care for cilantro (tastes bitter and soapy), which I read once may be an indicator.
Susan Pinckney, Essex, Connecticut A: Cilantro contains several volatile (airborne) chemicals that give it a delicious aroma. Unfortunately, due to variations in the genes that code for olfactory (smell) receptors, some people are unable to sense one or more of these compounds. We think that for these people—and you may be one of them—the soapiness of cilantro is not counteracted by the ability to smell its pleasant qualities. The same may be true for peppers; that is, you may not be able to smell the flavor notes that many people find attractive. It is unlikely that being a "supertaster" is responsible for your dislike of peppers because peppers do not typically contain the types of bitter-tasting chemicals most noxious to people having the "supertaster" genetic makeup. Q: I am known by friends as the picky eater. I love to eat, but I am very particular about how the food is combined, the texture, its appearance, and how often I have eaten it. Most of the time I pick what I will eat based on the above, and if nothing seems right I just won't eat. Very bad habit. The first question I have is why does the appearance of food affect my decision on whether I will eat it or not? My second question is how can I eat something I enjoy today, but tomorrow the thought of the same thing grosses me out? This happens all the time, and I know it is very frustrating to my boyfriend (the cook) when planning meals. Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. I know the people around me will appreciate it as well!
Melisssa Lujan, Portland, Oregon A: Your behavior is at the extreme end of a continuum of normal behavior. Eating food that is attractive and carefully prepared is a survival instinct, but most people can overlook less than perfect food when they are hungry. Likewise from a biological standpoint, seeking variety is essential to ensure adequate nutrition since no single food provides every nutrient. You may have a reduced hunger drive relative to your friends, which allows you to seek more variety and focus on food appeal. Q: I know that everyone can taste umami—it's a basic sense. But how about more complex tastes? Vanilla for instance. To me, vanilla ice cream has no flavor—just creamy. I can't taste the difference in foods when it is there or not there; it's always been an optional ingredient. Growing up, vanilla was described as a "leavening ingredient" and never as a flavor. I have other things I am picky about, some weird ones. BUT, I have met several people with the same likes and dislikes as I have. Could there be some genetic component to being picky? My half brother is pickier than I am, yet our parents are all good eaters.
David Hampson, Pullman, Washington A: Flavor is a combination of sensory qualities, and much of what we call "taste" is actually "smell." Accordingly, vanilla is primarily a smell. Classic studies by Blakeslee demonstrated that there is a range of ability to smelling vanilla, and there are indeed some people—and you may be one of them—who are unable to smell its flavorful notes. There is no doubt genetic differences can partially account for a person's pattern of food likes and dislikes, but thus far only a handful of genes and their alleles have been identified that influence some specific responses. It is normal for younger people (you and your half brother) to be pickier than your parents. Food preferences change over time, and so you may come to resemble them more as you approach the age your parents are now. Q: I am a picky eater, and once my dad told me that I won't be picky always because the gene that causes this mutates over time. Is that true? Many of my relatives are picky eaters, and they got over it.
Rea, Missouri A: In general, children are less willing than adults to eat a broad variety of foods, including vegetables, and this age difference in food preferences occurs across many cultures. From an evolutionary perspective, it is adaptive for kids to be more cautious as they learn what is safe to eat. The shift in taste between childhood and adulthood is unlikely to be due to gene mutations (damage to the DNA over time) but may be due to natural changes in the amount of protein produced from a gene. Q: If glutamate types of foods are savory (umami), then why do so many people have an allergy to monosodium glutamate (myself included)? How is this evolutionarily helpful?
Gale Crowe, Tampa, Florida A: Our love of glutamate evolved to guide us towards nutritious foods like tomatoes and mushrooms, which contain abundant amounts of this amino acid. However, we now add much more concentrated forms like monosodium glutamate (MSG) to our food, and some people like you do not tolerate it. The same logic applies to sugar—it helps guide us to foods like fruits that are healthy, but as we have added more and more concentrated sugars to foods, many people cannot tolerate its effects and become obese and diabetic. Our food habits are changing faster than the ability of our bodies to cope, and this leads to food intolerance and disease in some people. Q: My son is an extremely picky eater, to the point that I feel he almost has anxiety attacks about trying new foods. Is this a genetic condition or more of a psychological condition? He at times seems to have actual "fears" about trying new foods. He also does not like foods with texture to them. Thank you for any guidance you can provide!
Kim, Milford, New Hampshire A: Children are more cautious about food compared to adults and for good reason—they are in the process of learning what is safe to eat. This behavior harkens back to a time when our food supply was more dangerous than it is now, when choosing what to eat was a life-or-death decision (spoiled meat, poisonous plants). Although it is difficult for parents who are trying hard to ensure their children get a broad variety of nutritious foods to remember that pickiness in children was adaptive, it helps to remember that it is normal for children to be cautious (or in your son's case, ultra-cautious) about what they eat. While your son's behavior may seem extreme, many children express trepidation when asked to taste new foods. As children become teenagers and young adults, most eventually eat and enjoy a wide range of foods. Q: Is my ability to taste related to my frequent inability to smell? If so, how?
Marianne Schaffino, Alamogordo, New Mexico A: A large component of what we casually think about as the "taste" of food is actually due to olfaction (sense of smell). To illustrate this principle, pinch your nose and eat a jelly bean—it is bland until the nose is opened, when there is a rush of flavor. Try the demonstration and you will see how important smell is to the appreciation of food and drink. Q: To keep peace in my marriage, I must eat much of what is unpleasant or intolerable, while my wife thinks everything is "good". How can I reduce my taste sensitivity?
Anonymous A: You are not alone. On average, men and women have different food preferences, and this can translate to discord at the dining room table. Personally, I am sympathetic, because we have the same problem in our house; for instance, I love salads with vinaigrette, but my husband finds them too sour. Keeping in mind that you and your wife have different genetic makeups that may influence how you each perceive the flavor of food, there are two ways to change your food preferences: (1) time and exposure; and (2) manipulating how hungry you are when you eat disliked foods. The more you eat a food, the better you like it. So just showing up at the dinner table every night and eating what is offered will change your preferences. This is your current strategy, but it sounds like you are looking for a quicker fix. The other method is to eat non-preferred foods when very hungry—the body begins to associate those flavors with a positive benefit (relief of hunger). There is a third way to eat the food you like—offer to cook dinner [smile]. Q: From a molecular standpoint, how does the taste bud detect sugar (or the other flavors)? Does the sugar molecule have to fit into a receptor site? Does the sugar form intermolecular bonds with the receptor site that triggers a response? How does this response become an electrical signal down the neuron? Sugars come in different molecular shapes and sizes. Does a taste bud have differently shaped sugar detectors in a single bud? How does it differentiate sugar from a starch? Do you think mice think starches are sweet?
Stan, Torrance, California A: Sweet receptors are embedded in the taste receptor cells located in taste buds. The process of tasting sweet begins when a sweet chemical interacts with the receptor. There is only one type of sweet receptor, but it is a large and elaborate molecule that has many different sites where chemicals of all shapes and sizes can bind. This contact causes the sweet receptor to change shape and sets off a chain of chemical reactions inside the cell, which eventually results in the cell transmitting an electrical signal to an adjoining taste nerve. This intracellular signaling cascade involves molecules such as G proteins, cAMP, kinases, and an ion channel called TRPM5. It is unlikely that mice or humans detect starch in the same way we detect sugars or other sweet molecules. There are probably unique starch detectors in the mouth, but they have not yet been discovered. Q: Knowing that there is a gene sequence that allows us to sense to a certain degree bitter, are there specific gene sequences that allow us to detect sour or "hot/spicy" more? I love sour tastes (the more sour the better!) but hate bitter or spicy flavors of things.
Anonymous A: There are specific receptors for both sour molecules and spicy molecules, and people do differ in the DNA sequence in the genes that code for these receptors. However, scientists have not yet figured out which alleles are associated with differences in perception. This work is going on right now in laboratories across the world. Q: Dear Dr. Reed, I have what I'm sure is a common question. How do I get my nearly 8-year-old daughter to eat a more healthful diet? She is very picky—will only eat peas and green beans—and is very reticent to try new things. Will this situation improve naturally with time?
Scott J. Smith, Arlington, Massachusetts A: Picky eating is an adaptive strategy for children because they have to learn what is safe. Although this behavior vexes us, bear in mind that this is precisely the cautious behavior that protects children from accidental poisoning. Take comfort in knowing that most children grow out of picky eating over time and that the best strategy to accelerate this process is to offer her wholesome foods and encourage her to taste them as frequently as possible. Speaking as a mother, this is easy to say but hard to do. I was driven to tears at times trying to get my picky children to eat anything other than French fries, but now as teenagers they eat and enjoy exotic and spicy foods as well as Brussels sprouts and spinach. Q: What percent of the population has the active CCD gene to be super receptive to bitter?
Brian Suter A: Like the genes for hair or eye color, the frequency of genetic variation that leads to super-sensitivity to certain types of bitter compounds varies by racial ancestry. For instance, about 25 percent of the European population is homozygous for the taster allele (and are super-sensitive to some types of bitter molecules), but this rate approaches 100 percent in Native American populations. For more details, the National Institutes of Health have a useful list of allele frequencies among human populations: www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/statistics/smelltaste/global.htm Q: Have you conducted any research with regard to so-called "supertasters"? I am interested because I think I am one. I can sometimes taste sharp bitterness in lettuce and other produce that none of my |
have the proper amount of drugs in a person’s system to be effective, but not so much that they’ll harm that person.”
The capsule can deliver medicinal doses for several days or a few weeks, says Hood, and can be used for any kind of ailment that needs a localized delivery over several days or a few weeks. He believes this makes it especially tailored for treating cancer.
A larger version of the device, originally created by Alessandro Grattoni, chair of the Department of Nanomedicine at Houston Methodist Research Institute, can treat diseases like HIV for up to a year. “In HIV treatment, you can bombard the virus with drugs to the point that that person is no longer infectious and shows no symptoms,” Hood said. “The danger is that if that person stops taking their drugs, the amount of medicine in his or her system drops below the effective dose and the virus is able to become resistant to the treatments.”
The new capsule could provide a constant delivery of the HIV-battling drugs to prevent such an outcome. Hood noted it can also be used to deliver cortisone to damaged joints to avoid painful, frequent injections, and possibly even to pursue immunotherapy treatments for cancer patients.
“The idea behind immunotherapy is to deliver a cocktail of immune drugs to call attention to the cancer in a person’s body, so the immune system will be inspired to get rid of the cancer itself,” he added.
The current prototype of the device is permanent and injected under the skin, but the researchers are working on 3-D printing technology to make a new, fully biodegradable version of the device that could potentially be swallowed.
Abstract of Nanochannel Implants for Minimally-Invasive Insertion and Intratumoral Delivery
Novel approaches to achieve local, intratumoral drug delivery have the dual benefit of reducing systemic toxicity while enhancing efficacy for malignant cells. We have developed a new implantable system combining a next-generation BioNEMS nanofluidic membrane with parallel nanochannels that offers controlled release of biomolecules. Based on concentration-driven diffusive transport, nanochannel membranes provide a “drug agnostic” delivery mechanism. Integrating this nanotechnology within a small implantable capsule permits multipurpose functionality and compatibility with different therapeutic approaches as well as diagnostic imaging capability. A minimally-invasive, percutaneous trocar delivery mechanism enables serial implantation throughout a target tissue volume. In this manuscript, we demonstrate that this platform is capable of sustained delivery for chemotherapy, radiosensitization, immunomodulation, and imaging contrast, among others. This platform’s utility was established through release of doxorubicin, OX86, FGK45, and Magnevist. Further proof-of-concept experiments demonstrated successful in vivo implantation and intratumoral release of antibodies and contrast agents, as well as the platform’s MR-compatibility and capability as a radiopaque fiducial. These results provide strong evidence for a flexible, multifunctional nanofluidic implant capable of broadening local delivery utility in the clinic.Most car shows on TV revolve around some kind of “race-against-time restoration” and the internet is overstocked with amateur mechanics dispensing DIY advice. George Karellas’ “Soup” series has a little bit of both, but with visual twist I really like.
Karellas presents himself as an everyman car guy with limited skills, workspace and tools. Like so many of us, he’s got a penchant for weird cars but hasn’t had the motivation to step up and start fixing the Range Rover, Lotus Esprit or VW van rotting on his lawn. The first minute or so of the first episode will get you up to speed.
Now I’m not sure if I agree with his “if I were just chipping away for an hour a week, I’d have a drivable car five years later” thesis but I can definitely relate to his taste in cars and his struggle to get self-motivated.
Karellas’ format leans more “entertainment” than “education” in that there are way too many minutes of him prattling on about whatever for you to easily use these videos as instructables for your own project. But there’s enough happening to keep the show interesting besides his melodious Irish(?) accent, like interviews with other enthusiasts and random musings about neat cars that he finds to film.
The production value of the Soup series is excellent and the featured vehicles are very much My Shit, but what really stands out in these episodes are the stop-motion clips focusing on the dismantling and repair of specific sections of cars.
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I’ve never seen car repair documented in this way, and man, while it must take forever to film, it sure does look amazing. These shots are peppered throughout the Soup’s eight episodes to date and they’re really fun to watch. Karellas’ narration helps you understand what’s happening, which makes the clip engaging even if you’re not taking notes.
While Karellas is not the first person to use a stop-motion style to show a car being built or repaired, I think he is the first to seamlessly combine it with a voiceover and make it part of a narrative story like he does.
And hey, if there is a dilapidated old rust bucket in your life that’s been daring you to try and revive it, these videos will give you a good idea of the pain and labor you’ve got ahead of you. Top tip: fighting rusty bolts in real life is not nearly as magical as it seems in these stop-motion clips. Maybe that’s part of the reason watching Karellas work is so satisfying!MANILA - The European Union has summoned the Philippine envoy in Brussels to explain an expletive-laden tirade by President Rodrigo Duterte threatening to hang EU officials opposing his bloody drug war.
The EU's External Action Service, the equivalent of a foreign office, said it summoned Charge d'Affaires Alan Deniega to its Brussels headquarters on Monday (March 27) afternoon to provide "an explanation for the recent, unacceptable comments of President Duterte".
The move highlights growing European exasperation with the 72-year-old leader.
Mr Duterte again lashed out at the EU last Friday for criticising his anti-narcotics crackdown that has so far led to over 7,000 killings of criminal suspects by police and vigilantes.
"I will just be happy to hang you. If I have the preference, I'll hang all of you," Mr Duterte said. "You are putting us down. You are exerting pressure in every country with the death penalty."
He also chastised the EU for suggesting "a health-based solution" to the Philippines' drug problem, calling the proposal a "government-sponsored idiotic exercise".
He claimed what the EU wanted was for the government to build clinics where methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin could be dispensed to addicts.
"They want us to build clinics, then we should, instead of arresting or putting them in prison like in other countries, you go there and if you want shabu they will inject you or give you shabu," he said.
"Then if you want cocaine, they will give you cocaine and if they want heroin, they will give you heroin."
The EU denied Mr Duterte's allegations, saying in a statement that it had not "suggested, discussed, proposed or considered the use of any substitution drugs when treating addiction to methamphetamine... or any other drug addiction in the Philippines".
It said that in cooperation with the World Health Organisation and experts, it was working with the Department of Health and the Philippine government's main anti-drug agency and selected villages to implement a programme that "aims to support recovery from addiction, while keeping families together and facilitating development of social and job skills".
The voluntary programme plans to develop "recovery clinics and recovery homes", where patients can receive better care, education and counselling without prescribing medication and ensuring confidentiality. Livelihood skills will be taught, the EU said.
Mr Duterte's anti-crime drive has alarmed the EU, western governments and UN's rights officials.
He has said he will not be intimidated by critics' threats to impeach him or file a case against him before the International Criminal Court for the killings, mostly of poor drug dealers and users.
He has denied condoning extrajudicial killings but has repeatedly threatened drug suspects with death and said he is ready to rot in jail to protect Filipinos from atrocious crimes linked to drugs.
rdancel@sph.com.sgHow Corporations Are Creating a Life-Threatening Water Shortage
Imagine the swift and fierce government response if Al-Qaeda took a precious resource out of a delicate environment, sold it for profit and endangered 40 million people in the process. Now compare that example to the nonexistent government response to American energy companies, golf courses and corporations like Nestlé taking 75 percent of the groundwater out of the Colorado River Basin at a time when the American West is facing a record drought.
Corporations will continue to abuse their constitutional protections as legal “persons” until fresh water has become fully privatized, or until corporate constitutional rights are eliminated with a constitutional amendment.
Depleting a Precious Resource
Nestlé has two plants on the Colorado River Basin that take in water to bottle and sell under its Arrowhead and Pure Life brands. One is in Salida, Colorado, on the eastern edge of the Upper Basin; the other is in the San Gorgonio Pass, halfway between San Bernardino and Indio, Calif., on the western edge of the Lower Basin. According to annual reports filed up to 2009, Nestlé bottles between 595 and 1,366 acre-feet of water per year – enough to flood that many acres under a foot of water – from the California source. The company takes 200 additional acre-feet per year from the Colorado source. This means altogether Nestlé is draining the Colorado River Basin of anywhere from 250 million to 510 million gallons of water per year, according to the acre-feet-to-gallons conversion calculator.
The Colorado River Basin is an especially critical water resource, responsible for supplying municipal water to 40 million Americans and irrigating 5.5 million acres of land. As the US Bureau of Reclamation has documented, 22 federally-recognized tribes, seven national wildlife refuges, four national recreation areas, and 11 national parks depend on the basin. In a new report by NASA and the University of California at Irvine, researchers discovered that between December of 2004 and November of 2013, the basin lost 53 million acre-feet of water. 41 million acre-feet, or 75 percent of that loss, came from groundwater sources, like those pumped by Nestlé. That’s more than twice the amount of water contained in Lake Mead, America’s largest freshwater reservoir. In the meantime, Nestlé, with 29 water bottling facilities across North America, pocketed $4 billion in revenue from bottled water sales in 2012 alone.
But Nestlé isn’t alone in abusing the main water source of the Western United States. Expansive golf courses in desert areas, like those in Arizona and Southern California, require hundreds of thousands of gallons of water per day to maintain. According to the United States Golf Association (USGA), 2 million acres of American golf courses are irrigated, or 80 percent of the country's total golf course acreage.Between 2003 and 2005, the USGA estimated that 2,312,701 acre-feet of water was used to maintain golf courses, amounting to over 2 billion gallons of water per day. An NPR report from 2008 put that in perspective, comparing the average daily water usage of one golf course to the amount of water used by one American family over the course of 4 years.
An “Insurmountable” Water Crisis by 2040
Egregious abuses of limited freshwater supplies have led to panic from some and greed from others. If current drought conditions and water usage patterns persist, it’s estimated that the world will face an “insurmountable” water crisis by 2040. Aarhaus University of Denmark, the Vermont Law School and the nonprofit CNA Corporation recently released a study showing that a global population increase compounded by an exponential increase in water consumption will inevitably lead to drastic drought conditions unless immediate action is taken. The study projected a 40 percent gap between water supply and demand by 2030 under current conditions.
According to the study, 41 percent of American freshwater consumption came from energy production alone. Energy sources like nuclear and coal power were responsible for the bulk of water consumption, though the process of hydraulic fracturing – better known as fracking, where jets of water mixed with chemicals are blasted underground to break up shale formations that produce natural gas – was also high on the list. A prime example is Texas, where the population is expected to skyrocket from 25 million to 55 million in the next 35 years. Texas currently draws 91 percent of its electricity from natural gas, nuclear and coal power. And in the summer of 2011, Texas experienced its worst drought in history.
Outdoing Texas, California is now facing its worst drought in 1,200 years. Latest numbers from the National Drought Mitigation Center show that 80 percent of California is in “extreme drought.” A full 31 percent of California is experiencing “exceptional drought” conditions, including population centers like Los Angeles, Oakland, and San Francisco. Food prices have gone up by an average of 2.5 percent since last year, and are expected to increase by another 3.5 percent before year's end. No less than 85 percent of the lettuce Americans eat comes from drought-ravaged California. Fresh fruits and vegetable prices are projected to increase by 6 percent in the coming months as a result of the drought.
Constitutionally-Protected Corporate Greed
The research community isn’t the only group of people paying attention to the writing on the wall. Corporate executives are quickly making moves to privatize water resources, declaring the resource to be the next oil. Peter Brabeck, chairman and former CEO of Nestlé, has openly said that "access to water is not a public right." This is in spite of UN Resolution 64/292, which declares that water and sanitation are both basic human rights. The World Health Organization has said that one person needs 20 liters of water for “survival” levels of use, including bathing and laundry. As I wrote previously for Occupy.com, the France-based Suez company is using a New Jersey-based subsidiary to prepare a buyout of Detroit’s water infrastructure, with a potential end goal of privatizing the Detroit River and the Great Lakes.
Researchers argue for greater regulation of water usage to prevent future global drought, though that becomes complicated when looking into how such regulations would be implemented and enforced. The US Bureau of Reclamation monitors surface water, but groundwater regulation is up to individual states. And in the Colorado River Basin, for example, California has no regulations on groundwater usagedespite the Bay Area implementing strict new penalties for excessive use of water. Even if federal or state agencies wanted to intervene to stop corporate entities like golf courses, power companies or Nestlé from using up precious groundwater resources, corporations and their profits are protected under the constitution, giving them the same rights as actual human beings.
Ever since the Supreme Court established that corporations are legally people in the Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroadruling of 1886, corporations have successfully overridden a slew of regulations citing the equal protection clause under the 14th Amendment. By proving that a certain regulation would unduly infringe on a corporation’s ability to make a profit, well-heeled corporate entities have lawyered up to defy regulatory agencies for over a century. The Buckley v. Valeo ruling in 1976 further ensconced corporate personhood, and the Citizens United v. FEC ruling in January of 2010 established the precedent that because corporations have the same legal rights as a person, their money is considered free speech. So not only can corporations defy any new regulation on their future usage of precious water resources, but they can spend unlimited amounts of money in election cycles to elect politicians who will prioritize their right to make a profit over a citizen’s right to have access to water.
As long as corporations are given the same constitutional protections as people, they’ll always escape regulation and accountability for their actions. Simply "getting money out of politics" is not enough – only a constitutional amendment that explicitly abolishes the concept of corporate personhood and separates money from free speech will guarantee that necessary actions can be taken to prevent a disastrous water shortage.
Carl Gibson, is a spokesman and organizer for US Uncut, a nonviolent, creative direct-action movement to stop budget cuts by getting corporations to pay their fair share of taxes. Contact Carl on the Commons.Ahmet Dobran has been deprived of his independence as a result of the attack (Picture: Met Police)
An 82-year-old man was preyed upon and attacked by a gang of three men who pinned him down in a violent robbery before ripping his jewellery from him.
Ahmet Dobran was walking along Sussex Road in Newham, East London, when he was attacked by the group in August.
Homeless man doused in water by rail staff is a convicted killer
Now police have released pictures of his attackers as they appeal for information leading to the arrests of the three suspects.
Mr Dobran, who already has Parkinson’s and was receiving cancer treatment at the time, suffered three fractures to his vertebrae.
That injury was suffered when one of the thugs grabbed him by the neck while another rained blows on his back and his arms.
After forcing him to the ground they took his gold bracelet and Longine watch before running off.
(Picture: Met Police)
His son and daughter said: ‘We are all devastated by it all. This attack has taken his independence away. Our father is not an indoor person, and now he will be stuck in doors for the rest of his life. We are appalled at how someone can do this to an old man.
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‘He is now unable to fly to Cyprus to see the rest of his family, he used to go there a couple of times a year.
‘Can someone please come forward with information regarding who done this to our father, someone knows who they are. The people who did this could do this to someone else, with no guilty conscience.’
PC Sam Bush said: ‘How three grown men can be so vicious in attacking and robbing an 82-year-old man with a walking stick is beyond comprehension.
‘Over the past month, Mr Dobran has been in and out of an induced coma, and he is now on a high dependency ward in hospital. He needs breathing apparatus, which includes a tracheotomy. Doctors are not sure if this is permanent or temporary.
‘The men still have not been identified, and I believe that they are not local to the area of East Ham, or even Newham.
‘Someone knows who the suspects are we need to catch them before they target anyone else, as they clearly have utter disregard for their victims and do not hesitate to use violence.’
Anyone who recognises the men pictured is urged to call police on 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously via 0800 555 111. You can also Tweet information to police @MetCC.Monday, April 30, 2012 at 11:40AM
I recently had the opportunity to check out a prototype of a surprisingly fun new game designed by Brian Lewis and published by Gozer Games called Titans of Industry. Titans is a worker placement game set in the industrial sector during the roaring 20's, and is currently seeking funding on Kickstarter. As of this writing, Titans is almost halfway to its funding goal, and has a little more than two weeks to raise the remaining funds.
I really enjoy Titans of Industry, and I feel that it is a game worth Kickstarting. Even in its prototype form, Titans of Industry delivers solid gameplay and sells its art deco theme well; I expect finished artwork and professional printing will really allow the game to shine. (Due to the fact that the copy of the game I played was in prototype form, I'm presenting this as a preview instead of a full-on review, so keep in mind that the components seen here are handmade and use art that may change.)
The Game:
Titans of Industry puts players in the spit-shined shoes of a corporate magnate during a seven year period in the roaring 20's - a time when the production volume of factories was rapidly accelerating due to technological advances in manufacturing, and the skyline of urban America was changing as glittering structures were being erected from steel, glass and concrete, and dared to touch the sky with their art deco spires. Embroiled in the middle of this new prosperity, players in ToI are attempting to grow their companies by accumulating resources and erecting ever taller factories and businesses.
Titans of Industry's core game mechanics revolve around worker placement, and while the worker placement mechanism has become almost ubiquitous in modern games, I'm still surprised at the unique style and interesting play that continues to be produced in the genre. Titans of Industry embraces the spirit of the games that have come before it, without retreading the same ground. While Titans builds on some of the cardinal concepts of worker placement, it hits a sweet spot for me with its combination of resource utilization, building upgrades, and non-confrontational player interactions. In a way, it feels a bit like a cross between Caylus and Seven Wonders, utilizing the worker placement and variable structures of the prior with the empire building and social feel of the latter; players not only manage their own empire, but find that they must strategically utilize the services and buildings of their competitors in order to succeed.
Components:
Since the copy of ToI I have is a prototype, I am not going to address the component quality or specific art details individually, but the general art direction of the game, even in it's prototype form, gives the game a unique look and feel. The components are all designed with an art deco flair that really personifies an era. It's a style that is woefully underrepresented in board games, so it's a special treat for me to see it presented so boldly in this game.
Cards: The game utilizes 3 decks of cards throughout gameplay, one deck represents factories that players may purchase and upgrade, the second contains businesses that players may purchase, and the third represents "Corporate Strategy" - special goals that the player can acquire, which will give him bonus points should he reach them.
Workers: Being a worker placement game, the workers are a central part of the game. The prototype copy I have utilizes typical meeples in the 5 vivid player colors. There is also a grey meeple which can be co-opted as a "temp" worker during gameplay.
Tokens: Tokens are used to represent the seven different types of goods that players can collect during the game: Wood, Stone, Brick, Tar, Concrete, Steel, and Glass. Each type of resource token is color coded, and displays an icon identifying the resource. Money is also represented with tokens instead of flimsy paper bills, which scores bonus points from me.
Board: The game board is large, and manages to capture an art-deco feel in the shape and structure of the office that it represents. This makes the board clear and understandable, as well as pleasant to look at.
Gameplay:
Gameplay follows the standard worker placement model, with a few twists. The game takes place over 7 years, with each year equating to a game turn. Each game turn is further split into phases: purchasing buildings, placing workers, resolving workers, and cleanup.
Each turn starts with the opportunity for players to purchase factory and business cards. These cards represent buildings and upgrades that generate goods, money, and victory points for the player. The buildings that the player chooses to buy can have a large impact on how the game plays out. During the course of the game, players will usually find themselves utilizing their opponents' factories and businesses in order to generate and sell resources. This means that purchasing buildings that are in demand can net the player a lot of victory points - however, he needs to be careful not to become too reliant on others in the process.
Next, the players will place their workers. Players may put workers on one of the many spaces on the board which allow them to gain basic resources, bend certain rules, acquire new goals, or gain new workers. Players can also place workers on their own buildings, or their opponents buildings. Utilizing these buildings is the very core of Titans of Industry.
Divided into two types, Factories and Businesses, the buildings drive the producer-consumer economy of the game. Factories generate resources for the player using it, while businesses consume the resources and reward the user with money or victory points. It is to the player's advantage to select the factories and businesses that give him the best payout and align with any special goals he may have. However, he must be careful - when a player places his worker on a business or factory that doesn't belong to him, the owner of the factory automatically receives some victory points. This can make for tough decisions when a player has to decide if the benefit of using the building is worth helping his opponent in the process.
After everyone has placed their workers, the player's actions are resolved. This happens in an order that moves roughly clockwise around the board. During this phase, players receive goods, sell goods, and gain special actions or cards based on the actions that they have taken.
On certain years, players must pay rent on the buildings that they own. This happens after all actions are resolved, during the upkeep phase. Hopefully the player has earned enough money to cover these costs, otherwise he is required to take out high interest loans that must be repaid in order to avoid a stiff victory point penalty.
Play continues this way until the end of the seventh round, when players count up the victory point value of all of their buildings, goods, money, as well as any bonus points they have earned from successful corporate strategy goals.
The person with the most victory points is the winner and can revel in his obscene wealth - for the next two years, at least - until the stock market crash of 1929 causes him to lose the shirt off of his back.
Conclusion:
Titans of Industry is a solid game that really deserves to be made. With so many worker placement games out there, it is sometimes hard to look at a games description and immediately see it's potential - but ToI definitely has it.
Surprisingly, Titans turns out to be a very social game; even though the rules expressly forbid direct trading, the fact that players must utilize the other players' buildings to succeed introduces a definite social element. This aspect of the ToI reminds me a lot more of games like 7 Wonders than Caylus. While Caylus has a similar mechanic where players must pay rent to use opponents' buildings, Titans does it in a way that is much more congenial. In fact, the mechanics in the game that govern businesses actually reward players who choose to cooperate, by awarding a bonus when multiple players are on the same building. This design choice transforms the entire nature of the game from a cutthroat competition to a more subtle balancing act. That's not to say there isn't plenty of opportunity for backstabbing or opportunistic play, it just manifests itself in a way that isn't as obviously antagonistic as many other worker placement games.
Players that like to build economic engines will especially enjoy Titans of Industry. The process of purchasing and upgrading buildings, producing resources, and turning those resources into money really speaks to the part of me that loves civilization building games and likes to pump out long card combos in Dominion. It feels odd to say that, because Titans of Industry is very much in the Economic Worker Placement camp and shares very little in common with Dominion or Civ games; yet it somehow manages to scratch that itch for me.
I really appreciate the art style and theme of Titans of Industry as well. Watching it evolve from a spartan prototype with an almost monochromatic color scheme, to the colorful art-deco inspired incarnation that it is today has been exciting. I can only imagine the potential that the game could reach with the proper funding to be professionally printed.
I fear that with only a little over 2 weeks left in its Kickstarter campaign, Titans of Industry may face an uphill battle to secure the rest of the funding it needs. It is a game that really deserves to be played, and I am glad that I was given the opportunity to purchase a prototype copy. If you are sitting on the fence about this one and like worker placement or economic games, I would urge you to head over to Kickstarter and pledge for a copy of your own. I don't think you will be disappointed.Sometimes it's easy to confuse the abundance of smartphones that release throughout the year. Many of them are the same thing as the year before, but with an upgraded chip, crisper display or smaller bezel, at best.
Then, every now and again, a new smartphone comes along and turns heads … usually because of one standout feature, like a 41-megapixel camera. It's even more interesting when such a smartphone ships running a third-party OS like Windows Phone 8 - and yet it still manages to stand out among a sea of iPhones, Nexus devices and HTC Ones.
The Lumia 1020, Nokia's new 41-megapixel camera phone, is that kind of smartphone. It's a Window Phone 8 LTE-enabled device that costs $299 on contract through AT&T. While it is most certainly a phone, its high-resolution camera is what makes other smartphones and point-and-shoots look like the same old same old.
Sure, the Nokia 808 PureView from 2011 had a 41-megapixel camera as well, but it came with Symbian OS. Need we say more? Windows Phone 8, while not quite up to snuff with iOS or Android, makes the 1020 much more desirable.
The 1020 is huge. Let's just get that out of the way. It's thinner than the Lumia 920 at 10.44mm thick, but it's much beefier than the svelte Nokia Lumia 925. The camera lens also bulges out of the rear, making it impossible to lay the smartphone flat and equally difficult to hold comfortably at first.
The power button, volume rocker and shutter are on the right edge, while the SIM and headphone socket are on top and USB port and speaker are on the bottom. It's an interesting arrangement. The power button's placement definitely kept annoying us. We inadvertently turned off the smartphone almost every time we tried to adjust volume or snap a pic, but it's pretty standard for Nokia's Lumia line and something you get used to.
The polycarbonate unibody is the same thing found on other Lumia devices, so nothing new to report there. That said, if you want a good indication of what this smartphone looks and feels like, think of the 920, but with a mammoth lens. It's not as bulky or as heavy however, which is something of a saving grace.
As with other Nokia Lumia handsets, it feels great. It's solidly built and finished well, something that Nokia seems to have mastered.
The Lumia 1020 performs well. It has a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 chip and 2GB of RAM, and that's enough for smooth scrolling and fast-loading of apps.
Booting the smartphone itself is a bit on the slow side. There's also a four-second lag when unlocking the 1020 and opening the stock camera app. The Pro Cam app would also sometimes load slowly; snap slowly and just run slowly altogether. This usually happened when the phone grew too hot, which it most definitely did in our time with it.
We took the 1020's camera for a spin in New York City, snapping close to 300 photos, and noticed that a fully charged battery depleted to zero in five hours. The phone also felt like it was on fire during our photo session. We always harboured a suspicion that this phone would have to work hard and that seems to be reflected in how hot it gets.
We even turned it off two hours in to save battery life and stop the phone's innards from melting as we were worried about it. It has a 2000mAh Li-ion battery, meaning you can have a day of normal use - just don't take too many pictures - but with all that said, not a single app crashed during our testing of the 1020, and that's noteworthy.
Call quality over AT&T’s network in New York City was decent. There was no hiss or static, and the device's sound volume was adequate until walking through noisy touristy places like Time Square. We also experienced a drop call in this area, but call quality will obviously vary depending on where you live.
The 1020 offers a 4.5-inch AMOLED display with a 1280 x 768 pixel resolution. That's the same screen found on the 925 and 928, and it's a nice enough offering, with a 331ppi. It's not the most highest-resolution display you'll find on a modern smartphone, but that doesn't seem to affect the Windows Phone experience, which is well suited to a display of this size. Nokia's new Lumia 625 offers a larger display at 4.7-inches, but we feel that, given the size of the 1020, the display is just about the right size.
It goes a little opaque when looking at it from an indirect angle, but it does the job. Nokia's ClearBlack technology makes the display quite visible when outside, so that's a big plus. You can use the touchscreen when wearing gloves, something that Nokia has enabled on a number of its devices.
Much of the software experience of the Nokia Lumia 1020 is the same as elsewhere in the Lumia line. It takes Windows Phone 8 and adds dashings of Nokia innovation to it. We've often said that if you're after a Windows Phone then Nokia is the way to go and the company is certainly working hard to bring exclusive features to handsets and enhance Microsoft's offering. We won't talk too much about the stock Windows Phone experience here, rather concentrate on the specifics for this device.
Nokia wanted the 41-megapixel sensor to shine on the 1020, and so it helped the camera along by including a bunch of handy software tools for zooming, re-framing and editing photos. Nokia's "Pro Camera" app can save cropped photos alongside full photos, and it captures those full photos in high-resolution. The other camera apps - including the Windows Phone camera app - put a 5-megapixel limit on photos. That's a ridiculous scale-down, considering the smartphone's star feature is its 41-megapixel capability.
The settings in the Pro Cam app are very easy to handle. Just tap on white balance, ISO or whichever option, and then slide through the semicircle to adjust. As noted above, the app can run slow after a while. And it will also lag when it adjusts frames to changed settings.
For retouching and other creative options, just use the appropriately dubbed "Creative Studio" app. The 1020 can also take panoramas and animated GIFs. But don't get us started on the panorama feature. It's quite possibly the most complicated camera feature on the market. And it made us want to hurl the 1020 across the room.
Now, let's talk about photo sharing. Or lack thereof. There's no Instagram or Google+ on Windows Phone 8. There are a few second-tier apps for photo sharing, but none that will upload the 1020's high-resolution images. You could go with Flickr, but the latest version is optimised for Windows Phone 7. Oggl by Hipstamatic will let you share to Instagram, but it's a stopgap rather than a dedicated Instagram app. This in time will change, but on day one it might be an issue for you if you are tied to services not available yet on Windows Phone. Newcomers won't see this as a problem however.
The bottom line is that the 1020 is meant to rival the iPhone 5 and GS4, and it certainly can in some areas, but Windows Phone 8 and its app ecosystem are undoubtedly holding it back.
We already have a brief review of the 1020's sensor, stock camera app, Pro Camera app and panorama functionality, so go check that out for a full breakdown. Nevertheless, it's worth going over some additional bits in this review.
Read: Nokia Lumia 1020: We test the new camera in New York, is it really that good?
Only the Nokia Pro Camera app uses the 41-megapixel sensor delivering 38-megapixel photos (confusing we know), weighing in at over 10MB each, whereas the other apps shoot at 5-megapixels. With that said, because of the 41-megapixel beefiness, you can only retrieve photos by syncing the 1020 to a computer, which is a pain.
Still, the impressive 1/1.5-inch sensor allows the 1020 to capture better pictures than any other smartphone, camera phone or dumb phone. Ever. Part of the reason is because of the camera's powerful 6x digital zoom. Yes, digital zoom is usually a grotesque feature, but the 1020 takes it to another level with impressive image stabilisation. Nokia also attributed this to oversampling. The camera captures so much data - 7 pixels worth of information into one - that the result is a super high-resolution photo. You can then zoom in really far without losing any detail.
However, like most digital cameras, the 1020 has mediocre low-light capabilities. It takes bright shots, and offers up a ton of processing, resulting in noisy images. That's even with the ISO turned down and other manual settings adjusted. The sensor is super-meticulous, but most of the night time photos we captured were quite underwhelming.
The xenon flash helps with more close-range stuff, and even reduces blur since it instantly flashes, but most photography enthusiasts would shudder at the thought of using a little flash to light up a subject or landscape.
As for video recording, it's available in 1080p with three features. There's oversampling for saturated colours, image stabilisation and an improved microphone with adequate noise cancelling. It works well, and we could definitely see vloggers picking up the 1020 for easy-yet-HD filming while on the go.
Lastly, when compared to the iPhone 5 and Samsung Galaxy S4, the 1020 seems like a top-of-the-line cameraphone. It offers decent colour accuracy, although it can sometimes snap darker images - even in bright daytime shots - due to over-correction. The 1020 makes up for this, however, by providing amazingly sharp images.
Phones like the iPhone 5 are known for offering a combination of colour and detail, but the 1020's ability to capture adequate colours with incredible sharpness is even more stunning. That said, the Galaxy S4's night mode performs better. It captures low-light shots, serving up softer images but with less noise.
The Pro Camera app makes the 1020 the new smartphone to beat. It basically bridges the gap between smartphones and point-and-shoots. The average person could most certainly abandon their personal camera for good and use the 1020 for all their picture-taking needs.Image copyright Other Image caption Geek to champ? Sam Priestley took part |
with dreaded data limits by the cable TV and broadband provider.
The company started metering online usage and charging overage fees for some customers last year and has been steadily expanding the practice across its 18 state territory. Now customers in Arizona, Las Vegas, Nevada, Louisiana, and Oklahoma will face the limits.
Under Cox’s expanding rules, customers who use more than 1 terabyte of data in a single month must pay an additional $10 for every 50 gigabytes they go over the limit. The 1 TB limit is enough to watch 140 two-hour high-definition movies or stream 30,000 songs, Cox says, and only 2% of customers exceed the limit.
Cox, the third-largest U.S. cable company, will be introducing an unlimited data plan later this year, but no details were available yet, a spokeswoman said. For customers in the four newest markets getting the limits, the overage fees will take effect starting with bills after October 8.
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Cox is hardly alone. Comcast (cmcsa), the largest home broadband provider, extended data caps to most of its customers last year and many smaller providers have done the same. But Charter Communications (chtr), the second-largest cable TV provider, won’t be allowed to impose data caps for seven years due to conditions imposed by regulators last April when it bought Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks.
Some online services fear that the caps are intended to thwart consumers’ ability to cut the cord and switch from traditional cable TV to online video streaming providers like Netflix (nflx). The caps have largely been set at high levels that won’t impact online video watchers yet, but once the regime is in place, cable companies could easily lower the caps. They could also wait a few years until super high definition 4K video becomes the norm, meaning online video watchers will be consuming a lot more data. Or they could follow the strategy of some wireless carriers of favoring their own online video services by exempting them from counting against the caps.
Cox started setting its limits last year for customers in Cleveland, Ohio, Florida, and Georgia. Back in January, it added Arkansas, Connecticut, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and Idaho.The manual for Microsoft's next-generation Xbox One console has been leaked, a poster on NeoGAF has claimed.
User kazebyaka has posted what is allegedly the Portuguese version of the Xbox One console guide. The posted booklet specifies a minimum distance of 1.4 metres required between the Kinect 2.0 and the user. Additionally, diagrams indicate that the Kinect 2.0 can be mounted no higher than 1.8 metres from the console, and no lower than 0.6 metres from the ground.
According to the manual, the console should not be oriented vertically. While unverified, the information aligns with a statement made earlier this year by Albert Panello, senior director of product management and planning at Xbox. Panello stated that the Xbox One "[doesn't] support vertical orientation".
The posted guide concludes with a final step to connect the Xbox One to the internet. Microsoft recently confirmed that the Xbox One will require a day-one patch. A Microsoft representative was not immediately available to comment.
The Xbox One is scheduled for launch in North America, most European markets, Australia, and New Zealand on November 22 this year, with follow-up releases in Japan and the remaining European markets in 2014.Canadian Telcos Lose Their Goddamn Minds Over TVAddons
from the wtf? dept
For years, we've expressed general bewilderment at the practice in British Commonwealth countries to effectively allow private search warrants, which are given to non-government private parties, engaged in civil infringement cases, to effectively break down other people's doors and dig through their stuff. We've discussed such "Anton Piller" orders in Australia and the UK. And, apparently they apply in Canada too.
And that leads us to the craziest damn story you'll ever read about a bunch of private companies losing their freaking minds over something they believe is infringing. In this case, it's the site TVAddons, which is a site that links to various Kodi software add-ons. Kodi, if you're unaware, is open source home theater software (it was originally the Xbox Media Center, XBMC, but has expanded since then). It's quite popular and an easy way to use a device with Kodi to turn your TV into a smart TV. There are tons of perfectly legitimate and non-infringing uses for Kodi, and a variety of sources of "Kodi boxes" that allow people to make use of the features and to install a variety of useful apps -- such as adding YouTube or Netflix to your TV. Admittedly, there are some add-ons that allow users to access infringing content, though even those add-ons are just really linking to content stored openly and available online.
Still, in the last few years, the entertainment industry has completely lost its shit about Kodi boxes and the ability to use them to infringe. And more than a few sites involved in the space have been targeted. Recently, Dish Network sued TVAddons, a site that aggregates a bunch of Kodi add-ons. However, around the same time, it appears that up in Canada, all the big TV providers went absolutely insane. Bell Canada, TVA, Videotron and Rogers all not only sued TVAddons, but got an Anton Piller order allowing those companies (not police) to raid the home of the guy behind TVAddons, Adam Lackman. For fairly obvious reasons, the process of getting an Anton Piller order is one-sided. There is no adversarial process, because the other side isn't alerted beforehand that someone's trying to get an order allowing them to conduct a surprise raid to grab evidence.
The story of what happened next, first chronicled by Torrentfreak and the CBC is absolutely astounding.
And while a court eventually realized that these companies massively abused the Anton Piller process to effectively interrogate, intimidate, and hold Lackman hostage without legal representation, it came way too late -- and after they'd walked off with a bunch of his stuff, including his domains and his social media and email accounts and passwords. The story is shocking in its overreach. And, let's be clear here: the vast majority of the content on TVAddons is perfectly legal. As the court eventually pointed out, out of 1,500 add-ons, only 22 were found to be infringing. This was not a den of piracy. So keep that in mind as you read what happened. From Torrentfreak:
On June 12, the order was executed and Lackman’s premises were searched for more than 16 hours. For nine hours he was interrogated and effectively denied his right to remain silent since non-cooperation with an Anton Piller order amounts to contempt of court. The Court’s stated aim of not intimidating Lackman failed. The TVAddons operator informs TorrentFreak that he heard a disturbance in the hallway outside and spotted several men hiding on the other side of the door. Fearing for his life, Lackman called the police and when they arrived he opened the door. At this point, the police were told by those in attendance to leave, despite Lackman’s protests. Once inside, Lackman was told he had an hour to find a lawyer, but couldn’t use any electronic device to get one. Throughout the entire day, Lackman says he was reminded by the plaintiffs’ lawyer that he could be held in contempt of court and jailed, even though he was always cooperating. “I had to sit there and not leave their sight. I was denied access to medication,” Lackman told TorrentFreak. “I had a doctor’s appointment I was forced to miss. I wasn’t even allowed to call and cancel.” In papers later filed with the court by Lackman’s team, the Anton Piller order was described as a “bombe atomique” since TVAddons had never been served with so much as a copyright takedown notice in advance of this action.
I spoke with one of Lackman's lawyers, who told me that Lackman called while this search was happening, only to have the plaintiff's lawyers demand that he hang up and not talk to his lawyer. That's fucked up. Remember, this is not law enforcement. This is not a criminal case. These are private companies ransacking a guy's house and demanding he give up everything and denying him access to his lawyer. They also demanded Lackman give them information on a variety of other people -- and again threatened him with contempt if he didn't comply.
The intent behind Anton Piller cases is to prevent the destruction of evidence. In the US, we seem to deal with this in a more civilized manner -- in which defendants in cases may be alerted to preserve evidence, and failure to do so can lead to significant sanctions (and bad inferences) for "spoliation of evidence." Canada might want to think about adopting something similar.
Eventually, the court realized what a mess this was, vacating the earlier injunction and demanding that the companies return everything that they took. The court realized (again, too late) that the TV companies were using the Anton Piller order not for preservation of evidence, as is required, but for outright interrogation and discovery.
I find the most egregious part of the questioning to be in the independent solicitor’s affidavit, wherein he deposes that counsel for the Plaintiffs ‘provided Defendant Lackman with some names’ of other people who might be operating similar websites. It appears the Defendant was required to associate that list of 30 names with names, addresses and other data about individuals that might have some knowledge or relationship to those names. The list and the responses of the Defendant are found on three complete pages in the exhibits of the independent solicitor’s affidavit. I conclude that those questions, posed by Plaintiff’s counsel, were solely in furtherance of their investigation and constituted a hunt for further evidence, as opposed to the preservation of then existing evidence.
Oh, and also to destroy TVAddons before any actual legal process.
To the Plaintiffs, it mattered not that, by their own estimate, just over 1% of the Add-ons developed by the Defendant were allegedly used to infringe copyright. I therefore conclude that the purpose of the Anton Pillar Order under review was only partly designed to preserve evidence that might be destroyed or that could disappear. I am of the view that its true purpose was to destroy the livelihood of the Defendant, deny him the financial resources to finance a defence to the claim made against him, and to provide an opportunity for discovery of the Defendant in circumstances where none of the procedural safeguards of our civil justice system could be engaged.
Well, no shit. Torrentfreak shows a transcript of the lawyer for the TV companies just flat out admitting that the strategy was to "neutralize" everything.
Justice: And on the next page, paragraph 5, so the experts would deactivate the TV Add-ons domains and sub-domains, so you really want to neutralize the Defendant's operations? Lawyer for the Plaintiffs: Yeah, completely. Justice: Completely... Lawyer for the Plaintiffs: Yeah. Justice: So it's more than saying you're enjoined of not operating or communicating, you really want to neutralize the guy. Lawyer for the Plaintiffs: Yeah, completely, that's for sure. Yeah. We use his passwords, we shut down everything, we change the password and we change everything and it cannot be reactivated by him or someone else. That's the goal.
And that's what happened... until the court reversed the order and demanded they give everything back. But... in the meantime, how the hell is that allowed? The raid happened back on June 12th, and Lackman couldn't even talk about it until last week.
Incredibly, after getting slammed by this judge on June 29th, the TV companies appealed and asked to be able to keep all the access to Lackman's stuff. And that's where things are right now. The TV companies get to keep everything and Lackman has nothing... at least until there's a ruling on the appeal, and there won't even be a hearing on that for a few months. Lackman has set up a crowdfunding campaign in the meantime.
This entire story is shocking, but fits within a rather unfortunate theme that we see all too frequently around copyright. Legacy companies assume the absolute worst -- and assume that because there's some infringement somewhere everything must be wiped out and that it's blindingly obvious that they should be allowed to go in and basically destroy everything. It's the same sort of attitude that happened with the ridiculous "raid" on Kim Dotcom's mansion five years ago -- where Hollywood folks had spent so many years hyping up how Dotcom was a Hollywood-style evil villain that, clearly, they needed to bring in the FBI and special forces to raid his house with heavy weaponry and grab everything.
Over and over again, they seem to think that a little copyright infringement happening somewhere means they should now be free to destroy everything. It's quite incredible.
Filed Under: adam lackman, addons, anton piller, canada, copyright, interrogation, kodi, piracy
Companies: bell canada, rogers, tva, tvaddons, videotronPeople who exercise have better mental fitness, and a new imaging study from UC Davis Health System shows why. Intense exercise increases levels of two common neurotransmitters — glutamate and gamma-aminobutyric acid, or GABA — that are responsible for chemical messaging within the brain.
Published in this week’s issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, the finding offers new insights into brain metabolism and why exercise could become an important part of treating depression and other neuropsychiatric disorders linked with deficiencies in neurotransmitters, which drive communications between the brain cells that regulate physical and emotional health.
“Major depressive disorder is often characterized by depleted glutamate and GABA, which return to normal when mental health is restored,” said study lead author Richard Maddock, professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. “Our study shows that exercise activates the metabolic pathway that replenishes these neurotransmitters.”
The research also helps solve a persistent question about the brain, an energy-intensive organ that consumes a lot of fuel in the form of glucose and other carbohydrates during exercise. What does it do with that extra fuel?
“From a metabolic standpoint, vigorous exercise is the most demanding activity the brain encounters, much more intense than calculus or chess, but nobody knows what happens with all that energy,” Maddock said. “Apparently, one of the things it’s doing is making more neurotransmitters.”
The striking change in how the brain uses fuel during exercise has largely been overlooked in brain health research. While the new findings account for a small part of the brain’s energy consumption during exercise, they are an important step toward understanding the complexity of brain metabolism. The research also hints at the negative impact sedentary lifestyles might have on brain function, along with the role the brain might play in athletic endurance.
“It is not clear what causes people to ‘hit the wall’ or get suddenly fatigued when exercising,” Maddock said. “We often think of this point in terms of muscles being depleted of oxygen and energy molecules. But part of it may be that the brain has reached its limit.”
To understand how exercise affects the brain, the team studied 38 healthy volunteers. Participants exercised on a stationary bicycle, reaching around 85 percent of their predicted maximum heart rate. To measure glutamate and GABA, the researchers conducted a series of imaging studies using a powerful 3-tesla MRI to detect nuclear magnetic resonance spectra, which can identify several compounds based on the magnetic behavior of hydrogen atoms in molecules.
The researchers measured GABA and glutamate levels in two different parts of the brain immediately before and after three vigorous exercise sessions lasting between eight and 20 minutes, and made similar measurements for a control group that did not exercise. Glutamate or GABA levels increased in the participants who exercised, but not among the non-exercisers. Significant increases were found in the visual cortex, which processes visual information, and the anterior cingulate cortex, which helps regulate heart rate, some cognitive functions and emotion. While these gains trailed off over time, there was some evidence of longer-lasting effects.
“There was a correlation between the resting levels of glutamate in the brain and how much people exercised during the preceding week,” Maddock said. “It’s preliminary information, but it’s very encouraging.”
These findings point to the possibility that exercise could be used as an alternative therapy for depression. This could be especially important for patients under age 25, who sometimes have more side effects from selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), anti-depressant medications that adjust neurotransmitter levels.
For follow-up studies, Maddock and the team hope to test whether a less-intense activity, such as walking, offers similar brain benefits. They would also like to use their exercise-plus-imaging method on a study of patients with depression to determine the types of exercise that offer the greatest benefit.
“We are offering another view on why regular physical activity may be important to prevent or treat depression,” Maddock said. “Not every depressed person who exercises will improve, but many will. It’s possible that we can help identify the patients who would most benefit from an exercise prescription.”Why #Gamergate is still here: a game design perspective
Mah Stick Blocked Unblock Follow Following Oct 23, 2014
Hello World,
Chances are that if you’re reading this, you are already somewhat informed about the #GamerGate movement/hashtag. So I’ll make the introduction brief:
People taking part in GamerGate claim the movement is about ethical reforms in game journalism. Detractors claim it’s a movement about harassment of women in gaming. Each camp argues that the opposite camp is putting a spin on the whole thing.
Considering how the human brain works you probably made up your mind about what really happens about 5 minutes into the first opinion piece you read. There aren’t many who are brave enough to challenge their own views on a regular basis (and if you want a somewhat balanced perspective you should look for the ones who did just that).
But regardless of what your view is, in the long term the gamers (and the members of #GamerGate are essentially vocal and passionate gamers) will triumph. It’s just a matter of understanding gamer audience and some game design principles.
1. Gamers are multicultural. More than you think.
Many Americans will mistake to think that this whole blowout is just another US right-vs-left politics, especially considering how US media outlets are jumping on the hashtag bandwagon. It is not.
What you really have to understand is that gaming is a global hobby. It crosses countries, nations, and races. You will probably be amazed by how many gamers from all around the globe are closely following these events as you read this. Not because they really care which American liberal or conservative website sided with whom, but rather because of the aftermath: For the gamers it’s all about the outcome and how the fallout will shape out their hobby in the long run.
And videogame studios are also multicultural. This isn’t just a lip service in an Assassin’s Creed loading screen: In terms of cultural dominance the US game industry was never the equivalent of Hollywood or Silicon Valley. The seemingly all-American GTA is actually from a Scottish studio, Minecraft is a product of Sweden (just like the rest of your IKEA furnished living room), and the Nintendo mascots are proudly made in Japan. The US video videogame market crash of 83 was a sad affair, but it actually did wonders for international diversity: while Atari and other American companies were busy sinking, the Japanese industry rose to fame and Europe turned mostly to PCs.
So when Gamergate opposer are painting the people involved as a bunch of white heterosexual males (one of the many smear tactics used in the debate), gamers of all races and color are reading and bursting into laugh (or tears, depending on how easily offended they are). And when a close knit of similar minded reporters claim to speak on behalf of minorities, ethnicities and genders, all while ignoring their audience — the result is a backlash from said minorities.
That’s how you get hashtags like #notyourshield, and unless these reporters understand this first and apologize for misrepresenting their audience, they will only alienate them more.
Apparently No ISIS in Archer next year. Maybe they’ll change it to GG?
2. Gamers are patient
This is a simple equation actually, as games train you how to be patient.
You have to be patient when you play the game: waiting for that guard to finish his patrol route in Splinter Cell, waiting for that production to finish before you go on the offense in Civilization, waiting for that cloud to slowly make its way towards you so you can find one of the eight secret stars in Braid.
You have to be patient before you even play the game: When you wait for the game to download or install, when searching for an online server, or when the game doesn’t work and you go on forums asking question and following some voodoo magic suggestions.
And you have to be patient when you cringe to every piece of evidence that OMG HL3 CONFIRMED (Seriously Valve, it’s been 7 goddamn years since you threw that EP2 cliffhanger at us!).
Hell, if you’re playing social games you have to be extremely patient as you wait for 24 real life hours before chopping that carrot crop field again (either that or payz us de moneys plz). Even the more casual gamers are becoming accustomed to the slow grind of video games, and this is where patience is a virtue.
If you really wish to understand who you’re dealing with here, you might want to read into one of the many legends of the EVE online universe first, see how some stone cold gamers will patiently wait for months to end to ploy and execute an operation against a warring faction.
And EVE is just a game, so try to imagine how much effort the same enthusiastic gamers will put into something that they see as a real threat to their hobby. We’re talking people who take their time to replicate Game of Thrones Westeros inside Minecraft, block by block. They have all the time in the world.
So if you think that GamerGater aren’t here for the long run, suggest that they’re getting tired, or assume that the movement will pass on its own if you fart in their general direction… well you better clear your schedule and buckle up for the next few months. Or years. It seems that at least the people behind #StopGamerGate2014 already realized they will need a new one for 2015.
3. Gamers practice to perfection and are only being encouraged by defeat
Considering my earlier point this is should much a given, but from a game design perspective it’s important to discuss the kind of feedback-loop games enforce. If at first you don’t succeed, dust yourself off and try again is not just a song. It’s the gamers motto.
Pfff…. I play SLASO
In games, especially old school games, the core loop involves trying, failing and trying again until successful. Live. Die. Repeat. For some gamers the experience is so compelling that one can only assume future neurological studies will find a link between endorphin release and successfully completing a level in Super Meet Boy (or getting that stupid band-aid), to levels that rival a good orgasm. And maybe even chocolate.
Gamers are over you say? Gamers are dead? You have to remember how game narrative itself often reinforces myths of “few against many” and “against all odds” —bullying the players around to trigger a counter reaction from them. Gamer fuel is not mountain dew, it’s frustration. And when gamers encounter setbacks or have to deal with overwhelming opposition, for them this is merely another reason to rise to the challenge and increase their engagement.
4. Gamers are good at finding patterns (even where none exists)
In the context of GamerGate, this fact is probably the biggest blessing and curse. Humans in general are excellent in pattern recognition (when the machines take over this might be our saving grace) but once again this is something that gamers practice regularly as part of their favorite pastime hobby. Some basic puzzle games simply are about pattern matching, but many other games will still favor players with good heuristics skills that help see through the random noise and find the important data. This is the exact reason why even scientists are using gamers for some DNA research instead of raw computing power.
One phenomenon we can see in GamerGate, is how so many individuals are searching for patterns and hidden connections all around the game industry, posting their findings and collaborating with the rest of the hivemind. For outsiders this might seem obsessive (and in some cases it is), but for some gamers this is just another challenge. Another puzzle. Another riddle to solve: Save the cheerleader, save the world. Find the connection, find the hidden agenda.
Wait, aren’t you that girl from Lollipop Chainsaw? Cheerleading is a tool of the patriarchy
Problem is, in many cases these somewhat obsessive searches can make you see patterns where none actually exists, make some logical hoops and publish the wrong conclusions. Apophenia is a documented psychological term for the experience of seeing patterns in meaningless data, although it’s a natural human behavior.
But this behavior can be problematic. One of the real problems with GamerGate is how quickly people jumped to conclusions over thinly threaded connections — ones that eventually were found to be mostly irrelevant. The prominent activists in this crowd research don’t really see the big deal: all they did was make some allegations based on patterns they found, someone else chimed in and researched said allegations, and eventually they either had some merit or were found to be baseless.
What they just don’t realize is how the collateral damage affects people, or how baseless allegations can still circulate even after being dismissed. As far as they’re concerned, they are merely crowd sourcing investigative journalism (and one might add it’s only because the actual reporters simply aren’t willing to do the research themselves).
But these patterns are still important: even if 90% of the allegations are flat out false, what people should eventually care about is how serious and damaging are the 10% of the allegations that are confirmed to be true. What the GamerGate movement should consider is how to decrease the horrendous ratio so we can have less false-positive claims tarnishing people’s reputation (without scarifying the actual stories that should be exposed). Without careful consideration and balance the whole thing will remain a messy affair.
5. Gamers are great optimizers and problem solvers
In Role Playing game design the issue of optimization is central: optimization, powergaming, and min-maxing are methods for building overpowered game characters, resulting in a more effective play style — sometimes to the level of breaking the actual challenge. Game designers try to overcome optimization abuse by delicately balancing and testing their games, but for gamers this is becoming yet another riddle to solve. If there is a shortcut that the designers did not consider, players will quickly find it and utilize it for their benefit.
This isn’t just a role-playing game trope. Optimization is central to almost every game - from Tetris to Minecraft to FIFA. Dedicated gamers have been practicing optimization for years and now it is a second nature to many of them, and they also quickly adapt to game designers making balance changes, like an infinite chase of cat and mouse.
So whatever you do, don’t try to downplay gamers or think you found a way to outsmart them. No matter what you try, it will probably not have a long lasting effect: If you’re dishonest they will find about it sooner or later, and if you attempt to game or cheat them they will quickly adapt to your tactics and even play your own moves against you. You will likely spend much more time trying to obstruct and throw gamers off your scent, then it will take them to workaround the obstruction (just check with companies involved how well copy protection DRM worked for games and why it was eventually dropped).
6. Gamers are libertarians at heart
One more thing driving GamerGate is the topic of censorship and forcing agenda into games. It seems like we’ve been in a similar situation a few years back, only last time around it was the conservative right claiming that violent games make violent people and this time it’s the liberal left claiming that sexist games make sexist people.
The big difference is probably how the conservative right dismissed games altogether with a “ban this sick filth!” approach, alienating all gamers in the process and effectively removing themselves from the equation. This time around it seems the liberal left is a bit more sophisticated: they understand how games can actually be used as a tool for pushing their agenda, so they don’t dismiss it point blank. They see games as an indoctrination tool for making you a better person.
To make the argument stick, their attempts are backed by accusations about how gamers are violent, racists, misogynistic, homophobic and whatnot. But as mentioned earlier, gamers are diverse and the distribution of gamers is probably all around the left-right axis of the political compass. The actual story is about the authoritarian-libertarian axis.
And here gamers lean heavily towards the side of Liberty and directly oppose authoritative intervention. While it might seem right now that GamerGaters are “in bed” with the “conservative” right and oppose the “liberal” game media, this is only because gamers feel abandoned by the game media. Not only the media ignored the pleas from their audience, but they actually came at them with a full frontal attack: being entirely dismissive about their hobby, identity and lifestyle choice, and marking gamer as the problem that won’t let games “evolve” and “become more”.
Abandoned, Gamergaters took to whoever was up for hearing their story. It’s clear to them that they’re being pushed into a framed narrative of political left-right debate, but they don’t and shouldn’t really care. These fragile alliances are just as temporary to them as the ones with the AI bots in their favorite strategy game: as long as the AI doesn’t hit rampancy and tries to backstab them, gamers have no problem keeping the alliance.
Games are about player agency and liberty, recognized and sometimes celebrated for the freedom (or illusion of it) they offer and encourage. This is probably why the natural instincts for experienced gamers is to question the routes game designers carved for them, always opting for an alternative.
And game designers play along by rewarding gamers who walk of the beaten path: It’s actually easy to spot a seasoned gamer when you’re beta testing your 2D platform game, as they will always try to go left instead of going right as the screen indicates they should be going.
So once again this is also reflected in the outside world: Try to force your agenda on gamers and you will get a serious backlash. If you really want to push your agenda then your best bet is to do this within the games you create, NOT by acting as a moral guardian for other game designers. Promoting your moral superiority in the media or telling artists what games they should or shouldn’t do is simply butchering creative freedom — and neither gamers nor game developers appreciate that.
Gamergaters see themselves now as the ones holding the front for freedom in games. They are the pirates rallying around King Elizabeth being called to hoist the colours. They are the obnoxious Gary King telling the network to fuck off, because they want to be free. And they actually have a good point.
So, what now?
First of wall, what you probably shouldn’t do (especially if you’re part of the media) claim that in order to have a discussion people must abandon #GamerGate first, or tell them that how the “general audience” feels that the movement has been tainted by trolls and harassers beyond redemption.
Do you even realize how ridiculous and hypocritical these demands sound? After the game media itself is responsible for pushing this portrayal in the first place? Outsiders and even some insiders are now irrationally scared of gaming culture as a whole because that’s what the media highlighted for them. This is how the gaming media itself framed the narrative around GamerGate — promoting the fallacy of the entire gaming community guilty by association with some random anonymous harassers based on zero evidence.
Mainstream media with it’s love for scandals quickly jumped in to pour some gasoline into the fire for instant clickbait $$$ profit. This is exactly how you get yourself yet another mass hysteria story revolving around video games. Jack Thompson would be proud.
And now the game media dare ask gamers to back off from the #GamerGate hashtag because of their own wrongdoings? You can’t, you simply can’t, do this kind of thing. This is the equivalent of the school bully / popular jock / school magazine editor picking on the outcast kids and turning the other school kids against them, then tells the outcasts it’s probably time to find another school because even if their intentions are good other kids don’t really believe their side of the story.
A smarter approach for media editors would be to separate the honest criticism from the general noise (not an easy task, I know), make a real attempt to lower the flames and give GamerGaters a chance to prove themselves and rise to the challenge — for example by cooperating together find and reveal the harassers. Its gamers, remember? Rising to challenge is what they do.
At the same time it’s important to remember that revolts thrive on challenge and conflicts. If game media were to publish and adhere to the kind of ethical code GamerGaters asked for in the first place, this one simple step could have possibly put the whole thing to rest before it even started. Throw in a sincere apology into it and you’ll realize how gamers are quick to forgive as much as they were quick to protest.
Twitter and social networks are a multiplayer game after all, and when there’s no conflict there’s just no point to keep playing. Swallow your pride, make an honest attempt to resolve the conflict, understand what gamers concerns are and what makes them tick — and things will turn for the better.CLOSE Since 2008, "SWATing" calls have troubled police nationwide. This is how they work. Wochit
This 2015 booking photo released by the Glendale, Calif., Police Department shows Tyler Raj Barriss. The Los Angeles Police Department confirms it arrested Barriss Friday, Dec. 29, 2017, in connection with a deadly'swatting' call in Wichita, Kan., Thursday, Dec. 28. Information from Glendale shows that in October, 2015, Barriss was arrested in connection with making a bomb threat to ABC Studios in Glendale. (Glendale Police Department via AP) (Photo11: AP)
Los Angeles police arrested a 25-year-old man in connection with a “swatting” prank that triggered the deadly police shooting of an unarmed man in Kansas.
Tyler Barriss was taken into custody Friday afternoon in connection with the hoax 911 call that was sparked by a feud between online gamers, police told NBC News. Officials said he has a history of making those calls.
The family of Andrew Finch set up a Go Fund Me account to pay for funeral costs. (Photo11: GoFundMe)
Police said Andrew Finch, 28, was killed Thursday during the law-enforcement response to the call.
"Due to the actions of a prankster, we have an innocent victim," Wichita police Deputy Chief Troy Livingston said during a press conference Friday.
The Finch family is raising money on GoFundMe to cover burial expenses.
What happened?
Wichita police investigate a call of a possible hostage situation near the corner of McCormick and Seneca in Wichita, Kan., Thursday night. A man was fatally shot by a police officer in what is believed to be a gaming prank called "swatting." (Photo11: Fernando Salazar, AP)
Barriss is accused of making the swatting call after getting into a dispute with a gamer while playing Call of Duty. He gave police the address he believed to be the other gamer's, officials say.
However, the address given to authorities led them to the doorstep of Finch, who was not part of the online gaming community, according to his family.
Read more: Unarmed man killed by police after ‘swatting’ prank in Kansas
The caller claimed to be holding his family hostage after his father had been shot in the head Thursday night, according to 911 audio played by the Wichita Police Department.
Here is the link to the 911 audio and video of the officer involved shooting we release today during our press conference, please be advised the following video contains graphic content, viewer discretion is advised.https://t.co/wC9wkkNqXY — Wichita Police (@WichitaPolice) December 30, 2017
"That was the information we were working off of,” Livingston told the Wichita Eagle.
Officers “got in position” for a hostage situation when they arrived at the Kansas home. Soon, Finch came to the door to see what was going on, the newspaper reported.
Officers instructed Finch to put his hands up, but he lowered them by his waistband several times, Livingston said. One officer then took a shot because he "feared for officer's safety," he added.
The father of two was taken to the hospital, where he later died.
It turns out there was no hostage situation or homicide victim. Finch was unarmed, officials say.
"We believe this case is an act of swatting," Livingston confirmed Friday.
Suspect had a history of hoax calls
A frame grab from the Wichita Police Department's release Friday, Dec. 29, 2017, of some body cam footage of the fatal shooting of Andrew Finch, 29, by a Wichita police officer Thursday night. Online gamers have said in multiple Twitter posts that the shooting of a man Thursday night by Wichita police was the result of a "swatting" hoax involving two gamers. (Photo11: Fernando Salazar, AP)
Barriss had been previously arrested on suspicion of making hoax calls to police, including two false bomb threats in 2015, according to records.
Police have not disclosed the possible charge Bariss would face in connection with the Kansas shooting.
The victim’s family believes the caller should be held accountable.
"The person who made the phone call took my nephew, her son, two kids’ father," the victim’s aunt, Lorrie Hernandez-Caballero, told the Wichita Eagle. "How does it feel to be a murderer? I can’t believe people do this on purpose.”
What is swatting?
Police say the series of events began over a $1.50 wager in a “Call of Duty” match on UMG Gaming, reported Dexerto, an online news service about gaming.
“We woke this morning to horrible news about an innocent man losing his life,” UMG Vice President Shannon Gerritzen told the Associated Press. “Our hearts go out to his loved ones. We are doing everything we can to assist the authorities.”
Lisa Finch, surrounded by family members reacts to the killing of her son Andrew Finch after he was shot Thursday evening, Dec. 28, 2017, by police, in Wichita, Kan. Authorities are investigating whether the deadly police shooting stemmed from someone making up a false report to get a SWAT team to descend upon a home in a prank common in the online gaming industry known as "swatting." (Photo11: Bo Rader, AP)
Swatting is a prank where someone calls authorities to report a fake emergency — often a hostage situation or active shooter — with the intent of drawing a "SWAT team" response to a location.
It has |
/CreditNew https://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/CreditProposal ID: 68956 ·
Richard Haselgrove
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Message 68958 - Posted: 12 Apr 2016, 22:13:35 UTC The equivalent reference document hosted locally is http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/CreditNew. Because that's held as a Wiki, you can look back through the history, timeline, and (sole) authorship of how it evolved. ID: 68958 ·
CM
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Joined: 13 Aug 15Posts: 63 Message 68959 - Posted: 12 Apr 2016, 22:19:40 UTC - in response to Message 68958. The equivalent reference document hosted locally is http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/CreditNew. Because that's held as a Wiki, you can look back through the history, timeline, and (sole) authorship of how it evolved.
Ah, I forgot to add a direct link to the wiki page - I've added it to the main post, thanks.
Should we link to this thread in the developer mailing lists? Or do you believe this topic will gain enough attention on its own in this message board? Ah, I forgot to add a direct link to the wiki page - I've added it to the main post, thanks.Should we link to this thread in the developer mailing lists? Or do you believe this topic will gain enough attention on its own in this message board? ID: 68959 ·
ChristianB
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Message 68965 - Posted: 13 Apr 2016, 14:53:26 UTC So what's the goal of your discussion? You want to find out how a fourth credit systems should be like? I would be interested to discuss this too.
But first one has to discuss the meaning of Credits and if they should really be comparable between projects or if they should be only comparable between the different applications of a project (which is difficult enough). ID: 68965 ·
Coleslaw
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Joined: 23 Feb 12Posts: 196 Message 68967 - Posted: 13 Apr 2016, 20:22:15 UTC I think he brings it up because "cheating" can impact Gridcoin payouts. So, there is a financial and stability issue with their cryptocurrency payout system that they are probably hoping to fix. But, I have not read up on it much as I don't care about cryptos all that much. ID: 68967 ·
CM
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Joined: 13 Aug 15Posts: 63 Message 68992 - Posted: 15 Apr 2016, 19:30:18 UTC - in response to Message 68965.
Last modified: 15 Apr 2016, 20:05:49 UTC So what's the goal of your discussion? You want to find out how a fourth credit systems should be like? I would be interested to discuss this too.
The goal is to renew the discussion of a potential 3rd gen BOINC credit system, hopefully leading to an agreed 3rd gen credit system proposal that can extend functionality and eliminate potential cheating.
I answered a very similar question over on cryptocointalk: https://cryptocointalk.com/topic/46130-discussion-3rd-generation-boinc-credit-system/#entry213012
I read the Malikcredit publication ( http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?reload=true&arnumber=6332291 ), I haven't been able to find any public discussion regarding it nor the 3rd gen proposal. The proposed change from Whetstone/Drystone to MalikStone sounds logical (albeit it does not cover memory/bandwidth/storage benchmarks).
But first one has to discuss the meaning of Credits and if they should really be comparable between projects or if they should be only comparable between the different applications of a project (which is difficult enough).
Currently, the Gridcoin network rewards BOINC projects on an individual project basis, so one project rewarding 1000 vs another project rewarding 10 for an WU does not currently affect us too badly. It's a similar project credit comparison method as the one formulaboinc uses: http://formula-boinc.org/
I understand what you're meaning though, BU rewarding RAC on a far higher scale than other projects does devalue the combined RAC leaderboards somewhat. A new credit system could potentially propose an alternate method of dealing with FPGAs/ASICs.
Cherry picking of individual applications within a project (one that rewards a higher score over other project applications rather than attempting to verify your WU's with another computer) is a problem on an individual BOINC project basis, no? Can you think of some method of mitigating this?
I think he brings it up because "cheating" can impact Gridcoin payouts. So, there is a financial and stability issue with their cryptocurrency payout system that they are probably hoping to fix. But, I have not read up on it much as I don't care about cryptos all that much.
Indeed, the main reasons for pursuing the discussion/development of the 3rd gen credit system are the following:
1. Cheating the BOINC credit system allows users to earn Gridcoin fraudulently - this undermines the integrity of Gridcoin's Distributed Proof of Research reward mechanism.
2. I'm campaigning for the removal of the team 'gridcoin' membership requirement in the gridcoin system in order for all BOINC users to earn Gridcoin, not just one team. Due to the recent discovery of cheaters within and outwidth team Gridcoin, the team membership requirement has temporarily been deemed a neccessary evil in order for team founders to kick discovered cheaters from team gridcoin (cutting off cheaters from earning gridcoin fraudulently).
3. Despite team founders being able to kick users from the team, it's difficult to prove cheating (especially when users hide their hosts). This places team founder users in a difficult centralized position of power.
If cheating gets unmanageable, removing individual affected projects from the whitelist (ending distribution of gridcoin for work completed for a project) is a highly likely outcome.
Quick meta question: After a set period of time, does a post's 'edit' button/functionality dissapear? The goal is to renew the discussion of a potential 3rd gen BOINC credit system, hopefully leading to an agreed 3rd gen credit system proposal that can extend functionality and eliminate potential cheating.I answered a very similar question over on cryptocointalk: https://cryptocointalk.com/topic/46130-discussion-3rd-generation-boinc-credit-system/#entry213012I read the Malikcredit publication ( http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?reload=true&arnumber=6332291 ), I haven't been able to find any public discussion regarding it nor the 3rd gen proposal. The proposed change from Whetstone/Drystone to MalikStone sounds logical (albeit it does not cover memory/bandwidth/storage benchmarks).Currently, the Gridcoin network rewards BOINC projects on an individual project basis, so one project rewarding 1000 vs another project rewarding 10 for an WU does not currently affect us too badly. It's a similar project credit comparison method as the one formulaboinc uses: http://formula-boinc.org/I understand what you're meaning though, BU rewarding RAC on a far higher scale than other projects does devalue the combined RAC leaderboards somewhat. A new credit system could potentially propose an alternate method of dealing with FPGAs/ASICs.Cherry picking of individual applications within a project (one that rewards a higher score over other project applications rather than attempting to verify your WU's with another computer) is a problem on an individual BOINC project basis, no? Can you think of some method of mitigating this?Indeed, the main reasons for pursuing the discussion/development of the 3rd gen credit system are the following:1. Cheating the BOINC credit system allows users to earn Gridcoin fraudulently - this undermines the integrity of Gridcoin's Distributed Proof of Research reward mechanism.2. I'm campaigning for the removal of the team 'gridcoin' membership requirement in the gridcoin system in order for all BOINC users to earn Gridcoin, not just one team. Due to the recent discovery of cheaters within and outwidth team Gridcoin, the team membership requirement has temporarily been deemed a neccessary evil in order for team founders to kick discovered cheaters from team gridcoin (cutting off cheaters from earning gridcoin fraudulently).3. Despite team founders being able to kick users from the team, it's difficult to prove cheating (especially when users hide their hosts). This places team founder users in a difficult centralized position of power.If cheating gets unmanageable, removing individual affected projects from the whitelist (ending distribution of gridcoin for work completed for a project) is a highly likely outcome.Quick meta question: After a set period of time, does a post's 'edit' button/functionality dissapear? ID: 68992 ·
KSMarksPsych
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Message 68995 - Posted: 15 Apr 2016, 21:39:26 UTC - in response to Message 68992. Quick meta question: After a set period of time, does a post's 'edit' button/functionality dissapear?
Yes. I believe it's 1 hour. Kathryn :o) Yes. I believe it's 1 hour.Kathryn :o) ID: 68995 ·
ChristianB
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Message 68998 - Posted: 16 Apr 2016, 8:25:46 UTC First. Please call this new Credit system the 4th generation Credit system. CreditNew, as it is widely called, is actually the third Credit system in BOINC (clearly stated on the CreditNew page).
I also read the MalikCredit paper and although it does not say so it is based on the second Credit System (the one before Credit New) and is a bit outdated and also suffers from the problem that the benchmark is reported by the Client and thus can be cheated. There are other assumptions in the MalikCredit paper that are not practical for all projects. I still have to find the MalikStone paper to read about the benchmark.
I would like to start with a list of requirements a new CreditSystem should have. I would also like to centralize the discussion and not have two places with different people (here and at cryptocointalk).
Lastly I wold also like to point to this proposal that came shortly after the rise of BitcoinUtopia: http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/CreditGeneralized
Regards
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CM
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Joined: 13 Aug 15Posts: 63 Message 69009 - Posted: 17 Apr 2016, 2:08:35 UTC - in response to Message 68998.
Last modified: 17 Apr 2016, 2:14:20 UTC First. Please call this new Credit system the 4th generation Credit system. CreditNew, as it is widely called, is actually the third Credit system in BOINC (clearly stated on the CreditNew page).
My mistake, I thought that "Goals of the new (third) credit system" meant that creditnew was the 2nd generation credit system.
I also read the MalikCredit paper and although it does not say so it is based on the second Credit System (the one before Credit New) and is a bit outdated and also suffers from the problem that the benchmark is reported by the Client and thus can be cheated. There are other assumptions in the MalikCredit paper that are not practical for all projects. I still have to find the MalikStone paper to read about the benchmark.
I've skimmed through it, it doesn't cover all 4 of the proposed types of credit in the 'CreditGeneralized' credit system proposal, but it does suggest improvements to the 'Computing credit' which could apply to the 'CreditGeneralized' proposal.
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=6266936
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=6641472
You're right though, we could create benchmarks for the 4 proposed types of credit (Computing credit, Storage credit, Network credit, Project-defined credit) but ultimately since it's ran on the client's side, it could be potentially manipulated.
Any ideas how to prevent local cheating of benchmarks?
I would like to start with a list of requirements a new CreditSystem should have.
Shall we use [google docs/requirements management software/this forum] for documenting these requirements?
I would also like to centralize the discussion and not have two places with different people (here and at cryptocointalk).
We can certainly consider this thread to be the main thread for this discussion, however I'll probably continue using the cryptocointalk thread for gridcoin related discussion of the credit system.
Regarding the 1 hour edit rule on this forum - are we able to change this on an individual thread/post basis? Or is a post uneditable once the edit button dissapears? Editing would be very handy when documenting proposed requirements.
Lastly I wold also like to point to this proposal that came shortly after the rise of BitcoinUtopia: http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/CreditGeneralized
Regards
Christian
I hadn't seen this, thanks for linking this credit system proposal. It raises several good ideas that should potentially be considered. My mistake, I thought that "Goals of the new (third) credit system" meant that creditnew was the 2nd generation credit system.I've skimmed through it, it doesn't cover all 4 of the proposed types of credit in the 'CreditGeneralized' credit system proposal, but it does suggest improvements to the 'Computing credit' which could apply to the 'CreditGeneralized' proposal.http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=6266936http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=6641472You're right though, we could create benchmarks for the 4 proposed types of credit (Computing credit, Storage credit, Network credit, Project-defined credit) but ultimately since it's ran on the client's side, it could be potentially manipulated.Any ideas how to prevent local cheating of benchmarks?Shall we use [google docs/requirements management software/this forum] for documenting these requirements?We can certainly consider this thread to be the main thread for this discussion, however I'll probably continue using the cryptocointalk thread for gridcoin related discussion of the credit system.Regarding the 1 hour edit rule on this forum - are we able to change this on an individual thread/post basis? Or is a post uneditable once the edit button dissapears? Editing would be very handy when documenting proposed requirements.I hadn't seen this, thanks for linking this credit system proposal. It raises several good ideas that should potentially be considered. ID: 69009 ·
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Message 69022 - Posted: 17 Apr 2016, 11:27:42 UTC - in response to Message 68998. I would like to start with a list of requirements a new CreditSystem should have. I would also like to centralize the discussion and not have two places with different people (here and at cryptocointalk).
This is definitely needed (with any system). I guess this raises the question, where exactly is the functionality defined and what is the the right forum for discussion?
I don't feel the current credit system is broken enough, but there are inconsistencies between projects and apps, which could be better normalized.
To help normalize, i feel a need to redress the lack of application profiling data, across projects, both as a reference and in real-time, so that reasonable values of credits can be assigned, and monitored.
The data would help users (and eventually boinc) decide where to invest their resources, eg I have little network bandwidth so steer away from those credits. It would help developers tune their apps, and project owners see their apps compared to others.
Lastly I wold also like to point to this proposal that came shortly after the rise of BitcoinUtopia: http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/CreditGeneralized
It's not clear who the author(s) were - was it captured from a forum? This is definitely needed (with any system). I guess this raises the question, where exactly is the functionality defined and what is the the right forum for discussion?I don't feel the current credit system is broken enough, but there are inconsistencies between projects and apps, which could be better normalized.To help normalize, i feel a need to redress the lack of application profiling data, across projects, both as a reference and in real-time, so that reasonable values of credits can be assigned, and monitored.The data would help users (and eventually boinc) decide where to invest their resources, eg I have little network bandwidth so steer away from those credits. It would help developers tune their apps, and project owners see their apps compared to others.It's not clear who the author(s) were - was it captured from a forum? ID: 69022 ·
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Joined: 5 Aug 06Posts: 52 Message 69039 - Posted: 18 Apr 2016, 14:20:08 UTC - in response to Message 68998. I would like to start with a list of requirements a new CreditSystem should have. I would also like to centralize the discussion and not have two places with different people (here and at cryptocointalk).
Lastly I wold also like to point to this proposal that came shortly after the rise of BitcoinUtopia: http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/CreditGeneralized
I think there are at least two expectations on what a credit system should do:
First, of course, users should be able to compare themselves with each other. Without some numbers reflecting the work they have done, there would be no competition, no challenges or races, no funny badges, etc., i.e. less incentive for many users.
Second, from a more scientific point of view, it would be nice to have some project-wide and even BOINC-wide numbers reflecting the performance in FLOPS, bandwidth, etc. Publications could easily compare the project's performance with supercomputers and if someone asks about the total performance of the BOINC network, we would have a real answer instead of a rough estimate.
Obviously, to match the second expectation, more quantities have to be measured, just like the CreditGeneralized proposal suggests. To match the first expectation, however, the credit system should follow the KISS principle. The CreditGeneralized proposal definitely isn't KISS and opens new cans of worms:
- If only FLOPs are counted, how to deal with applications doing mostly integer arithmetics? Should they just grant less credit in this category or should we (again) count some FLOP equivalent unit rather than actual operations on application level? Of course, if we wanted to count actual operations, all applications would have to be modified, which certainly is not going to happen.
- Regarding storage usage: Some projects need lots of disk space just to store some data that is not used all the time, while there are also applications that do many read and write operations. What exactly would we want to measure? Why? How?
- Regarding network usage: How to stop a funny guy reattaching to Rosetta@home after every finished workunit, just to have their huge database file downloaded every time again in order to get as many network credit as possible? Just don't count sticky files? If yes, why?
- Any number measured on the client side might be cheated. Just saying, "We'll figure out how to make them cheat-resistant", doesn't solve this problem. It might be possible to make it ridiculously hard to manipulate the measurements, but I'm sure that eventually someone will come up with a manipulated BOINC client or find out how the measured numbers are transferred to the server.
Therefore, I'd suggest disentangling the "competitive" and the "scientific" credit systems:
- Measure FLOPS, memory usage, disk usage, network usage, whatever you like, on per-host level. The results might be shown on the host details page (like it is already the case for some information, e.g. hostname, on_frac, active_frac). Compute the total numbers on project level and show them on the server status or the home page. Don't create any leader boards with it and don't export per-user or per-team data to keep the incentive for cheaters as low as possible.
- For competitive reasons, keep track of something that is close to what the CreditGeneralized proposal calls "Project-defined credit". Leave it entirely to the projects in which way they want to grant credits. For most projects, this would likely be just what they already do. For new projects, make it as easy as possible for the administrators to implement their own system. As a starting point, the most easy credit system you can think of (i.e., just counting valid workunits, which is of course unfair in case of workunits with variable lengths... but, to be honest, the current CreditNew "system" also works best for fixed-length workunits) might be set as a standard until the administrators implement something they like better.
Of course, this approach only bypasses the first of the "undesirable consequences" mentioned in the CreditGeneralized proposal (i.e., "Credit no longer measures FLOPs", which is not a problem any more because FLOPs can be derived from the separated FLOPS measurements instead).
It fixes neither "The [BOINC-wide] competitive balance between volunteers is lost." nor "The competitive balance between projects is lost.". But I think that these goals are unreachable anyway (hard enough to find fair solutions for multiple subprojects of the same project) and they're not even too problematic:
- Obviously no problem for single-project competitions. If you are crunching project A instead of project B because you get "more credit" on A, you simply don't get any credit on B and won't win any competition there.
- It is already proven that multi-project competitions that work nicely without "cross-project parity" are possible (DC Vault, Formula BOINC, BOINC Pentathlon). More traditional third-party long-term stats may apply any normalization they like, normalization doesn't need to be done by the projects. Of course, they're also free to continue showing meaningless sums (the sum is just like giving 'three fruit' to someone... he won't know if he will be full after eating them before he learns if it's three strawberries or one melon and two oranges).
- In real life, there are similar problems for which you can find arbitrarily many 'fair' solutions depending on the point of view. Should the football player really earn lots of money because he can do his job for a shorter period of time and has a higher injury risk than the old people's nurse? Life still goes on.
Finally, my suggestion doesn't attack the problem that the "Project-defined credit" might be cheatable. But as it leaves the credit system up to the individual projects, there's neither a general solution nor should that topic be discussed here. However, my suggested as-simple-as-possible standard system is at least resistant to manipulation of benchmarks or computing time. I think there are at least two expectations on what a credit system should do:First, of course, users should be able to compare themselves with each other. Without some numbers reflecting the work they have done, there would be no competition, no challenges or races, no funny badges, etc., i.e. less incentive for many users.Second, from a more scientific point of view, it would be nice to have some project-wide and even BOINC-wide numbers reflecting the performance in FLOPS, bandwidth, etc. Publications could easily compare the project's performance with supercomputers and if someone asks about the total performance of the BOINC network, we would have a real answer instead of a rough estimate.Obviously, to match the second expectation, more quantities have to be measured, just like the CreditGeneralized proposal suggests. To match the first expectation, however, the credit system should follow the KISS principle. The CreditGeneralized proposal definitely isn't KISS and opens new cans of worms:- If only FLOPs are counted, how to deal with applications doing mostly integer arithmetics? Should they just grant less credit in this category or should we (again) count some FLOP equivalent unit rather than actual operations on application level? Of course, if we wanted to count actual operations, all applications would have to be modified, which certainly is not going to happen.- Regarding storage usage: Some projects need lots of disk space just to store some data that is not used all the time, while there are also applications that do many read and write operations. What exactly would we want to measure? Why? How?- Regarding network usage: How to stop a funny guy reattaching to Rosetta@home after every finished workunit, just to have their huge database file downloaded every time again in order to get as many network credit as possible? Just don't count sticky files? If yes, why?- Any number measured on the client side might be cheated. Just saying, "We'll figure out how to make them cheat-resistant", doesn't solve this problem. It might be possible to make it ridiculously hard to manipulate the measurements, but I'm sure that eventually someone will come up with a manipulated BOINC client or find out how the measured numbers are transferred to the server.Therefore, I'd suggest disentangling the "competitive" and the "scientific" credit systems:- Measure FLOPS, memory usage, disk usage, network usage, whatever you like, on per-host level. The results might be shown on the host details page (like it is already the case for some information, e.g. hostname, on_frac, active_frac). Compute the total numbers on project level and show them on the server status or the home page. Don't create any leader boards with it and don't export per-user or per-team data to keep the incentive for cheaters as low as possible.- For competitive reasons, keep track of something that is close to what the CreditGeneralized proposal calls "Project-defined credit". Leave it entirely to the projects in which way they want to grant credits. For most projects, this would likely be just what they already do. For new projects, make it as easy as possible for the administrators to implement their own system. As a starting point, the most easy credit system you can think of (i.e., just counting valid workunits, which is of course unfair in case of workunits with variable lengths... but, to be honest, the current CreditNew "system" also works best for fixed-length workunits) might be set as a standard until the administrators implement something they like better.Of course, this approach only bypasses the first of the "undesirable consequences" mentioned in the CreditGeneralized proposal (i.e., "Credit no longer measures FLOPs", which is not a problem any more because FLOPs can be derived from the separated FLOPS measurements instead).It fixes neither "The [BOINC-wide] competitive balance between volunteers is lost." nor "The competitive balance between projects is lost.". But I think that these goals are unreachable anyway (hard enough to find fair solutions for multiple subprojects of the same project) and they're not even too problematic:- Obviously no problem for single-project competitions. If you are crunching project A instead of project B because you get "more credit" on A, you simply don't get any credit on B and won't win any competition there.- It is already proven that multi-project competitions that work nicely without "cross-project parity" are possible (DC Vault, Formula BOINC, BOINC Pentathlon). More traditional third-party long-term stats may apply any normalization they like, normalization doesn't need to be done by the projects. Of course, they're also free to continue showing meaningless sums (the sum is just like giving 'three fruit' to someone... he won't know if he will be full after eating them before he learns if it's three strawberries or one melon and two oranges).- In real life, there are similar problems for which you can find arbitrarily many 'fair' solutions depending on the point of view. Should the football player really earn lots of money because he can do his job for a shorter period of time and has a higher injury risk than the old people's nurse? Life still goes on.Finally, my suggestion doesn't attack the problem that the "Project-defined credit" might be cheatable. But as it leaves the credit system up to the individual projects, there's neither a general solution nor should that topic be discussed here. However, my suggested as-simple-as-possible standard system is at least resistant to manipulation of benchmarks or computing time. ID: 69039 ·
pschoefer
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Joined: 5 Aug 06Posts: 52 Message 69040 - Posted: 18 Apr 2016, 15:15:14 UTC - in response to Message 68992.
Last modified: 18 Apr 2016, 15:16:20 UTC I think he brings it up because "cheating" can impact Gridcoin payouts. So, there is a financial and stability issue with their cryptocurrency payout system that they are probably hoping to fix. But, I have not read up on it much as I don't care about cryptos all that much.
Indeed, the main reasons for pursuing the discussion/development of the 3rd gen credit system are the following:
1. Cheating the BOINC credit system allows users to earn Gridcoin fraudulently - this undermines the integrity of Gridcoin's Distributed Proof of Research reward mechanism.
2. I'm campaigning for the removal of the team 'gridcoin' membership requirement in the gridcoin system in order for all BOINC users to earn Gridcoin, not just one team. Due to the recent discovery of cheaters within and outwidth team Gridcoin, the team membership requirement has temporarily been deemed a neccessary evil in order for team founders to kick discovered cheaters from team gridcoin (cutting off cheaters from earning gridcoin fraudulently).
3. Despite team founders being able to kick users from the team, it's difficult to prove cheating (especially when users hide their hosts). This places team founder users in a difficult centralized position of power.
To be honest, I don't know too many details of how Gridcoin works and my interest in it is not strong enough that I'd want to do much research on it. But as I might just not see the obvious, I'd like to know where exactly you see that team membership requirement being necessary to hold off cheaters from getting Gridcoins.
What happens with a user's Gridcoins if he leaves or is kicked from team Gridcoin? Does he lose them? Does he keep them but can't use them for anything anymore? If he keeps them and still can use them, the "damage" has already been done at the time the user is kicked.
Additionally, AFAIK, there's no way to prohibit a kicked team member joining the team again (it can only be closed for all not-members). Even if there was a way, the cheater might just create a new account.
If cheating gets unmanageable, removing individual affected projects from the whitelist (ending distribution of gridcoin for work completed for a project) is a highly likely outcome.
Well, although the Gridcoin homepage says "The BOINC RAC system has existed for many years and has proven uncheatable.", it just hasn't. I've been BOINCing for more than ten years and I've seen more or less massive cheating going on all the time. Over the years, almost all projects were affected. Faked benchmarks on projects using the first, benchmark-based credit system, and the CreditNew lottery in recent days were only the tip of the iceberg. In at least one case, even the scientific results were compromised... and back then, there were only credits and badges, Gridcoins might be an additional incentive for some.
Why don't you remove the projects from the whitelist before the damage is done, i.e. removing all projects where cheating occured?
Somehow a picture crosses my mind that the people behind Gridcoin try to build an additional floor onto a house (BOINC), but while they know a lot about their building materials (cryptocurrencies), they don't yet understand the statics and the architecture of the house. To be honest, I don't know too many details of how Gridcoin works and my interest in it is not strong enough that I'd want to do much research on it. But as I might just not see the obvious, I'd like to know where exactly you see that team membership requirement being necessary to hold off cheaters from getting Gridcoins.What happens with a user's Gridcoins if he leaves or is kicked from team Gridcoin? Does he lose them? Does he keep them but can't use them for anything anymore? If he keeps them and still can use them, the "damage" has already been done at the time the user is kicked.Additionally, AFAIK, there's no way to prohibit a kicked team member joining the team again (it can only be closed for all not-members). Even if there was a way, the cheater might just create a new account.Well, although the Gridcoin homepage says "The BOINC RAC system has existed for many years and has proven uncheatable.", it just hasn't. I've been BOINCing for more than ten years and I've seen more or less massive cheating going on all the time. Over the years, almost all projects were affected. Faked benchmarks on projects using the first, benchmark-based credit system, and the CreditNew lottery in recent days were only the tip of the iceberg. In at least one case, even the scientific results were compromised... and back then, there were only credits and badges, Gridcoins might be an additional incentive for some.Why don't you remove the projects from the whitelistthe damage is done, i.e. removing all projects where cheating occured?Somehow a picture crosses my mind that the people behind Gridcoin try to build an additional floor onto a house (BOINC), but while they know a lot about their building materials (cryptocurrencies), they don't yet understand the statics and the architecture of the house. ID: 69040 ·
CM
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Joined: 13 Aug 15Posts: 63 Message 69059 - Posted: 18 Apr 2016, 23:57:34 UTC - in response to Message 69040. I think he brings it up because "cheating" can impact Gridcoin payouts. So, there is a financial and stability issue with their cryptocurrency payout system that they are probably hoping to fix. But, I have not read up on it much as I don't care about cryptos all that much.
Indeed, the main reasons for pursuing the discussion/development of the 3rd gen credit system are the following:
1. Cheating the BOINC credit system allows users to earn Gridcoin fraudulently - this undermines the integrity of Gridcoin's Distributed Proof of Research reward mechanism.
2. I'm campaigning for the removal of the team 'gridcoin' membership requirement in the gridcoin system in order for all BOINC users to earn Gridcoin, not just one team. Due to the recent discovery of cheaters within and outwidth team Gridcoin, the team membership requirement has temporarily been deemed a neccessary evil in order for team founders to kick discovered cheaters from team gridcoin (cutting off cheaters from earning gridcoin fraudulently).
3. Despite team founders being able to kick users from the team, it's difficult to prove cheating (especially when users hide their hosts). This places team founder users in a difficult centralized position of power.
To be honest, I don't know too many details of how Gridcoin works and my interest in it is not strong enough that I'd want to do much research on it. But as I might just not see the obvious, I'd like to know where exactly you see that team membership requirement being necessary to hold off cheaters from getting Gridcoins.
What happens with a user's Gridcoins if he leaves or is kicked from team Gridcoin? Does he lose them? Does he keep them but can't use them for anything anymore? If he keeps them and still can use them, the "damage" has already been done at the time the user is kicked.
Additionally, AFAIK, there's no way to prohibit a kicked team member joining the team again (it can only be closed for all not-members). Even if there was a way, the cheater might just create a new account.
The justification for holding onto the team membership requirement is purely for the ability to kick cheating users from the team.
What happens when an user is kicked from the team is that the Gridcoin client will detect they're no longer in the team & stop rewarding their CPID for the affected project. They would not lose previously fraudulently generated gridcoins that are held in their balance, so yes the damage is done (effectively cheating legit users out of their earnings).
You're right, there's no permanent ban option available; users can rejoin the team with their current CPID (to which we could kick them) or could create a new BOINC account to evade detection.
When an user's CPID is detected as invalid due to leaving the team, it'll be 24hrs before the next superblock can register their returned presence in the team, so if a cheater doesn't notice they may be prevented from earning rewards for days.
If cheating gets unmanageable, removing individual affected projects from the whitelist (ending distribution of gridcoin for work completed for a project) is a highly likely outcome.
Well, although the Gridcoin homepage says "The BOINC RAC system has existed for many years and has proven uncheatable.", it just hasn't. I've been BOINCing for more than ten years and I've seen more or less massive cheating going on all the time. Over the years, almost all projects were affected. Faked benchmarks on projects using |
pushed back, warning that expanding the electronics ban to Europe would result in higher costs and new security threats.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said this week that such an expansion would cost passengers $1.1 billion a year due to longer travel times and lost productivity. The IATA also said the measure would mark a dramatic expansion of the ban currently in place, impacting an estimated 390 flights a day. The current ban affects 350 flights a week, the IATA said.
In a letter to the US Department of Homeland Security and the European Commission, IATA Director General Alexandre de Juniac called on officials to explore “alternative measures,” including better bomb detection technology and behavioral screening. De Juniac also said that storing electronics in a plane’s cargo area could increase the risk of lithium-ion batteries catching fire, as reported by Reuters.
A joint statement from the European Commission and the Department of Homeland Security said officials will meet again next week in Washington, DC “to further assess shared risks and solutions for protecting airline passengers, whilst ensuring the smooth functioning of global air travel.”Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats party faced a drubbing in local elections across Germany on Sunday, where voters turned to the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in droves.
The chancellor's party, which has been the leading government coalition voice for the last decade, lost seats in all three regional elections in what is being viewed as a rebuke over Germany's 'open door' policy for Syrian refugees, widely criticised by right wingers.
News outlets around the world have been reporting Merkel's setback - but a quote from AfD party leader in Saxony-Anhalt, Andre Poggenburg, is grabbing everyone's attention for the wrong reasons.
In a victory speech, Poggenburg said the results had been an "amazing evening":
We fought like lions for your land... [Angela Merkel is] the worst chancellor in the history of Germany.
Which is, umm, one way of putting it.
...but unfortunately, the nuance is not really coming across on social media.A Commonwealth Court ruling issued Wednesday gives a former police officer who was sent to prison on a child-sex conviction a chance to try to save his publicly-paid pension.
A panel of the state court found that Philadelphia's Board of Pensions didn't give ex-cop Tyrone Wiggins an adequate chance to challenge its decision to deny him a pension. So it sent the case back to the city board for further consideration.
That board voted to pull Wiggins' pension after he was found guilty of molesting a girl who was a student of a karate class he taught while off-duty. Investigators said the sexual encounters began in 1997, when the girl was 12, and continued for more than eight years until the victim reported the abuse.
Wiggins, now 55, is serving a 17 1/2- to 35-year sentence in the state prison at Mahanoy on his convictions for multiple sex crimes. He denied the sex abuse claims.
The decorated 23-year veteran resigned from the city police in November 2009 and began collecting a $3,005-a-month pension immediately before being arrested in the child-sex case. He was convicted a year later, and in November 2011 the pension board notified him it was cutting off his benefits.
The problem, Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt wrote in the Commonwealth Court ruling, is that the pension board notice didn't give Wiggins enough information to allow him to challenge the pension-pulling decision. That violated Wiggins' right to due process of law, she wrote.
Wiggins also argued in his appeal to the state court that he remains eligible for a city pension because the crimes of which he was convicted are not listed in Philadelphia's pension statute as grounds for denying pension benefits.
He contends as well that a reason the pension board belatedly put forth for the pension denial, that he had committed "malfeasance in office and employment," is invalid because his supposed sex crimes did not involve his job as a cop.
Levitt wrote that Wiggins, who joined the Philly police force in 1986, first had sex with the girl in early 1997. He took the girl and her brother to the 39th District Police Headquarters, where he was stationed, told the boy to use the weight room, then drove the girl to Fairmont Park where they had a sexual encounter, the judge wrote.
In subsequent years, Wiggins had sex with the girl at his home, in his van and at her home and in hotel rooms. At times, the two got into physical altercations, but when police arrived, Wiggins would flash his badge and avoid an investigation, Levitt wrote.
When she became an adult, Wiggins first tried to get the victim a job with the city police, then undermined her employment bid when she tried to end their relationship. She finally told authorities about the sexual abuse in 2006 after Wiggins choked her outside a hospital where she was working as a security guard, according to court filings.
On the pension dispute, Leavitt noted that neither the state's nor the city's pension statutes specifically list Wiggins' conviction among the crimes that automatically require benefit forfeitures. The crimes that trigger forfeitures under those regulations include such offenses as theft, bribery, forgery, perjury and tampering with public records, she observed.
She cited a section of Philly's pension law that allows for pension forfeitures for convictions that require sex offender registration, but only if those crimes occurred in connection with the person's public employment.
"It is true that Wiggins' convictions are undisputed," Leavitt wrote. "However, what is lacking is a factual record that connects Wiggins' criminal conduct to'malfeasance in office or employment'."
In sending the dispute back to the pension board, Leavitt said that panel must inform Wiggins of the charges against him and the sections of law it is citing, and specify what conduct he supposedly engaged in during the course of his city employment that merits a pension denial.Juan Foyth is not a mythical creature, linked with Tottenham Hotspur for much of the summer only to disappear and never be heard of again.
The 19 year old is an excellent young central defender who is now so close to signing for Spurs that he’s been happy to confirm it himself.
Naturally, Foyth has spoken to Argentine newspaper El Dia, who have by far been the best informed on the chase, leading from beginning to end.
Under a headline saying “I chose Tottenham because they bet on the young”, there’s a series of quotes from Foyth which will please Spurs fans and bring some Bank Holiday cheer after a disappointing draw with Burnley.
Embed from Getty Images
The young defender explained: “It’s a club that bets on the young and I think I’m going to have a chance to play. I also spoke with Mauricio Pochettino and I liked what he said. It’s what helped me decide that Tottenham was the right place to continue my career.
“He told me to go, train and that I would be involved and I would play. He also told me what the club is like.”
Tottenham’s recent Champions League draw is also welcomed, with Foyth relishing the tough matches: “It’s a beautiful. Those teams are very nice to play, but at first, I think about being able to settle there fast and catch up.”
Underlining his level, Foyth was recently called in for a meeting by Jorge Sampaoli, who considers the player on the edge of the Argentina squad. That will be something Foyth obviously wants to chase down whilst with Spurs: “The greatest dream of every footballer is to play in the Argentine national team. But I don’t want to think about that now, but to settle at Tottenham.”Last year, Floridans enacted a voter registration law severely limiting the ability of third parties, like the League of Women Voters, to do the essential function of helping people register to vote. You might remember the case of Jill Cicciarelli, a high school teacher who ran afoul of the law when she started a voter registration drive to pre-register her students who would be eligible to vote by the election.
The law that Cicciarelli came up against, and the fact that the state considered pursuing her for helping students register, has had a severe chilling effect on voter registration in the state. Which is precisely what the Republican-controlled government intended.
The state’s new elections law — which requires groups that register voters to turn in completed forms within 48 hours or risk fines, among other things — has led the state’s League of Women Voters to halt its efforts this year. Rock the Vote, a national organization that encourages young people to vote, began an effort last week to register high school students around the nation — but not in Florida, over fears that teachers could face fines. And on college campuses, the once-ubiquitous folding tables piled high with voter registration forms are now a rarer sight. Florida, which reminded the nation of the importance of every vote in the disputed presidential election in 2000 when it reported that George W. Bush had won by 537 votes, is now seeing a significant drop-off in new voter registrations. In the months since its new law took effect in July, 81,471 fewer Floridians have registered to vote than during the same period before the 2008 presidential election, according to an analysis of registration data by The New York Times. [...] [N]ew registrations dropped sharply in some areas where the voting-age population has been growing, the analysis found, including Miami-Dade County, where they fell by 39 percent, and Orange County, where they fell by a little more than a fifth. Some local elections officials said that the lack of registration drives by outside groups has been a factor in the decline.
One county, Volusia, reported that registrations had dropped by a fifth, largely because the League of Women Voters had ceased registration drives, as had the five universities in the county. The law seems to be hitting precisely the population that Republicans want to keep out of the polls: new, young voters.
And, of course, minorities. This story relates the experience of Sabu L. Williams, the president of the Okaloosa County Branch of the N.A.A.C.P., who registered two voters and got a threatening letter from Secretary of State Kurt S. Browning for not getting his forms in within the prescribed 48 hours. The letter went on to say that "any future violation of the third-party voter registration law may result in my referral of the matter to the attorney general for an enforcement action." It's good to know Florida's coffers are so flush that Browning can take the time and resources to send intimidating letters over two errant registrations.
The League of Women Voters of Florida, Rock the Vote, and the Florida Public Interest Research Group Education Fund, filed suit against the law in December, attempting to block it. But pending the outcome of that case, groups are ceasing their efforts.
For more of the week's news, make the jump below the fold.Hello! Long time no see!
It’s been a busy period and I have lots of news to share. First of all, I decided to have a look on the Mozilla Add-on SDK. It has a very simple API to create Add-ons for Firefox.
Anyway, I tried to come up with an idea of what would be my first Add-on. Hmmm…An Add-on that can make my web experience less annoying. Considering that I spend half of my time on YouTube to listen to songs (mostly), view videos etc, as a Linux user, I get really annoyed when the Flash plug-in crashes and I have to restart Firefox. You can always visit youtube.com/html5 to change that but what if you delete your cookies? It’s a boring procedure.
So, what I thought was to make an Add-on that would simply add the “html5=1” parameter on the URL. And I did it…well, kind of, it’s now an experimental Add-on for Firefox. I need to add some more features for it to be considered as a proper Add-on. It’s called “YouTube HTML5 Switch” and here it is at the Mozilla Add-ons website, and here is the source code on Github.
I currently develop the Add-on at the Add-on Builder (that means online). I will eventually download the SDK and try it on Fedora 🙂 It’s not the smartest Add-on in the world, but I think it’s a good start for a newbie. By the way I need to say that the SDK’s documentation is not very helpful and I needed to google a lot to write down a few lines of code. Anyway, in every “major” release I will be posting here any changes etc. You can also read the README.md on Github.
What’s more? Wonky Doll and the Echo (the band where I play) are supporting I Like Trains here in Athens on December 15, 2012. You can check our Bandcamp page and listen to our songs. Now, if you have installed the Add-on you can test it with these video…if you go on YouTube of course 🙂
Some videos like this for instance don’t have an HTML5 player so the plugin will not be of any use here.
Other videos though, do have have an HTML5 version and the plugin will work!Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Golden Spike Chairman Gerry Griffin: "The moon is of interest to the scientific community... and the commercial development of space"
A team of former Nasa executives has launched a private venture to send two people to the Moon for $1.4bn (£871m).
Golden Spike Company says it will use existing rocket and capsule technology, and will aim for a first launch before the end of the decade.
The firm is one of many new private firms hoping to follow the success of Space X, which has ferried cargo to the International Space Station (ISS).
The US became the first and only country to reach the Moon in the 1960s.
But costs and waning interest have prevented any other lunar mission. US President Barack Obama cancelled a planned Nasa return to the moon, saying the US had already been there.
Golden Spike, run by former Nasa associate administrator Alan Stern, says it is looking into offering voyages to the governments of other countries - such as South Africa, South Korea and Japan - expecting interest for scientific research or national prestige.
"It's not about being first. It's about joining the club," he said on Wednesday. "We're kind of cleaning up what Nasa did in the 1960s. We're going to make a commodity of it in the 2020s."
Odds against
The firm says it expects to make about 15 to 20 launches in total.
Golden Spike is full of space veterans: the board chairman is Apollo-era flight director Gerry Griffin, who once headed the Johnson Space Center.
Advisors include former a space shuttle commander and manager, former UN Ambassador Bill Richardson, engineer-author Homer Hickam as well as Hollywood directors and former House Speaker and space policy enthusiast Newt Gingrich.
However, Harvard University astronomer Jonathan McDowell, who tracks launches worldwide, told the Associated Press that many of the new space firms will fail before anything is built.
"This is unlikely to be the one that will pan out," Mr McDowell said, citing Golden Spike's hefty price tag.Amazon Scores With Live-Streaming Rights For NFL "TNF" Package
Amazon will replace Twitter in live-streaming the NFL’s “Thursday Night Football.” The company will livestream the 10 “TNF” games carried by CBS and NBC as part of a one-year deal that the league announced late Tuesday. Amazon paid $50M for the rights, substantially more than the $10M that Twitter paid for “TNF” streaming rights last season. Amazon beat out Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for the rights, and the deal marks the biggest win for Jim DeLorenzo since he joined Amazon last March to head up the company’s sports division and pick up live sports rights. Amazon has wanted to put sports rights on its Amazon Prime video service, and the NFL deal will allow the company to do that, essentially putting the streams behind a paywall where they will only be available to Amazon Prime subscribers. The NFL already has an existing deal with Amazon for the series “All or Nothing,” which is produced by NFL Films. The NFL wanted to finalize a deal in the spring to give Amazon a chance to sell advertising around it. Amazon’s deal ends Twitter’s one-year run with the league. Both Twitter and NFL executives say they were happy with the streams, which averaged 265,000 viewers on an average minute basis during the season. Twitter was especially happy that the deal allowed it to increase its distribution on connected TVs, while the NFL liked Twitter’s young (70% were under 24 years) and international (25% were from outside the U.S.) audience. But it’s clear that while the NFL was happy with Twitter’s reach, the move to Amazon is largely driven by allowing more digital companies to sample its popular content in the run up to 2021 when its media deals start to expire. When it comes to digital deals like Twitter (2016) and Yahoo (2015), the NFL has opted for shorter deals across multiple platforms as a way to understanding the fast-changing, digital media environment.In late August Kinsella was shown the door, if not pushed through it, after commenting that John Tory's transit plans wouldn't serve Toronto's priority neighbourhoods, which are de facto concentrations of visible minorities and poverty. “Is John Tory's SmartTrack, you know, Segregationist Track?” asked Kinsella, who quickly retracted and apologized. Perhaps in part because many Torontonians realized the accuracy of Kinsella's accusation, Tory has since amended his transit plan to unequivocally (as of publication time) include the already planned Sheppard and Finch LRTs, which would serve the neighbourhoods in question.
IIt's a shame that Kinsella made the accusation too ineptly for the Chow camp to exploit it. A real debate about the role of the City-as-government in making the city-as-place more welcoming and affordable for minorities is dearly needed. Moreover, Toronto's political left needs to acknowledge its role in building an increasingly exclusive, unaffordable city just as much as the right.
The facts are distressingly familiar: Toronto is increasingly stratified by income, race and class. We've known this at least since the Three Cities report in 2010. It's happening in a lot of places that fancy themselves “global cities,” including New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
The problem is well known and relatively well understood. The poor and working class are increasingly pushed to the economic and physical periphery of our cities while wealth floods back into newly desirable downtowns. Anyone who remembers what Kensington Market was like 15 years ago knows how dramatic this change can be. The harder question is what to do about it, because all the tools of your standard, 21st-century municipal government are designed to make it worse.
Building high-capacity transit into poor neighbourhoods may simply gentrify the poor out of them—unless we make high-capacity transit so abundant that easy access isn't a luxury. Affordable housing is an excellent idea and we need more of it, but don't kid yourself: municipal governments like building affordable housing in theory but are often unwilling to do so in practice. In Ottawa, a recently restored development charge for affordable housing was suspended because council was letting the money build up in the city's accounts without actually spending it. The City of Toronto has seen major cuts from the provincial and federal governments, which is a legitimate shame, but hasn't used its own levers to make up the difference either. There are plenty of political obstacles to actually spending money on social housing: housing money competes against other priorities like balanced budgets; developers and landlords can be leery of government interference; and cities are sometimes faced with the Hobson's choice of either making housing affordable or fighting homelessness (related, but not identical problems).
We get closer to the answer when we talk about “Inclusionary Zoning.” An increasingly popular measure on the left, IZ lets cities require that a certain number of units within a large development be affordable housing for low-income people, sometimes even artists. (NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo has repeatedly proposed expanding Ontario's planning law in this way, to no avail.) Here too, much good can be done but we often run aground on details. Witness the controversy around “poor doors” in New York, where the residents lucky enough to make it into affordable housing are given separate entrances from the people paying market rent. A development in Toronto's been accused of having a similar entrance. In at least one redevelopment, low-income residents requested separate entrances—to screw with our outrage, obviously.
However, municipal politicians of all stripes are loath to admit what the IZ concept implies: that the traditional urban planning, which makes up the bulk of city halls' work, is designed to be exclusionary in the literal sense. Right now, planning means keeping certain people away from certain places.
We dress that up in a number of ways, by fretting about “neighbourhood character” or “overdevelopment”, but the reality is that our planning laws function as tools for people who already own homes, as weapons against everyone who doesn't.
There's an interesting case in Thornhill, where a builder wants to develop shops and condo towers around an existing community centre marketed towards Muslims. The locals in the predominantly Jewish neighbourhood are vehemently opposed. Even if you assume there's no sectarian angle here (and for the record, the locals say their problem is density and overbuilding, not the faith of their prospective neighbours) there's a basic question of whose rights are paramount: the incumbent property owners, or a rapidly growing community which owns a parcel of land they'd like to have homes and shops on.
Should the would-be developers have to go elsewhere to spare their would-be neighbours the irritation? At least as importantly, where should they go? The GTA's greenbelt contains sprawl, thankfully, but also increases competition for the land within its bounds. The 21st century is going to be one of growing acrimony over already-settled urban space, instead of the 20th-century sprawl that was environmentally destructive but politically easy.
Multiply these decisions by thousands per year, and the segregation and stratification of our cities starts to seem less like a policy mystery and more like the obvious outcome of our preferences. Councillors and activists on both the left and right enjoy the catharsis of railing against greedy developers, and don't trouble themselves with the collateral damage of people who, unable to find single-family homes they can afford in an area they like, make do with higher prices and fewer choices.
The solutions aren't obvious, but most of them start with cities getting over their love of urban taxidermy and building more, and none of them start with freezing development, as seductive as that is to some. Not one of the US's expensive metros got that way because it built a lot of housing. Building more is also good for minorities. In the US, cities where building is easy tend to be less racially segregated. We can see this in the GTA, where cities that grew rapidly during particular waves of immigration have been reshaped by them (e.g. Brampton and South Asians, Markham and the Chinese). In New York, the Satmar Jewish community has managed to develop a ton of affordable housing because they're politically savvy enough to get the city to clear out the thicket of regulations.
One common objection to development is that fast-growing US cities may not be as racially segregated, but they can be segregated by wealth. However, the Pew Research survey that foundHouston to be the most wealth-segregated city didn't attribute the income inequality to growth. Given that income inequality is increasing in both fast- and slow-growing cities, that would be a hard case to make. And if you find income segregation distasteful in your city, consider that for many minorities, the alternative offered by slow-growing cities isn't the diverse neighbourhoods of a Jane Jacobs fairy tale: it's the impossibility of actually moving out of bad neighbourhoods. This American Life has the essay-length treatment of this, or you can listen to Chris Rock.
Growth doesn't need to mean the Manhattanization of Toronto (though I'm basically ambivalent about the height of buildings.) We could accomplish a lot by allowing streets of bungalows and detached homes to be rezoned for three-storey townhouses. And If you look around this city, you'll find plenty of old streets where three- and four-storey apartment buildings have long since become urban wallpaper—though they were thought to herald the end of the world back when the building permits were issued. As a bonus, building more affordable family-sized homes across the city instead of in a handful of condo clusters would help preserve Toronto's public schools.
For advanced credit, we could look at solutions like Germany's baugruppen, where in some cases as few as a dozen families have financed their own modest-but-dense developments with the help of decent, imaginative, progressive public policy.
Building more housing won't solve all the ills faced by the disenfranchised urban minorities, not by a long shot. It has nothing to say about racist policing or the shrinking middle class. But current policies are making thing worse than they need to and are justified with claims that don't stand up to evidence. We need to dismiss any argument that says we can have our cake and eat it, too: preserving the city in amber results in exactly the stratification we've seen. The point isn't to drop highrises everywhere, but to recognize that the status quo is unsustainable. The first step to building a city where we welcome anyone is to make room for everyone.Norman Reedus really doesn’t want his popular The Walking Dead character, Daryl Dixon, to turn out to be gay.
At least, this is what the November 3 issue of the highly esteemed Globe magazine is claiming. According to Celeb Dirty Laundry, insiders have revealed that Norman Reedus is begging producers not to make Daryl the first openly gay male character on The Walking Dead. Reedus is allegedly afraid that his female fans might riot if Dixon turns out to be turned on by the same sex.
“Insiders say he fears the same-sex shocker would hurt ratings by disappointing his legions of female fans. Norman isn’t anti-gay in his personal life, but he’s become one of the biggest male sex symbols in television. He gets thousands of fan letters from women each week – along with dozens of marriage proposals.”
Norman Reedus’ very loyal legions of female fans have given themselves names like Dixon’s Vixens and Norman’s Nymphos. Then there are The Walking Dead shippers who have turned Daryl Dixon into a regular Bella Swan by creating Team Caryl and Team Bethyl. Some fans think Daryl has feelings for Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride) and others believe he’s fallen in love with Beth Greene (Emily Kinney). However, the producers of The Walking Dead are allegedly determined to throw a curve ball at fans by making Daryl Dixon gay.
Some of Norman Reedus’ past comments don’t match up with the GLOBE report. As The Inquisitr previously reported, The Walking Dead star revealed that he’s open to whatever the writers decide to do with Daryl’s love life. He just wants to “play the awkwardness up as much as possible.”
During his interview with GQ, Reedus actually said that he’d love it if Dixon turned out to be “prison gay.” Norman also revealed that the idea to make Daryl attracted to men has been floated around since the first season of The Walking Dead.
“I remember Frank Darabont, after the first season we were at a party in L.A., He said, ‘I’ve got an idea for Daryl. He’s gay. Would you be interested in that?’ I was like, ‘Let me hear you out.’ He said, ‘Well, he’s prison gay—like, you’ll catch him looking at a member of the same sex, but if you mention it to him, he’ll just stab you and be like what the f**k?—he will never admit it.’ I was like, ‘That’ll blow minds—let’s do that.’ And he said, ‘I knew I hired you for a reason.'”
If The Walking Dead writers really want to blow minds, why not make Daryl Dixon bisexual? It would be a way to please the Caryl and Bethyl fans while still keeping the option open to show Daryl falling in love with another man.
Unfortunately, Scott M. Gimple has already stated that Daryl’s sexuality won’t be explored during this season of the show. Gimple told TV Line that The Walking Dead will introduce a gay character sometime in the future, but he wouldn’t say if Daryl Dixon will also turn out to be gay. Gimple points out that Dixon “is a very guarded, very closed-off individual,” so it makes sense that fans haven’t seen him express any romantic feelings for anyone. There’s also the possibility that Norman Reedus’ character could be a virgin—maybe even a gay virgin.
Update: Daryl himself, Norman Reedus, tweeted in response, saying the Globe rumor was… well, you get it.
This is total bs by the way http://t.co/7hiScbUeSh — norman reedus (@wwwbigbaldhead) October 27, 2014
[Image credit: Gene Page/AMC]'Antifreeze' chemicals found on Mars could indicate signs of life
An 'antifreeze' chemical found in soil on Mars could allow pockets of life-sustaining liquid water to exist on the planet, say scientists.
Last year, Nasa's Phoenix lander made the surprise discovery of perchlorates in the Martian soil.
The chemicals, containing chlorine and oxygen, are relatively rare on Earth but abundant on Mars. They made up 1 per cent of the soil samples tested by the Nasa probe.
Scientists believe an 'antifreeze' chemical found in Martian soil could help sustain life there
Perchlorates act as an antifreeze, allowing water to remain liquid below 0C.
Scientists now believe this could have profound implications on Mars, making the existence of liquid water - and possibly life - much more likely.
Water containing certain types of dissolved perchlorates can remain liquid at temperatures of -37C.
That would allow pockets of liquid water to lie just below the Martian surface, say scientists. There is even a possibility of water sometimes flowing above ground.
An artist's rendition showing the Phoenix lander on Mars
Phoenix team member Dr Nilton Renno, from the University of Michigan, told New Scientist magazine: 'It's possible to have (liquid) almost everywhere where there is ice and the temperature goes above this threshold value - that's most of Mars.'
The discovery could explain recently formed gullies on Martian slopes that look much like water-carved features on Earth.
Perchlorate-laced water may also accumulate under glaciers and help them slide around. There are indications that very cold and stiff glaciers on the northern Martian ice cap have been moving.
Dr Renno believes perchlorate-rich water droplets might even explain mysterious bumps on Phoenix's landing legs that appeared to flow and merge.
Other scientists think they are probably bumps of ice with changing light giving the illusion of liquid-like behaviour.
Martian microbes could feed off perchlorates, as some Earth organisms do, the researchers believe.
New Scientist said highly concentrated perchlorate solutions would be unlikely to support life, 'but milder solutions could allow liquid and thus life to exist'.For Immediate Release
Contact: Senator Karen S. Johnson (602-926-3160)
Senator Karen Johnson Blasts Congress for Failure to Defend U.S.
In a formal Floor speech in the Arizona Senate tomorrow (Tuesday, June 10), Senator Karen S. Johnson plans to blast Congress for their failure to defend U.S. citizens who were killed on September 11, 2001, and their failure to properly investigate those attacks.
“It has been nearly seven years,” says Johnson, “and we are faced with new evidence that turns the conclusions of the 9/11 Commission upside down. We are fighting a war because of 9/11 – and we still don’t really know what happened. We have spent billions of dollars on the war, with an additional $340 million per day. Thousands of U.S. servicemen and women have lost their lives, not to mention the lives of innocent Iraqi and Afghan civilians.”
Johnson revealed in a committee hearing in April that she did not accept the official report of the 9/11 Commission and has since defended supporters calling for a new independent investigation of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. “Ground Zero was treated like little more than the site of a building demolition – which, of course, is exactly what it was,” says Johnson. “Everyone who has studied it recognizes that the Twin Towers and Building 7 came down as a result of controlled explosions – not because of the airplanes and fires.”
Johnson has joined forces with local 9/11 activists who for more than two weeks have been staging a protest outside the Phoenix office of presidential candidate U.S. Senator John McCain. One protestor, college professor Blair Gadsby of Scottsdale, began a hunger strike on May 26 to bring attention to the need for Congress to re-open the investigation into 9/11. Gadsby plans to fast until Senator McCain agrees to meet with experts who will present evidence that the WTC buildings came down through controlled demolition. Tomorrow will be Day 16 of the Hunger Strike. Senator Johnson has invited Gadsby to the Senate to listen to her Floor speech.
“The U.S. government is constantly interfering with states in matters that are none of its business,” said Johnson. “Yet when it comes to the one really significant job the Constitution assigns to the government -- defending our nation – the federal government failed miserably. Not only did they fail to put up any sort of a defense after the first plane struck the North Tower (Tower 1), but they failed to mobilize the air defense system, they failed to protect the President, who sat reading in a public school for 20 minutes while the attacks continued, and they failed to defend our most important military installation – the Pentagon. The public is sick to death of do-nothing politicians in Congress who forget what their job is the minute they arrive in Washington. Finding out what happened on 9/11 and bringing the perpetrators to justice is the job of Congress and the Executive branch. We need to know what happened to Building 7. We need to get answers to the many unanswered questions that still exist. We need an investigation – especially of the new evidence. It’s time for Congress and our President to act.”
END
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Matthew Crawford reflects on the political economy of attention in The World Beyond Your Head.
Photo: Angie Garrett
The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction
By Matthew B. Crawford
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $26 (Cloth)
Aristotle and Marx may not have agreed on much else, but they agreed on the purpose of life. Aristotle defined the highest happiness as "the pursuit of excellence to the height of one’s capacities in a life affording them full scope." For Marx, the mark of a rational, humane society is that free, creative labor has become “not only a means to life, but life’s prime want.” Not leisure, not entertainment, not consumption, but creative activity is what gives human beings their greatest satisfaction: so say both the sage of antiquity and the prophet of modernity.
How much creative activity does work life in the contemporary United States encourage or allow?
"Creative” is not a well-defined word, so no precise answer is possible. But it’s hardly controversial that the "de-skilling” of the workforce has been the goal of scientific management since the beginning of the industrial age, and is accelerating. In his invaluable Mindless: Why Smarter Machines Are Making Dumber Humans (2014), journalist Simon Head tracks the rapid spread of Computerized Business Systems (CBS): job-flow, business-process software designed to eliminate every vestige of initiative, judgment, and skill from the lives of workers and even middle managers. CBS, he writes, “are being used to marginalize employee knowledge and experience,” so that “employee autonomy is under siege from ever more intrusive forms of monitoring and control.” Head cites a 1995 report that “75–80 percent of America’s largest companies were engaged in Business Process Reengineering and would be increasing their commitment to it over the next few years,” and a 2001 estimate that 75 percent of all corporate investment in information technology that year went into CBS. They’re expensive, but they’re worth it: insecure, interchangeable workers mean lower labor costs.
The end result of de-skilling was foreseen nearly 250 years ago by one of capitalism’s earliest and most penetrating critics:
The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become. The torpor of his mind renders him not only incapable of relishing or bearing a part in any rational conversation, but of conceiving any generous, noble, or tender sentiment, and consequently of forming any just judgement concerning many even of the ordinary duties of private life.... But in every improved and civilized society this is the state into which the labouring poor, that is, the great body of the people, must necessarily fall, unless government takes some pains to prevent it. (Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations.)
Prescient though he was, Smith did not foresee the degree to which the state would become a largely-owned subsidiary of business, with no interest in preventing the stultification of “the great body of the people.”
In recent years de-skilling has been joined by omnidirectional saturation advertising in a pincer movement aimed at turning our non-work as well as our work lives into profit centers. Matthew Crawford’s brilliant and searching new work of social criticism begins with a familiar modern ordeal: boarding an airplane. Those plastic bins you put your shoes, wallet, and keys into? It dawned on some marketing genius that the insides of them could be plastered with ads. The tubes of lipstick advertised on the bottom of Crawford’s bin resembled flash drives, so he almost failed to retrieve the flash drive containing the lecture he was flying somewhere to give. Once past security, he looked for a quiet place to sit and think. Forget it—shops, huge ad posters, TVs, “the usual airport cacophony.” Virtually every inch of this public space made a claim on his attention for private commercial purposes. Except one: the business class lounge, the only place in the airport quiet enough to work, where the samurai of commerce sit devising the innovative marketing and business-process strategies that appropriate and direct the attention of the poor shlubs in the rest of the terminal.
De-skilling of the workforce has been joined by omnidirectional saturation advertising to turn our |
are then sent upwards to gather light for photosynthesis. It is this sideways growth of the stem that keeps grass growing even after being mowed. Leaves are usually attached to the stem in two rows, running along each side, except in many sedges. The triangular arrangement of the leaves in sedges is actually a very good character for recognizing them. This has given rise to the saying: Sedges have edges, and rushes are round,
But grasses have nodes from their tips to the ground. The edges are there because of the way the leaves meet each other along their edges, while the round rushes usually have one leaf sheathing the stem. Nodes are swollen regions of the stem, where leaves are attached, and can be felt by running your hand along the stem. Of course this saying assumes that you can recognize cattails, bur-reeds, and other Glumiflorae; it is the rushes, sedges, and grasses that are most easily confused. In the Glumiflorae, the leaf bases are wrapped tightly around the stem, often obscuring the stem completely as the leaves overlap. There may also be silica in the leaf epidermis making it feel rough, probably an adaptation to deter herbivores. If you ever have the chance to look closely at a corn stalk, you can see all these features. Members of the Glumiflorae are anemophilous, or wind-loving. This term refers to the way in which these plants are pollinated. Rather than relying on insects or birds to carry their pollen, graminoids make use of the wind. This reliance on wind pollination is probably responsible for the loss of petals and sepals in members of this group. Thats right! Grasses, rushes, and sedges all produce flowers that must be pollinated for sexual reproduction to occur. If you are surprised by this, dont feel bad, most people have never gotten a close enough look at these plants to see their flowers, and besides, they dont have showy petals. In fact, many species have no petals at all; their flowers are simply anthers and pistil. In the picture at right, you can see a closeup of the flowers of Paspalum, a grass. The fuzzy black hairs are the tips of the pistil (the stigma); these hairs are sticky, and help the flowers to capture the pollen. Cornsilk is also a collection of stigmata, and each thread of the cornsilk connects to a flower with an ovule.GRAND FORKS, N.D. – University of North Dakota director of athletics Brian Faison announced today that UND Athletics will expand the awarding of full amended grant-in-aid to all student-athletes on athletic aid beginning with the 2016-17 academic year.
UND Athletics already provides full amended grant-in-aids for men's and women's ice hockey.
The value of a full amended grant-in-aid at the University of North Dakota is based on the total cost of mandatory fees and tuition (online tuition not included), room (as determined by the University for double occupancy) and board (based on the “Unlimited Meal Plus Plan” rate) and books (as determined by the NCAA), plus personal expenses (including transportation) as outlined by the Student Financial Aid Office for athletes. The specific amount for each student-athlete is determined by his/her residency status (i.e. in-state, out-of-state, etc.) and living situation (i.e. with parents or on/off campus).
“This is a necessary step that empowers our coaches to continue recruiting high-caliber student-athletes. It puts our coaches on equal financial footing when competing against regional peer institutions for the best recruits,” said Faison.
Faison added that details regarding funding will be evaluated and finalized over the next several weeks.When Charitable Giving Isn’t Charitable
During the holiday season, it is popular to give charitable gifts in someone else’s name, particularly if the recipient has made it clear they don’t want material presents. This is also the time when charities solicit year-end tax-deductible donations. Heifer International, MercyCorps, Oxfam, World Vision and similar charities are popular because they pitch that you can combat hunger in desperate areas, such as Afghanistan or Sudan, by donating money which they will use to ship live animals such as cows, goats, donkeys, or chickens to families living in those regions for them to raise for milk and meat.
But such programs aren’t charitable for the animals, and in many cases, for the families either; if a family is struggling to provide for themselves, how can they ensure adequate nutrition, conditions, and care for their animals? It is a near-sighted attempt to solve the vastly complex problem of global hunger that poses substantial risk for the animals, the environment, and the people for which these programs advertise that they help; the World Land Trust calls animal-donation programs “environmentally unsound and economically disastrous.”
First, the animals have to survive the initial transport. Animals are bred and raised in large-scale farms throughout the world operated by the charities, and then shipped out. Baby chicks and other young animals are shipped overseas as airmail or cargo. In addition to the long hours or days of flight, these animals may be in planes at various terminals for hours without food or water. Countless animals arrive sick and dead. Northwest Airlines reports that up to 30% of chicks arrive dead in just in domestic flights; one can only surmise the number is much higher after international flights. Chicks are characterized as “easy to transport,” because they are small, inhumanely packed in boxes, airmailed at the cheapest rate, and shipped in huge numbers.
Baby chicks being shipped by mail
Non-native animals introduced to fragile habitats, where the animals have larger or different appetites from indigenous species, will overtax the vegetation or simply starve. Grazing animals cause topsoil runoff and land degradation, which can contribute to drought conditions. Arid conditions cannot support animals like cows, descended from forest-dwelling species, who require large amounts of water. Increasing the reliance on animals raised as livestock for sustenance can have disastrous results, as the recent famine in the Horn of Africa has shown.
People living in impoverished communities hardly have enough food, water, and land for themselves, let alone for animals. Having another mouth to feed adds to a family’s burden, and the animals often suffer from horrible neglect, malnutrition, dehydration, and lack of shelter from the burning midday sun or night-time freezing temperatures. Animals already in impoverished areas are sick and dying for lack of veterinary care and treatment. There is a desperate need for more veterinary services, not for more animals to tend, feed and care for. Some recipients of animals never asked for one and complain about the economic and environmental havoc such an animal creates. Much of the grain intended for families end up having to support the animals. After a couple years on such a program, some families report back having been even poorer than when they started.
Goats, a popular animal for donation, tend to overgraze and destroy fragile native vegetation (Heifer International promo photo)
Animal-based agriculture taxes and misuses land and resources already stretched thin, promotes high-fat Western diets over indigenous diets heavy in grains and vegetables, and jeopardizes human and animal health by inviting diseases like Avian flu. Delivering animals used for dairy enterprises into rural areas that have no refrigeration, electricity, or passable roads to get milk to markets, to serve populations that are lactose-intolerant are misguided at best. Taking animals from their mothers, shipping them thousands of miles into inhospitable regions with no animal-welfare standards, restricting and exploiting them for dairy products, forcing extended suffering due to illness and injury, and ultimately slaughtering them (often times with rusty or dull knives) does not fit in the spirit of compassion and charity of the holiday season.
Dairy cow in a region where up to 90% of the population are lactose intolerant (Heifer International promo photo)
Global hunger is a problem that cannot be solved by well-intentioned donations of animals which often end up doing more harm than good. This holiday season, if you truly want to help the people in countries suffering from drought, natural disasters, poverty, and war, please instead consider supporting sustainable, animal-friendly relief organizations that work to end hunger, help communities set up local sustainable food projects, re-establish arable land, and provide direct aid. Food For Life Global provides food distribution of plant-based meals all across the world, The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation strategically plants orchards where the harvest will best serve communities for generations, VEGFAM funds self-supporting, sustainable food projects and the provision of safe drinking water as well as emergency relief, Sustainable Harvest International addresses the tropical deforestation crisis in Central America by providing farmers with sustainable alternatives to slash-and-burn agriculture, and Feed My Starving Children ships out hand-packed meals developed specifically for malnourished children. Also Kiva creates entrepreneurial opportunities through micro-lending to help people world-wide work their way out of poverty.
This year, make the gift of giving charitable for people, the environment, and the animals.
This post was originally published in I ♥ AR on December 21, 2011 and is reproduced with permission.Michael Smith (right) celebrates scoring the only goal for Swindon Town with Jack Stephens
Swindon Town ended 10-man Bristol City's unbeaten start to the League One season as Michael Smith's superb goal settled the West Country derby.
Wade Elliott saw red for City after just two minutes for clashing with Jack Stephens in a heated opening.
Swindon's Nathan Byrne then smashed the crossbar from 25 yards after the break, before Smith ran through the defence to slot home and give the hosts the lead.
Aaron Wilbraham blazed City's best chance to level over from 15 yards.
Swindon v Bristol City: Head-to-head Swindon wins Draws Bristol City wins League 25 30 36 FA Cup 0 1 2 League Cup 3 0 2 Football League Trophy 1 0 0 Total 29 31 40
At the end of the match, there were a few scuffles in the tunnel between both sets of players, which were quickly broken up.
Town's victory means they move above Preston into second place, four points behind City, following North End's 2-1 loss at home to Bradford.
Defeat ended Steve Cotterill's side's run of 22 league games unbeaten, which dates back to last season, and means that Chelsea are the only team in the top four divisions of English football without a league loss.
Media playback is not supported on this device Cooper on Swindon v Bristol City
Swindon Town manager Mark Cooper told BBC Wiltshire:
"I think it was an outstanding spectacle, I thought the atmosphere was tremendous. I didn't want it to end.
"Our players had to show a different side because when the referee sends Wade Elliott off in the early moments it then becomes a different game.
"First half we needed to be more patient, we didn't create enough. Second half I thought we were brilliant.
"I thought it was an unbelievable goal - fantastic finish."
Media playback is not supported on this device Cotterill on Swindon v Bristol City
Bristol City manager Steve Cotterill told BBC Radio Bristol:
"It's a real disappointment for our players to be honest because it was quite an injustice today that we got beat.
"We didn't deserve to get beat with 10 men, playing 90 minutes with 10 men is really, really difficult.
"We didn't deserve to get beat and it's a terrible injustice on Wade Elliott for the sending off.
"We will appeal 100%. Well we have to if they won their appeal last week (with Nathan Thompson) then if we don't win this one then something is hugely wrong in our game."
Bristol City midfielder Wade Elliott was shown red for clashing with Swindon's Jack Stephens
Bristol City fans let off flares in the first half of the match at the County GroundDeep within the offices of Big Gay, Inc. there must be a pretty talented PR team. In recent years, this rare sexual disorder has jumped out of the abandoned dockside warehouses and into the homes of mainstream America. From Hollywood celebs to activist judges, it seems that just about everybody is swishing that rainbow flag of perversity about.
One of the most curious public relations pushes in the effort to normalize radical homosexuality is the relentless promotion of the “bear” lifestyle. Bears are gay men who combine a heavyset stature with a proudly sassy nature. Among subsets of American homosexuals, the bears have a uniquely dualistic nature. They can be masculine and tough and hairy one moment, and curiously effeminate the next. During select seasons and at specific locales, they’re ferocious hunters. The rest of the year, however, they’re nesters who have perfected domestic isolation. They prize the plush, warm comforts of the cave above all else.
Additionally, the bears occupy a special substratum of the overweight. Their extra poundage is concentrated in the abdominal region. This gives them what is commonly referred to as a paunch. Yet their paunches are robust protuberances, rounded and jiggly. The weight of a bear’s stomach, curiously enough, does not always carry over to the rest of their bodies. Their legs can be fit, muscled and firm. Their arms will be quick and versatile. And while the buttocks area of a homosexual bear is wider than average, it tends to be shapely and vibrant. In the heterosexually obese, the gluteal muscles are flat. The entire backside of these types of straight men takes on a squarish shape, unseen amongst the gays. This odd physiology certainly begs the question, but why?
From Beer Bellies to Childbearing
Recently, there have been shocking developments in the field of pre-natal science that rush far past common sense and the natural laws of God. When one views this in conjunction with the rise of gay visibility in our culture and the radical attempt to redefine the American family in some demented scheme to introduce militant socialism to this country, it becomes clear that the homosexual element has contrived the gay bear scene with something deeply sinister in mind.
Returning once again to those big, bouncy stomachs of the gay bears, it becomes obvious that the intent here is to mimic the physiology of a pregnant woman. This also underscores the bossy lifestyle choice’s strangely maternal side. Even the buttocks of the bears tell a story. Those supple globes say that girth does not slow down the sexual hunt, that a particular sort of man is seeking coitus as the receptacle. As has been noted elsewhere, the disturbing rise of sodomy in America is one of the most acclaimed successes of lascivious leftwing elitists. Amongst all types of homosexuals, the bears are most vociferous practitioners of hardcore sodomy and this is absolutely not a coincidence.
Indeed, the sweaty thrust to make gay bears acceptable to the public at large has already achieved remarkable results. Fraudulent “satirist” Stephen Colbert has made this subculture the butt of endless jokes on his late night cable channel. From bloggers to “pay to play” streaming videos (Where the Bears Are is one fierce, frontal and freakishly furry example), these sassy bears are taking over the internet. They chronicle every minor detail of their secret world and instruct new recruits about the regimen of this dangerous lifestyle.
The bears even have their very own representative in the United States Congress (beefy and bearded Brian Sims, whose stunning blue eyes have an unspoken yet profoundly erotic and threatening quality about them that just screams, “Your body will be mine!”). Yes, there is a very real threat of the gay bear scene raping our culture until we submit to their lust for acceptance and shameless science, power and pregnancy.
Now that homosexual elitists have tasted the fruits of power at the hands of Obama, their appetite for total dominance will only grow. Some may label these warnings as far-fetched and prejudicial, but the truth is that the gay bears have already begun transitioning from beer bellies to childbearing. What comes up next on the gay agenda? If Christian Americans don’t retake this country from the hirsute arms of these carnal carnivores, we may soon find out!March 15, 2011, 11:17 am by Scott Wheeler
So, there are two things I want to talk about. The first is how our new beta hotness, acts_as_edgy, just made it super easy to add Directed Edge recommendations to Rails 2 apps. How easy? One line easy.
Recommendations the Easy Way
Let’s suppose for example that you’ve got a model called User and another called Product. And let’s also suppose that you support “likes” in your app, so you’ve got a model called Like too that just maps from a user ID to a product ID. Now, you want to show people personalized recommendations when they log in and related products when they’re viewing product pages. Nothing too exotic there.
So, here’s what you add to your app in that case:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base acts_as_edgy ( :like, Like, Product )... end class User < ActiveRecord::Base acts_as_edgy(:like, Like, Product)... end
The acts_as_edgy line is the whole shebang. That’s it. After that’s in there you’ve got rake tasks that let you do rake edgy:export and it’ll push your data over to our servers. You can also have it automatically update your data with our web service on saves to your model. Did I mention it’s easy?
Okay, okay. So, yeah, I skipped the part about where you actually do something with the recommendations. But that’s not rocket surgery either. Now that you’ve got that in your model you can do:
User. first. edgy_recommended # returns a list of recommended products based on likes Product. first. edgy_related # returns a list of related products based on likes User.first.edgy_recommended # returns a list of recommended products based on likes Product.first.edgy_related # returns a list of related products based on likes
You can do much more complicated stuff too. Our Black Magic figures out the route between models that you provide a list of. One of the apps that we’ve been testing with is Spree. Let’s say that we want to do product recommendations based on sales. In Spree that means that we have to map a User to a Product, but there are a bunch of intermediaries: Orders belong to a User, LineItems belong to an Order, LineItems also belong to a Variant and Variants belong to a Product. Whew. What’s that look like in acts_as_edgy nomenclature?
class User < ActiveRecord::Base acts_as_edgy ( :purchase, Order, LineItem, Variant, Product ) #... end class User < ActiveRecord::Base acts_as_edgy(:purchase, Order, LineItem, Variant, Product) #... end
You just list the models that it has to pass through on its way to its target and it figures out (or, well, tries to, this assumes you’ve used nice consistent column names, which you of course did, didn’t you?) how to get there.
And then, once again, we can just query for related and recommended stuff like it’s nobody’s business.
You also have access to the regular stuff that our API supports. So if you had both likes and purchases in the same application, that’s where that handle sitting up there right at the front of the acts_as_edgy line comes in handy. You can chose how you want to weight those, e.g.:
Product. first. edgy_related ( :like_weight => 0.1, :purchase_weight => 0.9 ) Product.first.edgy_related(:like_weight => 0.1, :purchase_weight => 0.9)
And there you’ve got recommendations based on some mix and match weights that seem appropriate to you.
I wanted to get the cool stuff out first, but there are naturally a couple of set up steps that have to happen beforehand:
THIS IS THE PART YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO READ
There’s more on the nuts and bolts of that over on the Github page, and just let us know if you get stuck. But here’s a real world example. Wait. I’ve just realized I lied to you. There are three things I want to tell you about.
We have a Spree plugin.
Yes, yes, we do. Hell, we even have a full tutorial on working with Directed Edge and Spree! It only works with Spree 0.11 at present since we haven’t ported this baby to Rails 3 yet. Mostly we needed something real to test this thing on, and Spree seemed like a nice way to test with data models that weren’t tied to our own assumptions.
You can get at the full plugin on Github.
And here are the guts — the example I mentioned above:
An initializer to add the line above to the User model A helper to figure out if we’re doing personalized recommendations, related products or basket recommendations A partial template to handle showing the results
That’s pretty lean for all of the glue and display code for adding recommendations (and instant updating) to a full-blown e-commerce thingereedoo.
The nerdy bits.
There are a few neat technical things that are happening behind the scenes to make all of this stuff easy from a user’s perspective.
SQL Generator
One of them is a fancy custom SQL generator that builds optimal queries for all of this stuff. Entire Rails models get exported with one query. The generated SQL can get hella ugly, but it offloads most of the dirty work to the database rather than having to do it all in Ruby code.
The above Spree example (the User to Product mapping) generates this SQL monstrosity:
SELECT users. id AS from_id, 'user' AS from_type, variants. product_id AS to_id, CASE WHEN variants. product_id IS NOT NULL THEN 'product' END AS to_type, CASE WHEN variants. product_id IS NOT NULL THEN 'purchase' END AS link_type FROM users LEFT OUTER JOIN orders ON users. id = orders. user_id LEFT OUTER JOIN line_items ON orders. id = line_items. order_id LEFT OUTER JOIN variants ON line_items. variant_id = variants. id WHERE users. id IS NOT NULL ORDER BY from_id; select users.id as from_id, 'user' as from_type, variants.product_id as to_id, case when variants.product_id is not null then 'product' end as to_type, case when variants.product_id is not null then 'purchase' end as link_type from users left outer join orders on users.id = orders.user_id left outer join line_items on orders.id = line_items.order_id left outer join variants on line_items.variant_id = variants.id where users.id is not null order by from_id;
We build up a thing we call a “connection” which is a number of “bridges”. A bridge is just a route between two models, including the foreign keys and so a connection is a full path from one model to another one via a chain of foreign keys. In the simple case this is detected based on the model’s name and built in ActiveRecord methods for reporting foreign keys, but you can also specify a bridge manually for foreign keys that are created that don’t match the typical nomenclature. That isn’t documented at the moment, but shout if that’s something that you need.
Triggers
Another neat thing is the automatic installation of model triggers. So when it’s building that connection mentioned before, our system knows which models trigger updates which need to be sent over to Directed Edge to keep your data in sync.
So if acts_as_edgy is set up to automagically send updates (a config parameter that can be called in the config blog that gets written when you call rake edgy:configure) then as soon as a model changes anywhere along that path, we get the goods. And this triggers a different code path that leads to our SQL generator just pulling out the stuff that needs to be updated in a single query.
Future: Asynchronous Web-service Calls
And since those updates are hitting a remote web service, it’s ideal if they’re not blocking execution. We make liberal use of a class we call Future (conceptually borrowed from QFuture from Qt) which executes a block of code in a background thread and only forces synchronization when its data is accessed. Here’s what it looks like:
class Future def initialize ( postprocessor = nil, & finalize ) if ENV [ 'EDGY_SYNCHRONOUS' ] @data = postprocessor? postprocessor. call ( finalize. call ) : finalize. call return end @postprocessor = postprocessor @future = Thread. new do begin finalize. call rescue => ex warn "Exception in background thread: #{ex}" end end end def method_missing ( method, * args, & block ) data. send ( method, * args, & block ) end def to_s data. to_s end private def data @data || = @postprocessor? @postprocessor. call ( @future. value ) : @future. value end class Future def initialize(postprocessor = nil, &finalize) if ENV['EDGY_SYNCHRONOUS'] @data = postprocessor? postprocessor.call(finalize.call) : finalize.call return end @postprocessor = postprocessor @future = Thread.new do begin finalize.call rescue => ex warn "Exception in background thread: #{ex}" end end end def method_missing(method, *args, &block) data.send(method, *args, &block) end def to_s data.to_s end private def data @data ||= @postprocessor? @postprocessor.call(@future.value) : @future.value end
Since we implement method_missing on the Future class to first block and then forward the call on, you can use it just like a normal value, e.g.:
foo = Future. new { sleep 1 ; 42 } puts foo # prints 42 foo = Future.new { sleep 1; 42 } puts foo # prints 42
Altogether, while weighing in at a slim 382 lines of code the plugin is fairly light, but it’s pretty dense code with quite a bit of interesting stuff going on.
It’s still quite beta, so we expect there will be a handful of kinks to iron out and there are features we’d still like to add, but hopefully we’ll be doing that iteratively as you wonderful folks start building things with it and telling us what you need.Breaking traditional conventions of offshore oil and gas production, Zakum Development Company (ZADCO), in 2009, decided it would construct a collection of artificial islands amid the Arabian Sea to increase production at its Upper Zackum field offshore Abu Dhabi.
ZADCO, working on behalf of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and in conjunction with Exxon Mobil, abandoned its original plan for 25 Wellhead Platform Towers at the field, together with hundreds of kilometres of new flow lines, and opted for the artificial islands strategy instead.
The company wants to increase field production from 550,000 to 750,000 barrels of oil per day by 2015. It hopes to sustain this for 25 years.
Though not an entirely new concept to the industry – they have been used off the cost of California and using ice in Alaska – artificial islands constructed for drilling purposes remain extremely rare and have never been executed on this projected scale before.
Switching strategies is a bold move, but what benefits can ZADCO hope to reap from using man made island structures instead of conventional steel rigs?
Construction costs
"Artificial islands constructed for drilling purposes remain extremely rare and have never been executed on this projected scale."
Constructing artificial islands depends on a number of factors, but most notably, location. The Arabian Sea is already famed for a number of artificial islands, such as Dubai’s famous Palm Island and The World islands, proving the sea has good geology for building artificial islands.
To build islands sand must be pumped from the bottom of the seabed, a process known as dredging. It is then used in constructing the base of the islands.
For Upper Zakum the seabed off Abu Dhabi provides a "unique" situation, whereby building islands is cost effective, says Frank G. Adams, president of Interface Consulting, an offshore engineering consultancy firm.
"The richness of the sea bottoms for establishing islands is particularly unique, and it just so happens the technology to develop islands in that area is fairly robust," he adds.
"It’s a unique concept for Abu Dhabi."
With localised expertise – the dredging contract for Upper Zakum went to Abu Dhabi’s national dredging company, National Marine Dredging Company – and materials, islands are a most cost-effective alternative to steel rigs that have to be imported and constructed with outside expertise.
Islands may also make operational costs cheaper, suggests Jean-Paul Boyer from Pentair, commenting on an online discussion, he says: "Running an installation on ‘firm land’ is less costly than running an offshore array of several platforms."
Sigbjørn Sangesland, a professor at the Department of Petroleum Engineering and Applied Geophysics at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, cautions, however, that islands may only be beneficial for large reservoirs.
"I would assume if you have a small reservoir it may be more economic to put another platform on the location," he says.
Deep vs shallow water depths
Water depth is another key issue when considering artificial islands as opposed to steel rigs.
The Upper Zakum field area is in shallow water with a depth ranging from six to 13 metres, ideal for ease and reasonable cost of construction.
"To build an artificial island In deep water will require a lot of material. I would assume in deep water it would be very expensive and impractical," says Sangesland.
This is a feeling echoed by Adams, who says artificial islands for oil and gas production wouldn’t work in deep water, and this is why they are used less frequently than steel rigs.
"You would have to have too much soil. In deep water the use of different types of steel platforms and concrete platforms is more appropriate," he says.
Drilling capability – maximising the reservoir
A key reason ZADCO has opted for artificial islands is to "improve long term reservoir recovery," according the company, and to extend its drilling reach from 10,000 to 30,000 – 35,000 feet using Exxon Mobil’s extended-reach drilling (ERD) technology, as well as Maximum Reservoir Contact (MRC) technology.
Drilling from artificial islands offers many advantages for this, as well as some technical challenges.
"There are so many positives that whatever drawbacks there are to the technical sides, those can be easily dealt with."
Adams says that with a cluster of steel structures you are limited to the amount of wells you can have, whereas with a land base you are able to create a lot more wells – "as many as 200 wells" – which would never be possible with steel rig structures.
ZADCO say: "Many of the wells on the islands will be complex and expensive wells, but their contribution will be much higher than historic Upper Zakum wells. This will improve production performance, optimise the well count and minimise capital investments".
Technically, Sangesland agrees, he says drilling from an island looks like "a good alternative".
"If you have a reservoir to be produced it will be beneficial to produce the reservoir at a high angle or horizontally, because then you will increase the drainage. That is an advantage," he says.
He likens what ZADCO is doing to what is being done at Wytch farm in Devon, UK, where extended reach drilling is used to drill offshore from the land. It has one of the longest producing wells, which has a horizontal displacement distance of 10,728m and a total length of 1,278m.
Drilling from land suits this type of drilling strategy in particular, but Sangesland warns that, whether from a rig or an island, this type of drilling is "time consuming and there are always problems."
Adams adds: "I understand they have some problems in the drilling process managing the loads on the drill stems because the islands are a fairly good distance from where the reservoirs are, and as they are going deep in the reservoir in a multiple manner, there are some concerns about mechanical loads on the drill stem."
But he adds: "There are so many positives that whatever drawbacks there are to the technical sides, those can be easily dealt with."
Environment and safety advantages
"From an environmental stand point the impact is less," Adams categorically states.
He says this is because building artificial islands involves using natural elements, like sand, and not forcing huge steel structures into the seabed, which have to bear the weight of drilling equipment and other facilities.
"Building artificial islands involves using natural elements, like sand, and not forcing huge steel structures into the seabed."
Consultancy engineers, Ramboll, which carried out an assessment of the environmental impact of the artificial islands, concluded that construction of the islands would not affect the environment and the existing structures significantly.
One hazard they did identify was some pipelines in the vicinity of the islands were found to require additional stabilisation in terms of concrete mattresses.
However, another environmental and cost bonus of artificial islands is they do not need to be deconstructed. They can be left to erode naturally or turned into something that supports local wildlife.
But the key positive of producing from an artificial island is space. Platforms can only be so big, whereas on an island’s facilities can be spread further out, creating a reduced fire risk.
"From a safety standpoint it’s far superior to steel structures," says Adams.
"If something happens at the facility the people have to get off the steel structures, but on an island there are areas they can go to without having to risk life and limb."
It is also much easier to get into boats to escape a raging fire from a land base structure as opposed to a steel rig, where workers tend to rely on helicopters limited in space to evacuate them from the rig.
An interesting, but limited future
Artificial islands, which have been constructed in abundance around the Persian Gulf for land and leisure reasons, make an attractive option when considering a strategy for offshore drilling for a number of reasons – including space, environmental impacts, safety, cost and number of well heads.
However, these advantages are limited by a number of factors – such as water depth, sand quality and reservoir size – which have, and will no doubt continue to, limit their future use.
Adams believes it’s unlikely this strategy will take off on the same scale as Upper Zakum in other parts of the world.
"There are certain areas in the world where there is shallow water production but you may not be able to dredge the soils to create islands," he says.
Boyer also comments: "I do not think that [strategy] would be seen very often in the future though."
Though more positive, Sangesland agrees the use of artificial islands is dependent on many factors.
Therefore is seems, for now, the countries of the Arabian Sea will continue to enjoy a unique offshore drilling situation that is, as yet, unprecedented anywhere else in the world.
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Heavy lifting cranes are integral to offshore construction, and they don’t come much bigger than the Liebherr MTC 78000.Manchester madman, Chimpo has just dropped Frontline, his debut EP on Marcus Intalex’s Soul:R Recordings, so we took a few minutes out of his day to talk to him about the release.
For some of our American audience that might be less clued in to the goings-on of a Mancunian MC/DJ/Producer, tell us a bit about how you got into drum & bass, grime, dubstep?
Everyone at school played Drum’n’Bass. We called it Jungle then. I still do. The term the Drum’nBass makes me think of students. In French lesson everyone would go crazy so the teacher would have to get the headteacher from the office. We would lock the classroom door and get the stereo out and listen to Hysteria and Jungle Slammer tapes for the rest of the lesson. JSD from Virus Syndicate introduced me to Dubstep and I was making UK Garage when it was turning into Grime, before Grime had its name.
Expounding even more on that, what were your influences growing up?
Rap and Ninja Turtles.
Where did the name Chimpo come from?
I was in a rap group called Northern Monkeys. Seen a character called Johnny Chimpo on some daft film called ‘Super Troopers’ I’m called John so it made sense as a DJ name. It proper stuck though. Think it suits me.
You’ve been deep into dubstep and have several releases going back several years, but what made you decide to put out a drum & bass EP?
I always made Jungle since I started making tunes. It’s harder to mixdown than other genres though and I had a rubbish set up before recently so I never finished anything. I’ve got a semi-okay set up now though and Dub Phizix gave me loads of badboy plug-ins so I can make Jungle now. YES!
Can you provide some insight into the track collaboration process with various producers you’ve worked with recently, i.e. Dub Phizix, Enei, and Calibre?
Calibre and Enei both live in different countries so those collabs were done online. With Dub Phizix it’s more of an organic process. I feed him crisps until he makes a good hi-hat pattern then I do all the rest.
Any plans to tour the States for the release?
Yes. I toured the states years ago. It was amazing. I shot guns and everything. I really wanna get back over there. I want T Pain to host my sets though.
Who’s the best MC in Manchester?
I’m though(sic) only good one to be honest. I support Strategy, Fox, Konny Kon, Skittles and them cuz they try really hard and I back DRS cuz he used to be a boxer. They’re all really bad though. I have to write all their lyrics for them.
How hard was it to find a monkey costume in your size for the Headtop Video? (Click here for the vid.)
I just stretched it. It’s too small still but it just makes it sexier.
How big a fan of bolognese are you?
It’s pretty sick but Lasagne murks it everytime.
Chimpo – Frontline EP is OUT NOW!
Follow Chimpo on Twitter @CHIMPOMCR.The first thing to know about Lord of the Rings: The Card Game is thatWhile you’re building decks and stacking odds in your favor like you would in Magic or Android, you’re not playing against a human opponent, you’re playing against a pre-made “encounter deck.” After all, there is only one Lord of the Ring, and he does not share power. The encounter deck can feel as evil as Sauron himself, as it spits out locations to travel to, enemies to detroy, and dastardly treacherous events that may doom any fellowship that |
. Aggregated Widgets 5.1 Calendar 5.2 File Selection 5.3 Font and Colour Selection 5.4 Notebook 6. Supporting Widgets 6.1 Scrolled Windows 6.2 EventBoxes and ButtonBoxes 6.3 The Layout Container 6.4 Paned Windows and Aspect Frames 7. Action Based Widgets 7.1 Menus and Toolbars 7.2 Popup Menus, Radio Actions, and Toggle Actions Appendix: Drawing with Cairo: Getting Started The Glade tutorial, an introduction to visual Gtk2Hs programming, has been updated to Glade 3 by Alex Tarkovsky. It is available on: http://haskell.org/gtk2hs/docs/tutorial/glade/ This tutorial has also been translated into Spanish, by Laszlo Keuschnig, but it is currently only available on: http://home.telfort.nl/sp969709/glade/es-index.html
1.5.5 Monad Tutorial Report by: Hans van Thiel Status: stable, might be expanded later The “Greenhorn’s Guide to becoming a Monad Cowboy” is yet another monad tutorial. It covers the basics and some examples, including a monad transformer, in a style which is a variation on the “for dummies” style. Estimated learning time is 1–2 days. It is available at http://www.muitovar.com/monad/moncow.xhtml Further reading http://www.muitovar.com/
The collection of various Haskell mini tutorials and assorted small projects (http://okmij.org/ftp/Haskell/) has received two additions: Data-Generic and Data-Extensible Programming in Haskell This web page describes the generic programming library “Smash” and a couple of its applications. Smash is a generic programming approach based on a type-level typecase, best understood as a static dual of “Scrap your boilerplate I” (SYB1). The Smash approach is powerful to express traversals where the type of the result is computed from the type of the transformer and the type/structure of the original term. An example is replacing all Floats with Doubles in an arbitrary term, e.g., made of Maybes, tuples, lists; the result type is computed and need not be specified. One application explained on the web page is generic de-serialization: reconstructing a term from a flat list of its fields and a proto-type term specifying the desired structure. The Smash library is part of the extensive generic programming comparison benchmark by Alexey Rodriguez Yakushev, Alex Gerdes, and Johan Jeuring. The implementation of benchmark tests in Smash can be found at http://darcs.haskell.org/generics/comparison/SmashA/ The web page also describes a variation of the SYB3 type-class-based generic programming library that avoids both higher-rank types and mutually recursive instances. Because of the latter our code, unlike SYB3, works even in Hugs. http://okmij.org/ftp/Haskell/generics.html State Monad as a term algebra We show the implementation of the state monad as a term algebra: a monadic action is a term built from sub-terms Bind, Return, Get, and Put. The constructors of the action are neither variants nor GADTs. The function runst (a method of the type class RunState ) takes the initial state and the action data type, and interprets the action manipulating the state accordingly. The only non-trivial part is the interpretation of Bind, due to the polymorphism of the monadic bind operation. Although our implementation uses no GADTs, we nevertheless statically ensure that the interpretation of an action never gets stuck. http://okmij.org/ftp/Haskell/types.html#state-algebra
1.5.7 Haskell Cheat Sheet Report by: Justin Bailey I have created a “cheat sheet” for Haskell. It is a PDF that tries to summarize Haskell 98’s syntax, keywords, and other language elements. It is built from a literate source file, so all the examples in the cheat sheet are executable. The cheatsheet is on Hackage. Once downloaded, unpack the archive and you will see the PDF and literate source. I will be hosting the PDF directly, but for now I wanted a “limited” release. Posting to Hackage limits the audience somewhat. I will send an additional announcement when feedback has been incorporated and the PDF is available generally. Further reading http://hackage.haskell.org/cgi-bin/hackage-scripts/package/CheatSheet
2 Implementations
For the last six months we have been primarily focused on the 6.10.1 release, which should be out by the time you read this. We are extremely grateful for the increasing support we get from the community in putting GHC releases together; more people than ever before are now helping maintain subcomponents, implementing features, fixing bugs, testing release candidates, and much more besides. We could not have made this release without your help! The GHC 6.10 branch GHC 6.10.1 is the first release in the 6.10 branch, and features many improvements over the 6.8 branch. The release notes have fully details, but the highlights are: Some new language features have been implemented: Record syntax: wild-card patterns, punning, and field disambiguation Generalized quasi-quotes (Geoff Mainland), from the paper Why it’s nice to be quoted: quasi-quoting in Haskell (Haskell workshop 2007) Generalized list comprehensions (Max Bolingbroke), from the paper Comprehensive comprehensions: comprehensions with “Order by” and “Group by” (Haskell workshop 2007) View patterns (Dan Licata); see view patterns wiki page
Type families have been completely re-implemented, by Manuel Chakravarty, along the lines of our ICFP 2008 paper Type checking with open type functions — only simpler. As a result, we believe that type families work reliably in GHC 6.10. There is one missing feature, however, namely the ability to have equalities in the superclass context of a class. We will add that to the HEAD in the next few months. An up-to-date wiki page tracks design issues and current status.
GHC now comes with Haddock 2, which supports all GHC extensions, thanks to David Waern.
Parallel garbage collection has been implemented by Simon Marlow. This speeds up even purely-sequential programs, by using the extra processors during garbage collection. Our ISMM’08 paper gives the details Parallel generational-copying garbage collection with a block-structured heap.
The base library now provides, and uses, extensible exceptions, as described in Simon Marlow’s paper An Extensible Dynamically-Typed Hierarchy of Exceptions (Haskell workshop 2006).
Thomas Schilling has made the GHC API easier to use, by using a Ghc monad to carry the session state. Furthermore, the API now has Haddock documentation.
monad to carry the session state. Furthermore, the API now has Haddock documentation. External core (output only) now works again, thanks to Tim Chevalier.
Data Parallel Haskell (DPH) comes as part of GHC, as a result of Roman Leshchinskiy’s efforts. In 6.10, for the first time, DPH includes a full vectorizer, so the system is much more usable than before. It is still really an alpha release, though; we very much welcome friendly guinea pigs, but it is not ready for your 3 gigabyte genome search program. We have a lot of performance tuning to do. We have written a new paper Harnessing the multicores: nested data parallelism in Haskell (FSTTCS’08), which gives a tutorial overview of the system, focusing especially on vectorization. The GHC 6.12 branch Meanwhile, development goes on in the HEAD: John Dias has been working hard on rewriting GHC’s backend, and his changes should be landing in the HEAD during October. You can find an overview of the new architecture on the wiki.
Data Parallel Haskell remains under very active development.
We hope that Max Bolingbroke’s Dynamically Loaded Plugins summer of code project will be merged in time for 6.12. Part of this is a new, modular system for user-defined annotations, rather like Java or C#attributes. These attributes are persisted into interface files, can be examined and created by plugins, or by GHC API clients.
Likewise, Donnie Jones’ project for profiling parallel programs should be merged in time for 6.12.
Simon Marlow is working on improving parallel performance, incorporating the work done by Jost Berthold during his internship at Microsoft in the summer of 2008. The plan is to make writing performant parallel programs less of a trial-and-error process, by whacking as many bottlenecks as we can find in the runtime system. We are already making significant improvements, and there is plenty more low-hanging fruit to pick. One large project that we hope to tackle is the issue of doing independent per-CPU garbage collection.
Shared Libraries are inching ever closer to being completed. Clemens Fruhwirth has been working on polishing the support for shared libraries on Unix systems in particular, and when the remaining issues are ironed out we should be able to roll them out in a release.
Finally, unicode text I/O and dynamic libraries were slated for 6.10 but were not quite ready in time, so we certainly expect those to make it for in 6.12. From a development point of view, there are a couple of changes on the horizon: We plan to change how GHC’s build system works, to decouple it from Cabal’s internals. Our current plans are here.
We plan to change from darcs to git for the version control system used by GHC; our plans are described here. We plan to make the build-system changes first, and only then tackle the version control system. From a development point of view, there are a couple of changes on the horizon:We plan to make the build-system changes first, and only then tackle the version control system. Summary Keeping GHC functioning for an increasingly-diverse user base is quite a challenge, especially as we keep changing the wheels while the bus is driving along. Please do consider joining in; there are plenty of things that need doing, and do not require intimate knowledge of the internals. We could particularly do with more help on supporting the Windows, Sparc, and BSD ports of GHC.
nhc98 is a small, easy to install, compiler for Haskell’98. nhc98 is still very much alive and working, although it does not see many new features these days. We expect a new public release (1.22) soon, to coincide with the release of ghc-6.10.x, in particular to ensure that the included libraries are compatible across compilers. Further reading http://haskell.org/nhc98
darcs get http://darcs.haskell.org/nhc98
The York Haskell Compiler (yhc) is a fork of the nhc98 compiler (→2.2), with goals such as increased portability, platform independent bytecode, integrated Hat (→4.3.6) support, and generally being a cleaner code base to work with. Yhc now compiles and runs almost all Haskell 98 programs, has basic FFI support — the main thing missing is haskell.org base libraries, which is being worked on. There are a number of projects that make use of the Yhc.Core library, in particular a Javascript and Erlang backend. Further reading Homepage: http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Yhc
Darcs repository: http://darcs.haskell.org/yhc
Yhc Javascript Web Service http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Yhc_web_service
Helium is a compiler that supports a substantial subset of Haskell 98 (but, e.g., n+k patterns are missing). Type classes are restricted to a number of built-in type classes and all instances are derived. The advantage of Helium is that it generates novice friendly error feedback. The latest versions of the Helium compiler are available for download from the new website located at http://www.cs.uu.nl/wiki/Helium. This website also explains in detail what Helium is about, what it offers, and what we plan to do in the near and far future. We are still working on making version 1.7 available, mainly a matter of updating the documentation and testing the system. Internally little has changed, but the interface to the system has been standardized, and the functionality of the interpreters has been improved and made consistent. We have made new options available (such as those that govern where programs are logged to). The use of Helium from the interpreters is now governed by a configuration file, which makes the use of Helium from the interpreters quite transparent for the programmer. It is also possible to use different versions of Helium side by side (motivated by the development of Neon (→5.3.6)). A student is currently in the process of adding type class and instance definitions to the language. The work on the documentation has progressed quite a bit, but there has been little testing thus far, especially on a platform such as Windows.
2.5 EHC, “Essential Haskell” Compiler Report by: Atze Dijkstra Participants: Jeroen Fokker, Doaitse S. Swierstra, Arie Middelkoop, Lucilia Camarãao de Figueiredo, Carlos Camarãao de Figueiredo Status: active development What is EHC? The EHC project provides a Haskell compiler as well as a description of the compiler which is as understandable as possible so it can be used for education as well as research. For its description an Attribute Grammar system (AG) is used as well as other formalisms allowing compact notation like parser combinators. For the description of type rules, and the generation of an AG implementation for those type rules, we use the Ruler system. For source code management we use Shuffle, which allows partitioning the system into a sequence of steps and aspects. (Both Ruler and Shuffle are included in the EHC project). The EHC project also tackles other issues: In order to avoid overwhelming the innocent reader, the description of the compiler is organized as a series of increasingly complex steps. Each step corresponds to a Haskell subset which itself is an extension of the previous step. The first step starts with the essentials, namely typed lambda calculus; the last step corresponds to full Haskell.
Independent of each step the implementation is organized into a set of aspects. Currently the type system and code generation are defined as aspects, which can then be left out so the remaining part can be used as a barebones starting point.
Each combination of step + aspects corresponds to an actual, that is, an executable compiler. Each of these compilers is a compiler in its own right.
The description of the compiler uses code fragments which are retrieved from the source code of the compilers. In this way the description and source code are kept synchronized. Currently EHC offers experimental implementation of more advanced features like higher-ranked polymorphism, partial type signatures, and kind polymorphism. Part of the description of the series of EH compilers is available as a PhD thesis. What is EHC’s status, what is new? A Haskell frontend plus Prelude has been made, compiled code runs with an interpreter. The compiler has an acceptable memory + resource footprint (done by Atze Dijkstra).
A GRIN (Graph Reduction Intermediate Notation) based backend is available, offering global program optimization and code generation to C (done by Jeroen Fokker) as well as LLVM (done by John van Schie).
Work has started on formalizing EHC’s type system; extending our Ruler system will be part of this effort (by Lucilia Camarãao de Figueiredo, Carlos Camarãao de Figueiredo, Arie Middelkoop, Atze Dijkstra).
The organization of EHC into aspects, allowing better partial reuse of EHC.
Though not a direct part of EHC, its supporting tools (AG, Shuffle) are regularly adapted to allow a cleaner EHC code base. Is EHC used, can I use EHC? Yes, but the answer also depends for what purpose. Although it compiles a Prelude, we have yet to prepare a release of EHC as a Haskell compiler. Also, the first release will definitively be a alpha release, meant for play and experimentation, not for compiling real world programs. EHC is used as a platform for experimentation, see EHC’s webpage for various projects related to EHC. EHC can be downloaded from our svn repository. What will happen with EHC in the near future? We plan to do the following: Make the variant for full Haskell available as a Haskell compiler. For this we will stabilize the implementation and add proper documentation.
Rework the type system to have a more formal underpinning. Our intent is to use and extend our Ruler system for this. Further reading Homepage: http://www.cs.uu.nl/wiki/Ehc/WebHome
Attribute grammar system: http://www.cs.uu.nl/wiki/HUT/AttributeGrammarSystem
Parser combinators: http://www.cs.uu.nl/wiki/HUT/ParserCombinators
Shuffle: http://www.cs.uu.nl/wiki/Ehc/Shuffle
Ruler: http://www.cs.uu.nl/wiki/Ehc/Ruler
2.6 Hugs as Yhc Core Producer Report by: Dimitry Golubovsky Status: Experimental Background Hugs is one of the oldest implementations of Haskell known, an interactive compiler and bytecode interpreter. Yhc (→2.3) is a fork of nhc98 (→2.2). Yhc Core is an intermediate form Yhc uses to represent a compiled Haskell program. Yhc converts each Haskell module to a binary Yhc Core file. Core modules are linked together, and all redundant (unreachable) code is removed. The Linked Core is ready for further conversions by backends. Hugs loads Haskell modules into memory and stores them in a way to some degree similar to Yhc Core. Hugs is capable to dump its internal storage structure in textual form (let us call it Hugs Core). The output looks similar to Yhc Core, pretty-printed. This was initially intended for debugging purposes, however several Hugs CVS (now darcs) log records related such output to some “Snowball Haskell compiler” ca. 2001. The experiment The goal of the experiment described here was to convert Hugs Core into Yhc Core, so Hugs might become a frontend for existing and future Yhc Core optimizers and backends. At least one benefit is clear: Hugs is well maintained to be compatible with recent versions of Haskell libraries and supports many of Haskell language extensions that Yhc does not yet support. The necessary patches were pushed to the main Hugs repository in June 2008, thanks to Ross Paterson for reviewing them. The following changes were made: A configuration option was added to enable the generation of Hugs Core. The toplevel Makefile was modified to build an additional executable, corehugs. Consistency of Hugs Core output in terms of naming of modules and functions was improved. The corehugs program converts Haskell source files into Hugs Core files, one for one. All functions and data constructors are preserved in the output, whether reachable or not. Unreachable items will be removed later using Yhc Core tools. The conversion of Hugs Core to Yhc Core is performed outside of Hugs using the hugs2yc package. The package provides a parser for the syntax of Hugs Core and an interface to the Yhc Core Linker. All Hugs Core files written by corehugs are read in and parsed, resulting in the set of Yhc Core modules in memory. The modules are linked together using the Yhc Core Linker, and all unreachable items are removed at this point. A “driver” program that uses the package may save the linked Yhc Core in a file, or pass it on to a backend. The code of the hugs2yc package is compatible to both Hugs and GHC. Availability In order to use the new Hugs functionality, obtain Hugs from the “HEAD” darcs repo, see http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hugs/wiki/GettingTheSource. However, Hugs obtained in such a way may not always compile. This Google Code project: http://code.google.com/p/corehugs/ hosts specialized snapshots of Hugs that are more likely to build on a random computer and also include additional packages necessary to work with Yhc Core. Future plans Further effort will be taken to standardize various aspects of Yhc Core, especially the specification of primitives, because all backends must implement them uniformly. This Google spreadsheet: http://tinyurl.com/prim-normal-set contains the proposal for an unified set of Yhc Core primitives. Work is in progress on various backends for Yhc Core, including Javascript, Erlang, Python, JVM,.NET, and others. This Wiki page: http://tinyurl.com/ycore-conv-infra summarizes their development status. Further reading Yhc Core conversion infrastructure
http://tinyurl.com/ycore-conv-infra
http://tinyurl.com/ycore-conv-infra Download Hugs specialized snapshots
http://code.google.com/p/corehugs/
http://code.google.com/p/corehugs/ Proposed specification of the Normal Set of primitives
http://tinyurl.com/prim-normal-set
http://tinyurl.com/prim-normal-set A brief example of using corehugs
http://code.google.com/p/corehugs/wiki/Demonstration
2.7 Haskell frontend for the Clean compiler Report by: Thomas van Noort Participants: John van Groningen, Rinus Plasmeijer Status: active development We are currently working on a frontend for the Clean compiler (→3.2.3) that supports a subset of Haskell 98. This will allow Clean modules to import Haskell modules, and vice versa. Furthermore, we will be able to use some of Clean’s features in Haskell code, and vice versa. For example, we could define a Haskell module which uses Clean’s uniqueness typing, or a Clean module which uses Haskell’s newtypes. The possibilities are endless! Future plans We hope to release a beta version of the new Clean compiler, solely to the institution in Nijmegen, by the end of this year. But there is still a lot of work to do before we are able to release it to the outside world, so we cannot make any promises regarding the release date. Keep an eye on the Clean mailing lists for any important announcements! Further reading http://wiki.clean.cs.ru.nl/Mailing_lists
The Reduceron is a prototype of a special-purpose graph reduction machine, built using an FPGA. It can access up to eight graph nodes in parallel on each of its stack, heap, and combinator memories. The goal so far has been to optimize function application. Eight combinator nodes can be instantiated with eight stack elements and placed on the heap, all in a single cycle. The Reduceron is a simple machine, containing just four instructions and a garbage collector, and executes core Haskell almost directly. The translator to bytecode and the FPGA machine are both implemented in Haskell, the latter using Lava (→6.9.2). See the URL below for details and results. Since the last HCAR, I have written a thesis in which chapter 2 is dedicated to the Reduceron. I am now working on a new Reduceron which I hope will exploit wide, parallel memories further. I am also working on a new variant of Lava, to support the demands of the Reduceron. Further reading http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/~mfn/reduceron2/
2.9 Platforms
2.9.1 Haskell in Gentoo Linux Report by: Lennart Kolmodin GHC version 6.8.2 has been in Gentoo since late last year, and is about to go stable. All of the 60+ Haskell libraries and tools work with it, too. There are also GHC binaries available for alpha, amd64, hppa, ia64, sparc, and x86. Browse the packages in portage at http://packages.gentoo.org/category/dev-haskell?full_cat. The GHC architecture/version matrix is available at http://packages.gentoo.org/package/dev-lang/ghc. Please report problems in the normal Gentoo bug tracker at bugs.gentoo.org. There is also a Haskell overlay providing another 200 packages. Thanks to the recent progress of Cabal and Hackage (→5.1), we have written a tool called “hackport” (initiated by Henning Günther) to generate Gentoo packages that rarely need much tweaking. The overlay is available at http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/Gentoo. Using Darcs (→6.1.1), it is easy to keep updated and send patches. It is also available via the Gentoo overlay manager “layman”. If you choose to use the overlay, then problems should be reported on IRC ( #gentoo-haskell on freenode), where we coordinate development, or via email <haskell at gentoo.org>. Lately a few of our developers have shifted focus, and only a few developers remain. If you would like to help, which would include working on the Gentoo Haskell framework, hacking on hackport, writing ebuilds, and supporting users, please contact us on IRC or email as noted above.
2.9.2 Fedora Haskell SIG Report by: Jens Petersen Participants: Bryan Sullivan, Yaakov Nemoy, Fedora Haskell SIG Status: on-going The Fedora Haskell SIG is an effort to provide good support for Haskell in Fedora. We now have a set of rpm macros and Packaging Guidelines for packaging Cabal-based packages in Fedora: so it is now fairly easy to get Haskell packages reviewed and approved by package reviewers in Fedora. Fedora 10 will ship with ghc-6.8.3 and the new rpm macros at the end of this month. For Fedora 11 we are planning to move to ghc-6.10 and add plenty of Haskell libraries using the new Fedora Haskell Packaging Guidelines, and hopefully also experiment with shared libraries and cabal-install. Further reading http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/Haskell
3 Language
3.1 Extensions of Haskell
Haskell Server Pages (HSP) is an extension of Haskell targeted at writing dynamic web pages. Key features and selling points include: Use literal XML syntax in your Haskell code for creating values of appropriate datatypes. (Note though that writing literal XML is quite optional, if you, like me, do not really enjoy that language.)
Guarantees that XML output is well-formed (and an HTML output mode if that is what you need).
A model that gives easy access to necessary environment variables.
Simple programming model that is easy to use even for non-experienced Haskell programmers, in particular with a very simple transition from static XML pages to dynamic HSP pages.
Easy integration with a DSL called HJScript that makes it easy to write client-side (JavaScript) scripts.
An extension of HAppS that can serve HSP pages on the fly, making deployment of pages really simple. HSP is continuously released onto Hackage. It consists of a series of interdependent packages with package hsp as the main top-level starting point, and package happs-hsp for integration with HAppS. The best way to keep up with development is to grab the darcs repositories, all located under Further reading HSP is continuously released onto Hackage. It consists of a series of interdependent packages with package hsp as the main top-level starting point, and package happs-hsp for integration with HAppS. The best way to keep up with development is to grab the darcs repositories, all located under http://code.haskell.org/HSP http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/HSP
Status A complete, GHC-based implementation of the parallel Haskell extension GpH and of evaluation strategies is available. Extensions of the runtime-system and language to improve performance and support new platforms are under development. System Evaluation and Enhancement Both GpH and Eden parallel Haskells are being used for parallel language research and in the SCIEnce project (see below).
We are making comparative evaluations of a range of GpH implementations and other parallel functional languages (Eden and Feedback Directed Implicit Parallelism (FDIP)) on multicore architectures.
We are teaching parallelism to undergraduates using GpH at Heriot-Watt and Phillips Universität Marburg.
We are developing a big step operational semantics for seq and using it to prove identities. GpH Applications As part of the SCIEnce EU FP6 I3 project (026133) (→8.6) (April 2006 – April 2011) we use GpH and Eden as middleware to provide access to computational grids from Computer Algebra(CA) systems, including GAP, Maple MuPad and KANT. We have designed, implemented and are evaluating the SymGrid-Par interface that facilitates the orchestration of computational algebra components into high-performance parallel applications. In recent work we have demonstrated that SymGrid-Par is capable of exploiting a variety of modern parallel/multicore architectures without any change to the underlying CA components; and that SymGrid-Par is capable of orchestrating heterogeneous computations across a high-performance computational Grid. Implementations The GUM implementation of GpH is available in two main development branches. The focus of the development has switched to versions tracking GHC releases, currently GHC 6.8, and the development version is available upon request to the GpH mailing list (see the GpH web site).
The stable branch (GUM-4.06, based on GHC-4.06) is available for RedHat-based Linux machines. The stable branch is available from the GHC CVS repository via tag gum-4-06. We are exploring new, prescient scheduling mechanisms for GpH. Our main hardware platforms are Intel-based Beowulf clusters and multicores. Work on ports to other architectures is also moving on (and available on request): A port to a Mosix cluster has been built in the Metis project at Brooklyn College, with a first version available on request from Murray Gross. Further reading GpH Home Page: http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~dsg/gph/
Stable branch binary snapshot: ftp://ftp.macs.hw.ac.uk/pub/gph/gum-4.06-snap-i386-unknown-linux.tar
Stable branch installation instructions: ftp://ftp.macs.hw.ac.uk/pub/gph/README.GUM Contact <gph at macs.hw.ac.uk>, <mgross at dorsai.org>
Eden extends Haskell with a small set of syntactic constructs for explicit process specification and creation. While providing enough control to implement parallel algorithms efficiently, it frees the programmer from the tedious task of managing low-level details by introducing automatic communication (via head-strict lazy lists), synchronization, and process handling. Eden’s main constructs are process abstractions and process instantiations. The function process :: (a -> b) -> Process a b embeds a function of type (a -> b) into a process abstraction of type Process a b which, when instantiated, will be executed in parallel. Process instantiation is expressed by the predefined infix operator ( # ) :: Process a b -> a -> b. Higher-level coordination is achieved by defining skeletons, ranging from a simple parallel map to sophisticated replicated-worker schemes. They have been used to parallelize a set of non-trivial benchmark programs. Survey and standard reference Rita Loogen, Yolanda Ortega-Mallén, and Ricardo Peña: Parallel Functional Programming in Eden, Journal of Functional Programming 15(3), 2005, pages 431–475. Implementation A major revision of the parallel Eden runtime environment for GHC 6.8.1 is available from the Marburg group on request. Support for Glasgow parallel Haskell (→3.1.2) is currently being added to this version of the runtime environment. It is planned for the future to maintain a common parallel runtime environment for Eden, GpH, and other parallel Haskells. Program executions can be visualized using the Eden trace viewer tool EdenTV. Recent results show that the system behaves equally well on workstation clusters and on multi-core machines. Recent Theses Jost Berthold: Implicit and Explicit Parallel Functional Programming: Concepts and Implementation, Dissertation (PhD thesis), Fachbereich Mathematik und Informatik, Philipps-Universitat Marburg, June 2008.
, Dissertation (PhD thesis), Fachbereich Mathematik und Informatik, Philipps-Universitat Marburg, June 2008. Alberto de la Encina: Formalizando el proceso de depuracion en programacion funcional paralela y perezosa, Tesis Doctoral (PhD thesis), Facultad de Ciencias Matematicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, June 2008, in Spanish.
, Tesis Doctoral (PhD thesis), Facultad de Ciencias Matematicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, June 2008, in Spanish. Lidia Lidia Sanchez-Gil: Sobre la equivalencia entre semanticas operacionales y denotacionales para lenguajes funcionales paralelos, Master Thesis, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, September 2008 (in Spanish). Recent and Forthcoming Publications Jost Berthold, Simon Marlow, Kevin Hammond, and Abyd Al Zain: Comparing and Optimising Parallel Haskell Implementations on Multicore, Draft Proceedings of the 20th International Symposium on the Implementation and Application of Functional Languages (IFL), September 2008
, Draft Proceedings of the 20th International Symposium on the Implementation and Application of Functional Languages (IFL), September 2008 Mischa Dieterle, Jost Berthold, and Rita Loogen: Functional Skeleton Implementations for Parallel Map-and-Reduce, Draft Proceedings of the 20th International Symposium on the Implementation and Application of Functional Languages (IFL), September 2008.
, Draft Proceedings of the 20th International Symposium on the Implementation and Application of Functional Languages (IFL), September 2008. Jost Berthold, Mischa Dieterle, and Rita Loogen: A Distributed Work Pool Skeleton in Eden, submitted.
, submitted. Oleg Lobachev, Jost Berthold, Mischa Dieterle, and Rita Loogen: Parallel FFT With Eden Skeletons, in preparation.
, in preparation. Oleg Lobachev and Rita Loogen: Towards an Implementation of a Computer Algebra System in a Functional Language, 9th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Symbolic Computation (AISC), Birmingham, July 2008, Springer LNAI 5144, 141–154.
, 9th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Symbolic Computation (AISC), Birmingham, July 2008, Springer LNAI 5144, 141–154. Alberto de la Encina, Ismael Rodriguez, and Fernando Rubio: A Debugger for Parallel Haskell Dialects, LNCS 5022, Springer 2008, 282-293. Further reading http://www.mathematik.uni-marburg.de/~eden
XHaskell is an extension of Haskell which combines parametric polymorphism, algebraic data types, and type classes with XDuce style regular expression types, subtyping, and regular expression pattern matching. The latest version can be downloaded via http://code.google.com/p/xhaskell/ Latest developments Kenny’s thesis will be available by the end of the year, describing in detail the formal underpinnings behind XHaskell. One of the things we will be looking into in the future is to turn XHaskell into a library (rather than stand-alone compiler).
The focus of the HaskellActor project is on Erlang-style concurrency abstractions. See for details: http://sulzmann.blogspot.com/2008/10/actors-with-multi-headed-receive.html Novel features of HaskellActor include Multi-headed receive clauses, with support for
guards, and
propagation Latest developments The HaskellActor implementation (as a library extension to Haskell) is available via http://hackage.haskell.org/cgi-bin/hackage-scripts/package/actor
3.2 Related Languages
Curry is a functional logic programming language with Haskell syntax. In addition to the standard features of functional programming like higher-order functions and lazy evaluation, Curry supports features known from logic programming. This includes programming with non-determinism, free variables, constraints, declarative concurrency, and the search for solutions. Although Haskell and Curry share the same syntax, there is one main difference with respect to how function declarations are interpreted. In Haskell the order in which different rules are given in the source program has an effect on their meaning. In Curry, in contrast, the rules are interpreted as equations, and overlapping rules induce a non-deterministic choice and a search over the resulting alternatives. Furthermore, Curry allows to call functions with free variables as arguments so that they are bound to those values that are demanded for evaluation, thus providing for function inversion. There are three major implementations of Curry. While the original implementation PAKCS (Portland Aachen Kiel Curry System) compiles to Prolog, MCC (Münster Curry Compiler) generates native code via a standard C compiler. The Kiel Curry System (KiCS) compiles Curry to Haskell aiming to provide nearly as good performance for the purely functional part as modern compilers for Haskell do. From these implementations only MCC will provide type classes in the near future. Type classes are not part of the current definition of Curry, though there is no conceptual conflict with the logic extensions. Recent research aims at simplifying the compilation scheme of KiCS which allows for using optimizations when compiling the generated Haskell code. First tests show that this significantly improves the performance of Curry programs. There have been research activities in the area of functional logic programming languages for more than a decade. Nevertheless, there are still a lot of interesting research topics regarding more efficient compilation techniques and even semantic questions in the area of language extensions like encapsulation and function patterns. Besides activities regarding the language itself, there is also an active development of tools concerning Curry (e.g., the documentation tool CurryDoc, the analysis environment CurryBrowser, the observation debuggers COOSy and iCODE, the debugger B.I.O. (http://www-ps.informatik.uni-kiel.de/currywiki/tools/oracle_debugger), EasyCheck (→4.3.2), and CyCoTest (→4.3.4)). Because Curry has a functional subset, these tools can canonically be transferred to the functional world. Further reading http://www.curry-language.org/
http://wiki.curry-language.org/
Do you crave for highly expressive types, but do not want to resort to type-class hackery? Then Agda might provide a view of what the future has in store for you. Agda is a dependently typed functional programming language (developed using Haskell). The language has inductive families, i.e. GADTs which can be indexed by values and not just types. Other goodies include parameterized modules, mixfix operators, and an interactive Emacs interface (the type checker can assist you in the development of your code). A lot of work remains in order for Agda to become a full-fledged programming language (good libraries, |
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PORTLAND -- A 29-year-old woman has chosen Nov. 1, 2014 as the day she will die -- two days after her husband's birthday.
Brittany Maynard was a vibrant young woman. She has run several half marathons, spent a year traveling through Southeast Asia and once climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, East Africa.
On Jan. 1, 2014 her world changed when she was diagnosed with grade II astrocytoma, a severe brain tumor. Doctors predicted she had 10 years to live.
"When you’re 29 years old, being told you have that kind of timeline still feels like being told you’re going to die tomorrow," she said.
Despite having surgery, her prognosis took a dramatic turn for the worse a few months later. The cancer had progressed to glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the deadliest form of brain cancer. With it, patients typically live about 14.6 months. Maynard was given just six. Doctors said her death would be slow and painful as the tumor grew, causing her headaches, nausea, vomiting, weakness and seizures.
Maynard has chosen to use medicine prescribed by her doctor to end her life on Nov. 1 so that she may die with dignity, she said. She's adamant that her decision is not suicide.
"There is not a cell in my body that is suicidal or that wants to die," she told PEOPLE Magazine. "I want to live. I wish there was a cure for my disease but there's not."
Maynard has joined forces with Compassion and Choices, an end-of-life advocacy organization. She said she wants others to have the freedom in choosing death when faced with circumstances like hers.
"Being able to choose to go with dignity is less terrifying," she said.
Maynard and her entire family moved to Portland after her diagnosis in order to have access to Oregon's Death and Dignity Act, launched in 1997. Since then, 752 people have used it to legally choose death by prescription medication.
Maynard told People on that Nov. 1 she will pull apart 100 capsules of the sedative secobarbital, dissolve them in water, and drink it.
"I don't want to die but I am dying," Maynard tells PEOPLE in a new interview. "My [cancer] is going to kill me, and it's a terrible, terrible way to die. So to be able to die with my family with me, to have control over my own mind, which I would stand to lose – to go with dignity is less terrifying."
Maynard will not speak again publicly as she "heads into her final weeks," her representative said on Monday. She also posted an update on her blog earlier this month:
"The response from you all has surpassed our wildest expectations. On behalf of my family, thank you for the outpouring of love and support.
This journey has been challenging, to say the least. We've uprooted our lives. I take prescription drugs to reduce the swelling in my brain, that have caused my entire body to swell instead. Dan and I have given up our dreams of having a family. My mother is soon to lose her only child. We can all agree that no parent should bury their child.
I didn't launch this campaign because I wanted attention; in fact, it's hard for me to process it all. I did this because I want to see a world where everyone has access to death with dignity, as I have had. My journey is easier because of this choice.
I am so lucky to have known the love of an amazing husband (my husband Dan is a hero), a loving, caring mother, and an incredible group of friends and extended family. As my time draws closer, I hope you will all take up my request to carry on this work, and support them as they carry on my legacy. I'm so grateful to you all."Preference Or Prejudice? Central Europeans Ask Why They Get Cheaper Ingredients
Enlarge this image toggle caption Morgan Childs for NPR Morgan Childs for NPR
The frozen fish sticks you'll find in a Prague supermarket may be short on one key ingredient: fish.
And that's not because the Czech Republic is landlocked.
For years, governments and consumer advocates have been decrying what they call lower quality standards for packaged food available in Central and Eastern Europe, as compared with identically branded items sold in Western European countries. Hop the train east from Berlin to Warsaw, and you may find that the same popular soft drink brand is made with artificial sweeteners, rather than real sugar; a carton of juice comes with an extra serving of stabilizers; and lunchmeat is produced with smaller quantities of actual meat.
Yet despite the differences in ingredients, these products look the same on supermarket shelves from Brussels to Bratislava, leading some to ask — as did Polish daily Gazeta Prawna — "Is it food racism?"
But recent activity in the upper echelons of EU politics suggests that awareness of the so-called dual-quality foods finally may have reached a critical mass.
"I must say that the progress is speeding up a little bit lately," said Olga Sehnalová, a Czech member of the European Parliament and a longtime consumer-protection advocate.
In February, the Slovak and Hungarian delegations to the Agriculture and Fisheries Council of the European Union presented the findings of a survey comparing 22 Slovak supermarket products with their equivalents in Austria, the first study of its kind to be carried out on a national level. The results were discussed in a meeting of the European Commission in early March, and the Council may pick up the discussion again later this month.
And the issue has reached the highest leadership of all four of the so-called Visegrad countries — the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Poland — who convened at a summit this March to discuss the apparent double standard.
Critics of the dual-quality foodstuffs argue that discriminating against Central and Eastern Europeans erodes consumer confidence in the region. But as long as these products are safe and accurately labeled, food producers are within their legal rights to alter ingredient lists to suit local markets.
That practice, says Sehnalová, has allowed companies to discriminate against consumers in Europe's east by frequently selling them products made with cheaper, less nutritional ingredients — sometimes at even higher prices than their Western equivalents.
Sehnalová drew attention to the issue in 2015, when she spearheaded a study conducted by the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague comparing some two dozen products sold in the Czech Republic with their equivalents in Germany. The Iglo-brand fish sticks sold in Prague contained 7 percent less fish than the same product sold in Germany — but the fish sticks in Prague cost twice as much. Sprite, sweetened with sugar in Germany, was made with high-fructose corn syrup, aspartame, and acesulfame (a zero-calorie sweetener) and sold at a higher price point in the Czech Republic. Czech Nestea lemon-flavored iced tea, which contained a mix of sweeteners not found in its German counterpart, also had 40 percent less tea extract and a slightly higher sticker price.
"With some products, we are in fact Europe's garbage can," Czech Agriculture Minister Marian Jurečka told Reuters in February.
Yet several companies have bristled at the allegations of short-changing Central Europeans. Nomad Foods, the U.K.-based company behind the Iglo brand, insists that the fish sticks sold in Hungary and Slovakia "are essentially the same ones as we sell in the U.K. under the Birds Eye brand... with the same fish content," according to Sinead Noble, director of corporate affairs. "Even though we might sell a product across Europe, we always adapt that product to reflect local taste and preference," Noble explained in an email to The Salt.
Michael Ravn, head of communications at Tulip Food Company, said that the two Tulip luncheon meats compared in the Czech university study were actually different products entirely. "The German Frühstücksfleish consists of only pork meat, while the Czech Luncheon Meat — as stated on the [label] — is a mix or pork and chicken meat," Ravn said. Tulip's canned meat products, which are sold in 120 countries worldwide, are formulated "taking into account the different preferences regarding taste, market demands and prices," he added.
Unlike Jurečka, Sehnalová said she would never go so far as to call Central Europe a "garbage can," because only about a third of the products in the studies she has taken part in have indicated differences in ingredients from their Western European equivalents. But like many of her colleagues, she believes that a pan-European market survey is necessary to provide enough data for EU authorities to assess differences in food and other consumer products sold across the continent.
In late June, Sehnalová put forth a pilot project for one such survey, which is currently being evaluated by the European Commission. She said she believes that the survey would provide relevant data to address the discrepancies in quality she observed by taking part in two previous comparison studies.
Over the phone, however, she hedged her optimism. "After all these years, I'm finally seeing some progress," she said, "so I'm mildly optimistic that we are moving in the right direction."
But she added quickly: "I'm fairly convinced that it could have been done much sooner."
Morgan Childs is a freelance journalist based in Prague. She's on Twitter @MorganAChildsInstead of which Republicans will run for president in 2016, the easier question to answer may be which Republicans won’t. Since we last looked at which potential 2016 candidates are most likely to officially declare, the chance of a big Republican field has grown.
Carly Fiorina and Rand Paul have issued statements suggesting that they are closer to announcing than they have ever been. Fiorina has been quoted as saying that her chance of running is now “way over 50 percent.” Paul has said he’s “headed” toward a run. Considering these statements and their visits (past and planned) to the early primary states (see below), both candidates may have an official campaign by summer.
Including Fiorina, a ridiculously high 11 Republicans have in the past three weeks planned new events in Iowa and New Hampshire. Of these candidates, three jump out.
Bobby Jindal, who I previously noted hadn’t been visiting the early states, seems to be making a move. He’s added four early-state events, and the past few national polls have included him.
Jeb Bush, who has been concentrating on raising money, is making his first visits to Iowa in March.
And Rick Santorum has shown no signs of giving up on his campaign and continues to plan events in Iowa. He’s trying to repeat the magic he conjured there in 2012. Some national pollsters aren’t including Santorum in their surveys, although being ignored by people nationally didn’t stop him in 2012.
John Kasich and Mike Pence are the only two serious potential GOP candidates who have not ruled out a run and yet haven’t visited either Iowa or New Hampshire this year. Kasich, Ohio’s governor, has, however, visited South Carolina, which is home to the third contest in the primary calendar. He hasn’t come close to ruling out a run and has been featured in the majority of primary polls — indicating that pollsters (who can be seen as a rough indicator of the conventional wisdom) believe he may run.
Pence, on the other hand, doesn’t look like he’s going to throw his hat in the ring. Besides not visiting the early states, Pence, Indiana’s governor, didn’t back a bill allowing him to run for president and re-election as governor at the same time. And unlike Kasich, he continues to be left off the majority of national polls.
On the Democratic side, it’s still Hillary Clinton versus the world. Clinton hasn’t made any visits to Iowa or New Hampshire or really spoken about 2016 openly, although almost everyone thinks she’s going to run. That hasn’t stopped other candidates from making some moves, though.
Joe Biden, who I still think is unlikely to run given that he has no campaign structure, has planned or attended four events in Iowa and New Hampshire recently.
Martin O’Malley, who hasn’t visited Iowa or New Hampshire since the midterms, has events planned in both states in the next month.
Bernie Sanders, who is an independent but can run in the Democratic primary, continues to have more events (past and planned) in Iowa and New Hampshire than any of the potential candidates for either the Democratic or Republican nomination.
Clinton may waltz to the nomination, yet she may face more opponents than the one Al Gore did in 2000 (Bill Bradley). These opponents are unlikely to trip her up, although they may make her life a bit more difficult.These arboreal lesser apes evolved for life in the trees. But when people cut those trees down the gibbons had nowhere left to go.
Species name: Northern white-cheeked gibbon (Nomascus leucogenys). The northern and southern (N. siki) gibbons were only recognized as separate species a few years ago.
Where found: Very small regions of Vietnam, Lao and (maybe) China, although it hasn't been seen in that country since 1990. The only known viable population—130 groups totaling about 455 gibbons—was discovered just two years ago and lives in a single park in Vietnam.
IUCN Red List status: Critically endangered. The total population count for this species is unknown.
Major threats: Deforestation for agriculture and logging, as well as poaching for food (sadly, logging roads have made it easier for people to reach forests and hunt the animals). The remaining populations for this species are highly fragmented and small, with few opportunities to travel and broaden their gene pools.
Notable conservation programs: Several zoos are breeding northern white-cheeked gibbons, one of just three gibbon species actively being bred under the Gibbon Species Survival Plan Program of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. The cooperative breeding program has had several successes lately, and in fact the Gibbon Conservation Center in California announced the birth of a young gibbon just a few days ago. In addition Conservation International has been active in Vietnam and Lao and discovered the big population in Pu Mat National Park two years ago. Meanwhile the Gibbon Conservation Alliance in Switzerland does great work helping to preserve all gibbon species.
Multimedia: Listen to the northern white-crested gibbons' beautiful, undulating vocalizations here.
Lincoln Park Zoo welcomed a baby white-cheeked gibbon this past August. Check out the happy mother below:
Photo: A white-cheeked gibbon mother with her newborn at Adelaide Zoo in 2011. By Roger Smith via Flickr. Used under Creative Commons licenseMass emigration plus an historically low birth rate means that the population of Poland will shrink by over two and a half million by 2035, a report presented to a Senate committee warns.
The draft report by the Migration Research Academy - which will be published in full next spring - finds that following Poland joining the European Union in 2004, mass emigration has affected many regions of the country negatively.
"Depopulation from permanent emigration, combined with low birth rates and an aging population, has caused significant disturbances to socio-economic development and will have an effect on the future development of these regions," the report says.
Chairman of the Committee for Migration Research, Polish Academy of Sciences professor Marek Okólski, says that since joining the EU over two million Poles left the country, including up to 10 percent of the Opole region and nine percent of the Podlasie district.
The north-eastern Warmia and Mazury region, the poorest in Poland, has lost 7.5 percent of its population.
The report also finds that Polish women are twice as likely to have babies outside of Poland than inside.
"The age structure [of Poland's population] will change unfavourably: the under 15 age group will be reduced by about 10 percent [by 2035], 20-64 year-olds will decline by 7 per cent," the report finds.
Looking to the future, a declining population will affect the structure of the family, with the break up of extended families meaning new ways of caring for the elderly will have to be developed in a shrinking Poland. (pg)
source: PAPPeter B Kyne; ASM Hutchinson; Gertrude Atherton; Edna Ferber. The names mean anything to you? Me neither. All four featured on the end of year US fiction top 10 bestseller lists in the 1920s. These are just four random authors; I could have chosen almost any others. There were only three names I recognised for the whole decade: Edith Wharton, Thornton Wilder and Erich Maria von Remarque.
It's a fair bet that literary critics were shaking their heads at the amount of dross in the bestseller lists and lamenting the state of the novel back in the 1920s. It's the kind of thing critics like to do. These days we often think of the 1920s as one of the highpoints of the novel, with practitioners such as DH Lawrence, Franz Kafka, Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf, F Scott Fitzgerald and Herman Hesse. So you can put money on some critics saying the first decade of the new millennium was the heyday of the novel in 90 years' time. The really interesting question is what books and authors they will be citing in evidence.
First things first: the novel is here to stay. Whether we're downloading books on to a Kindle or turning pages of a book is an entirely different argument: the hunger for good storytelling has lasted for centuries and shows no signs of going away. The issue is quality. And I would argue the quality is still there; it's just not always that easy to find it.
Here's why. The sheer number of books published these days makes it impossible for any reader to keep track of what's being written; couple this with bookshops dying on their feet and their reluctance to stock anything but the most popular titles and it's a no-brainer to assume that a few very good reads never leave the publisher's warehouse, let alone pick up a review.
Which brings us to hype. No publisher – or writer, for that matter – can bring themselves to admit that writers are human. They have their off years and they have their on years. Instead, each new book comes with a blurb – frequently reinforced in the media by endless column inches – that brands it as both "the most important work yet" and a "guaranteed bestseller". And the reader buys it and wonders what all the fuss was about.
You can't really blame publishers. They are in the business of selling books, not preserving the state of the novel. And hype does sell. Or at least it stops other books that haven't been hyped from selling. So while the public appears to have unlimited choice, it actually has very little.
Take the last three months. Are Martin Amis and Ian McEwan really two of the most important writers of the decade? You would certainly think so to judge by the hyperbole their new books have generated, yet Amis hasn't written anything particularly good or different since the 1980s. The Pregnant Widow may be better than Yellow Dog, but then it could hardly have been worse. You can make more of a case for McEwan. He is a good writer. But one of the best? I'm not so sure.
Creative writing courses also haven't helped. They may be big business for universities and wonderful therapy for graduates – though I can't help feeling if you want therapy you'd be better off seeing a therapist – but they have had a negative effect on the reading public. All they have done is to make many more mediocre writers just competent enough to get published. I can usually sniff out a book that's been written by a creative writing student within a few pages; there will be no plot to speak of and each sentence will have been polished so many times it will be dead.
Some critics like to moan about the proliferation of ghosted novels by celebs crowding out the market. Get over yourselves. These books are what they are; no one pretends they are literature and if serious writers want to reach a bigger audience then they should make more effort to write books people want to read. This isn't dumbing down; it's a simple matter of having something to say and saying it well.
I'm often amazed at the number of novels that substitute style for substance. Books that seem to have no discernible plotline or arc; books that resolve themselves in an unconvincing catharsis; books that have been written just because the writer is able to string a few sentences together.
Here's my creed. A good novel should be readable. And yes, I will risk heresy by saying Ulysses is massively over-fetishised. Why would an author not want to be understood? It should also have a good storyline; a whole load of generalised thirtysomething angst isn't enough to sustain a reader's interest. The dialogue should be accurate: people should talk as they do in real life. You wouldn't believe the number of writers who make their characters say the most ridiculously convoluted things. Actually, you would. The book should be edited; this used to be a given, but now some writers' egos won't allow it. And above all, the book should have a big idea; something to say about the world beyond the basics of the story.
These books do exist. It's just a matter of knowing where to look. Critics often get very sniffy about genre writing, but I believe that's where many of the best novels are to be found. One day, John Le Carré's thrillers of the late 60s and 70s will be recognised as 20th-century classics. But there are good writers around. Interestingly, William Boyd got far more attention from the media when he was more obviously writing literary fiction; his most recent book, Ordinary Thunderstorms, was largely overlooked because it read too much like a thriller but, in my opinion, it was easily one of the best books of the year.
Then there's Stieg Larsson. A man who wrote gripping stories against a background of political corruption and violence against women. And sold millions. The great novel is very much alive and well. It's just not always where you're told it is.
• Thanks to DurkheimwasRight who suggested this topic and author in our fourth birthday open threadThe Power of Procrastination
James Whittaker Blocked Unblock Follow Following Mar 18, 2015
I was always a decent student; it wasn’t until I learned to procrastinate that I started to excel.
Yes you read that right. Procrastination is the harbinger of creativity; the provider of insight. It is often the difference between success and mediocrity. Had I not learned to procrastinate, indeed, to turn procrastination into an art form, I would not be where I am today. Procrastination can take credit for my PhD. Procrastination made me an executive at Google. Procrastination is the reason I have the word ‘Distinguished’ in my Microsoft title.
Procrastination isn’t just not bad. It’s the most underrated modern career skill out there and those who fail to embrace it, or worse, spend time berating themselves for it, will have a tougher climb to the top. The modern world is no place for the over prepared and meticulously organized. The world you think you are preparing for will have changed into something else long before you are finished preparing for it. The work you are organizing so obsessively will be irrelevant before it is fully organized. There is too much to know now and more things to know are springing up constantly. How can anyone navigate this world of knowledge overload?
The answer lies in procrastination and how it trains you to know only what you need to know only for the time you need to know it. Procrastination is the just-in-time preparation strategy for a just-in-time world. And lest you fear you are arriving late to the procrastination bandwagon, relax. That’s the great thing about procrastination, whatever time you have remaining is the exact amount of time you need.
Procrastination creates pressure
People who don’t procrastinate live in a fairy world. They plan ahead. They organize their notes after every lecture and pursue action items after every meeting. Homework is completed far in advance and life progresses with a predictability that, well, just isn’t real. Failure to procrastinate is tantamount to rejecting the world as it actually exists.
You see, homework isn’t assigned in the real world. You don’t get advance notice of when things are due. Deadlines pop up without announcing themselves. There are market pressures, competitive pressures, personal pressures, team dynamics, technology glitches and any number of things that make preparation either impossible or a huge waste of time. You either drive yourself crazy preparing for everything or you learn to deal with the pressure created by the uncontrollable and the unforeseen.
Procrastination creates artificial pressure which trains you to deal with real pressure during your career. Every good job and most of the decent ones are performed under pressure. Procrastinators become familiar with pressure. They learn to expect its presence and treat it as just another variable to consider. Procrastinators learn to contol panic. They are rarely surprised and develop improvisational skills the envy of any actor. Embrace the life of a procrastinator so you too can develop this keen ability to perform under pressure.
Procrastination requires prioritization
People who don’t procrastinate have more time to learn. This extra time means they can get more of a subject into their head than procrastinators who, by definition, wait too long to learn any subject completely. Simply put, people who don’t procrastinate learn more.
Learning more necessarily means learning things that don’t matter. It means spending time on things that are important and things that are not as important. People who don’t procrastinate don’t have to differentiate between the two. They have time to learn it all, or at least most of it. So they end up filling up valuable neural real estate on things that just don’t matter.
But the procrastinator has the advantage of a compressed time schedule and this means they have no choice but to prioritize. The procrastinator is forced to focus on only the most important parts of any subject. The procrastinating brain doesn’t have to make room for the unimportant stuff and can use its full capacity to learn all the really necessary parts more completely. It is only through thorough and repeated procrastination that one masters this prioritization.
The ability to pick apart a problem and find its most important parts is a crucial modern career skill. Procrastinating is a great way to obtain this skill and teaches us to learn the important parts of any subject first.
Procrastination promotes insight
People who don’t procrastinate aren’t incentivized to create shortcuts. Why bother when you have so much time on your hands? Procrastinators, however, feel this shortcut incentive strongly and it creates perfect conditions for insight to flourish.
My own procrastination led to an insight that regularly had me racking up A grade after A grade with mere minutes on the hour for study time. My goal was simple: study only the material that was likely to be on the exam. My insight was that two factors indicate topic’s likelihood of landing on an exam: the amount of time a professor spends lecturing on that topic and the amount of interest the professor displays during those lectures. Topics that got a lot of air time and that were delivered with some enthusiasm would feature prominently on exams. Of course, the same can be said of the corporate worker. The things the CEO talks about most and displays the most enthusiasm for are important. Working on things important to the CEO is really good for your career.
This strategy honed my power of prioritization, focused my cram time and provided a systematic way to study the material at hand. If there is one thing a procrastinator is good at, it’s coming up with a system.
Knowing what to study was only the beginning. Instead of just poring over the material trying to cram it into my head, I went through it and created exam questions of my own. More often than not I could get close enough to the actual exam questions to give me a decided advantage over even the staunchest non-procrastinator. After the exam, of course, procrastinator and non-procrastinator alike would forget large volumes of information (why we insist on teaching students things they don’t need to know isn’t tackled here). It’s just that the stuff I forgot was all important enough to justify its temporary neural real estate. Whereas much of the stuff the non-procrastinators forgot never needed to be learned in the first place.
Now who is the time waster here? Certainly not the procrastinator.
Procrastination saves time
Cram time is the best time to study simply because it is last minute and there is no time to forget anything. Nor is there any need to re-study anything you committed to memory days or weeks earlier because you didn’t know anything days or weeks earlier. That was when you were procrastinating!
Procrastination means that your knowledge is fresh. That new-car smell is still wafting around your tidy and uncluttered frontal lobe. The pages of your books and notes will be fresh in your memory ready to be recalled during the exam. When the inevitable post-exam knowledge flush occurs there is no reason to be sentimental about it because it was more of a one night stand with that knowledge rather than a proper relationship.
Procrastination is the preparation ritual
Study rituals among non-procrastinators often start weeks in advance. Rewriting notes, re-doing homework, making flash cards and rereading chapters puts the mind on notice much as pre-game rituals put an athlete’s muscles on notice. The message: it’s almost game time!
This is another huge advantage for procrastinators. We put our brains on notice much closer to game time. Our brains don’t have to anticipate game days for days or weeks in advance. Such a prolonged ritual is tiring. The anticipation is stressful. The adrenaline and passion is harder to maintain over such a stretch of time. Procrastinators follow much closer to the athlete model where maximum alertness is obtained right when you need it most, just as you enter the field of play.
Procrastination is the ritual. It eases the mind into its game day ritual so that it is ready when the starting whistle blows.
In Parting
Over the course of your lifetime you will learn and forget vast volumes of information. You will acquire and later release reams of knowledge. Much of what you are learning now will not be useful tomorrow. This is the world that exists today. Denying this reality will make success that much harder.
Ensuring that you learn the most impactful things and know them at the most important times is what will make you successful. Procrastination is the path to prioritizing what you need to know and retaining it for the time period in which you need to know it.
What are you waiting for? Start procrastinating today.David Mundell, Scottish secretary, challenges first minister to be clearer on party’s referendum policy after Alex Salmond said second vote is inevitable
The Scottish secretary, David Mundell, has challenged Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, to clarify her position after her predecessor Alex Salmond said a second independence referendum was inevitable.
Second Scottish referendum inevitable, says Alex Salmond Read more
Mundell said: “I think Nicola Sturgeon needs to be much clearer. Is it the SNP policy to have a second referendum or not? It is clear from what Alex Salmond is saying: this isn’t about the Smith commission – for Alex Salmond the Smith commission isn’t good enough. It is independence or nothing.”
In an interview with the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland, Mundell said: “The SNP’s Scotland Office spokesman at Westminster is putting down questions, asking what the UK government is doing about the second referendum when we were told in the white paper the referendum was a once-in-a-generation experience.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mundell challenges SNP to clarify position on second referendum. Link to video
“We were told by the former first minister it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and we were told by the current first minister before the UK general election that there wasn’t going to be another referendum, but all this talk of a second referendum has been stirred up by SNP MPs. I don’t accept that circumstances have changed.”
Salmond told BBC1’s Andrew Marr show on Sunday morning: “The question, of course, is not the inevitability; it is the timing, and that is very much in the hands of Nicola Sturgeon.”
Salmond said there were three issues that were making a second referendum increasingly likely “on a timescale yet to be determined”: the failure of the UK government to deliver fully on powers it promised Scotland before last September’s independence vote; the proposed EU referendum; and the continuation of Tory austerity policy.
Sturgeon refused to say whether she would include a pledge to hold a new referendum in the party’s manifesto for the 2016 Holyrood elections.
Speaking to the BBC on a visit to China, Sturgeon said: “I believe Scotland will become an independent country and that will only happen if people vote for it in a referendum, so I believe one day there will be another independence referendum.
“It will be up to me or any future leader of the SNP to decide whether or not that goes in a manifesto for a Scottish election. But the ultimate decision as to whether there is a referendum again, when that might be and what the outcome might be are all matters entirely for the democratic decision of the Scottish people.”
Mundell has also responded to two written questions submitted by another SNP MP, Margaret Ferrier, asking if the UK government had contingency plans for another independence referendum becoming her party’s policy following the Holyrood elections of 2016.
Let me tell you about referendums – threats won’t help | Nicola Sturgeon Read more
He said his department has made no plans and that he is disappointed by the questions in light of previous statements made by both Sturgeon and Salmond that the referendum was a one-off.
But the SNP chairman, Derek Mackay, told the same radio show the Scottish government is not preparing for a second referendum. Mackay, who is the transport and islands minister, told Good Morning Scotland: “There is no preparation or planning for a second referendum, but we still believe in independence for Scotland because we think it could so much good for the country.
“The only referendum that we’ll we face at the moment is that referendum to haul us out of Europe – which there wasn’t much appetite for in Scotland.”July 22, 2014 -- The Chicago Bulls announced today the signing of forward Doug McDermott. Per team policy, terms of the contract were not disclosed.
“We’re very excited about the addition of Doug. We love the versatility of his game and his ability to shoot,” said Chicago Bulls General Manager Gar Forman. “He’s a fit for our team and organization on many different levels.”
The 22-year old McDermott enjoyed a standout collegiate career at Creighton that culminated with his selection as the consensus National Player of the Year in 2014. As a senior, the 6-8 forward led the nation in scoring at a clip of 26.7 ppg (.550 from the field,.449 from downtown,.861 from the line) and posted 7.5 rpg and 1.3 apg in 33.7 mpg. He left Omaha as one of eight players in NCAA history to score more than 3,000 points (ranking fifth in Division I history with 3,150) and he is one of just three players to surpass 3,000 points and 1,000 rebounds in a career. He is also one of just 11 players to earn First Team AP All-America three straight seasons.
McDermott most recently played with Chicago’s summer league team in the Samsung NBA Summer League in Las Vegas. He earned Samsung All-NBA Summer League First Team honors, as he averaged 18.0 ppg (.442 from the floor,.444 from behind the arc and.957 from the line), 4.0 rpg, 2.8 apg, 0.80 bpg and 28.8 mpg in four games with the Bulls.
The Bulls acquired McDermott, the 11th overall selection in this year’s Draft, along with Anthony Randolph, in a draft-night deal with the Denver Nuggets that saw Denver receive Chicago’s 16th and 19th selections and the lesser of the Bulls’ two second-round picks (Chicago’s and Portland’s) in 2015.Peter Caruana Galizia, at right, front row, surrounded by his three sons, watches as the coffin of his wife Daphne Caruana Galizia, an investigative journalist killed by a car bomb, arrives for the funeral service in Valletta, Malta, Friday, Nov. 3, 2017. Malta observed a national day of mourning Friday as the Mediterranean island's largest church hosted funeral services for the journalist. (AP Photo/Jonathan Borg)
VALLETTA, Malta (AP) — Malta’s Roman Catholic archbishop warned those who killed an investigative reporter with a car bomb that they “would never escape the justice of God” and urged other journalists Friday to pursue the truth without fear.
Archbishop Charles Scicluna celebrated Daphne Caruana Galizia’s funeral Mass in the church nearest to where the 53-year-old Malta native lived before the bomb exploded as she drove away from home on Oct. 16. More than 1,500 mourners packed the venue and several hundred more spilled out into the square outside.
Mourners included her husband, three adult sons and European Parliament President Antonio Tajani, while top Maltese government and opposition figures stayed away in deference to the wishes of Caruana Galizia’s family.
The family has been vocal in its criticism of the government for its failure to root out the kind of corruption that Caruana Galizia covered in her blog, which was a must-read in the small Mediterranean island nation.
While investigators have yet to make any arrests in the case, Scicluna told Caruana Galizia’s killers to “repent before it is too late.”
“Whoever took part, in one way or another, in Daphne’s murder, I have this to tell you: However hard you try to evade the justice of men, you will never escape the justice of God,” he said.
Addressing her fellow journalists, the archbishop said “do not be afraid.”
“I encourage you never to grow weary in your mission to be the eyes, the ears, and the mouth of the people. Do this without fear and with full respect of the truth,” Scicluna said. “Dear journalists, we need you. We need people in your profession who are unshackled, who are free, intelligent, inquisitive, honest, serene, safe and protected.”
As Caruana Galizia’s coffin was driven away from the church, the crowd broke out singing the Maltese national anthem.
The Malta government declared Friday as a day of national mourning in “a sign that no attack on |
of overzealous prosecution by the Department of Justice and what the family deemed a "bullying" use of outdated computer crime laws.
Anonymous has not specified exactly what files they have obtained. The various files were named after Supreme Court Justices.
According to the statement:
Warhead – U S – D O J – L E A – 2013. A E E 256 is primed and armed. It has been quietly distributed to numerous mirrors over the last few days and is available for download from this website now. We encourage all Anonymous to syndicate this file as widely as possible.
This appears to be Anonymous sending a threatening message to whoever knows what might be on the encrypted files.
Anonymous has encouraged anyone and everyone to distribute the files, so it is unknown who has the files or how many have been distributed. The files are useless without the encryption keys.
The contents are various and we won’t ruin the speculation by revealing them. Suffice it to say, everyone has secrets, and some things are not meant to be public. At a regular interval commencing today, we will choose one media outlet and supply them with heavily redacted partial contents of the file. Any media outlets wishing to be eligible for this program must include within their reporting a means of secure communications.
Currently two of the mirrors are slow, and one has gone offline completely.
We retain full control over the site, but DNS records pulled. Like responding to burning house by removing street-signs...#opLastResort — OpLastResort (@OpLastResort) January 26, 2013
It is possible, as suggested by the file names, that Anonymous may have taken files pertaining to each of the Justices (all of whom were named on filenames at the bottom of the defaced page, such as "Scalia.warhead1") and put them in a file (named "Warhead-US-DOJ-LEA-2013.aes256") and then appended a command to the file that would nuke the file.
This suggests that Anonymous may have obtained files and nuked the compromised server.
Anonymous Tweeted that the group left a backdoor and made it editable in a way that encourages other hackers to come and shell the server.
@violetblue @oplastresort its kinda neat you can edit the sentencing guidelines as you see fit ;) — Anonymous (@Loraxlive) January 26, 2013
In the defacement text, Anonymous also said it placed "multiple warheads" on "compromised systems" on various unnamed websites, and encouraged members to download the encrypted files from ussc.gov that are "primed, armed and quietly distributed to numerous mirrors."
Anonymous called the launch of it new campaign a "warhead."
Anonymous posted the following video to the site stating that this attack is the beginning of what it calls "Operation Last Resort."
A few websites have republished the defacement text; full transcript below.We are going to start the GPD WIN 2 crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo at 10:00 a.m. (Beijing time) on 15th January. By the time, you can enter directly the crowdfunding page through the link:https://igg.me/at/gpdwin2
GPD WIN 2 RUNS GAME GTA5
GPD WIN 2 RUNS GAME Bayonetta
GPD WIN 2 Runs Game "Need for Speed : Rivals"
GPD WIN 2 Runs Game ”GTA5: Driving part“
What is the GPD WIN 2?
Nine Major Features of the Product
The most powerful handheld ever, the appearance design was developed by a German Red Dot Award winning team.
The product supports more than 1,000,000 internet games. Enjoy gaming the second you open the box.
The WIN 2 is equipped with a 6-inch touch screen from Sharp Corporation with a viewing angle up to 178°. The screens area has been increased by 9% compared to the previous generation WIN. It utilizes In-Cell full lamination technology and fourth generation Corning Gorilla Glass. With a screen resolution of 1280×720, it has a PPI 2.53 times greater than that of a typical 24-Inch desktop monitor. The WIN 2 also has a capacitive touch screen.
Featuring a seventh generation Intel Kaby Lake Core m3-7Y30 processor, with performance close to that of the Intel Core i7-3770K. With its CPU-Z single-core performance score of 1244 points, there is no stutter running the latest AAA-class games when using low game effects.
Complimenting the m3-7y30 CPU cores, the m3-7y30 also features 9th generation Intel HD Graphics 615 with 24 EU execution units and a maximum dynamic frequency of 900MHz. Game frame rates have increased by a facor of 2.2 times compared to the previous generation GPD WIN. Games are smoother and more realistic.
The device features a M.2 2242 port, with extremely high read/write speed capability. Game loading is 4 times faster compared to a mechanical hard disk or eMMC.
Equipped with 2×4900mAh large-capacity and high-density polymer lithium batteries. The GPD WIN 2 has a maximum game play battery-life of over 6 hours. Our product is also the first game handheld to support PD 2.0 fast charge, allowing the battery to be charged to half full within 45 minutes.
Brand new Gamepad design with two 3D joysticks from ALPS Japan, featuring built-in dual-vibration motors to ensure you get immersed in the game. Even the slightest vibration can still be sensible, making you more comfortable than your imagination.
Designed with a novel PC-class cooling solution, featuring a high-power turbofan which can adjust rpm dynamically from 2000~10000rpm. When the temperature of the CPU core is between 20 ℃~80 ℃, the 60-speed dynamic temperature control will kick in to best balance efficiency.
Appearance
Hardware Introduction
* Aida64 scores denote the sum of the Read, Write, Copy score. Only PCmark Vantage represents the score of the memory
* The tested SSD is Transcend / Transcend TS512GMTS400 512GB. Continuous read/write testing is based on CrystalDiskMark for performance evaluation, and the random read and write testing uses CrystalDiskMark QD32 for performance evaluation.
* The Micro SD card used in the test is SAMSUNG 128GB (model number: MB-MC128D); test software: ATTO Disk Benchmarks V2.47
* The above products are the maximum capacity that can be obtained in mainland China, but it does not mean that there is not larger capacity options in other regions. As long as it complies with the interface specification, our GPD WIN 2 can also support the storage.
Real Game Testing
* Testing resolution: 1280×720. Unless otherwise stated, the game uses low special effects.
“Grand Theft Auto 5” maximum settings 38fps;
“Heroes of the Storm” 60fps, team battle 38fps, an average of 49fps;
“Overwatch” interface 120fps, 80fps when walking in the map, a stable value of 50-70fps when in battle, an average of 83fps;
"League of Legends", even after turning full effects on, 60fps can be achieved, action sections 48fps, an average of 54fps;
“DOTA2” full of blood 70fps;
“The Elder Scrolls 5: Horizon” average of 53fps;
“World of Warcraft” an average of 30fps.
WIN 2 Configuration Table
Owning a portable handheld game console capable of running AAA games such as GTA5, has always been the dream of many gamers. But even the best handheld consoles on the market like the PSV and 3DS struggle to run these games. Better performance normally requires a device whose size, weight, power consumption and heat production prohibit small form-factors. However, what an optimal handheld design pursues is portability, compactness, small heat production and long battery-life.Last year, we successfully launched the GPD WIN, the first 5.5-inch Windows handheld game console in the industry. The significance of this machine lies in the fact that many games that could only be played in front of a television or a computer in the past, can for the first time now run on a portable handheld. However, we understand that the first generation GPD WIN had some deficiencies, especially in the area of performance and heat dissipation.We are committed to developing a handheld game console that can run AAA games smoothly. At the same time, the heat-dissipation, power consumption, device weight, portability, battery-life and other indicators will also be taken into account. Thus, we have gone through a product development period of a long time to introduce to you a new generation of our product: The GPD WIN 2.For a long time, we have thought about how to best design our handhelds in an ergonomic, aesthetic and commercially valued way.We are pleased to announce that the design of the GPD WIN 2 has been done in cooperation between GPD and the Red Dot Award winning design team. We feel the design of the WIN 2 has achieved the best balance of aesthetics, engineering and ergonomics.The frame of the lid is made of light, strong magnesium alloy material to prevent the screen bending. The rounded edge design shows more affinity. The black removable ABS cover can be replaced with a zinc alloy cover. Alternatively, you can also decorate it with your own metal or adhesive stickers. Enjoy personalizing the style of your GPD WIN 2 to your taste.To keep the WIN 2 lightweight, the main body of the WIN 2 uses ABS material. The sunken design of the joysticks allows seamless access to the other game controls. Unique arc metallic film keys, which make it more suitable for blind operation. The 360 style ABXY buttons, still use double-character screen printing for their labels. The machine body, keyboard and Gamepad use colors which bring out the best of the design. With an elegant matt UV finish, it provides the user with a delicate feel. The machine has been artistically designed with a fine balance of colors and material application.The trigger keys: L1/L2/L3, R1/R2/R3 are situated at the back of the WIN 2 near both corners. The interface ports are also on the back and comprise of: Type C USB, 3.5mm headphone, USB 3.0, Micro SD card slot, Micro HDMI. The hot air outlet is also situated at the rear. The quite compact layout, brings out the best of the design.The bottom surface of the WIN 2 has been designed with a covered slot to enable easy user replacement of the M.2 SSD card. The M.2 SSD card is fixed in place using screws, which effectively guarantees that the SSD is connected with the M.2 interface, even when the WIN 2 is shaken or in the extreme drop state.The design of the air inlet on the side of previous WIN model makes it easier for them to be blocked by hands when holding the machine, which has been widely criticized. The air inlet of the WIN 2 has been designed in the bottom surface. The fan then forces hot air out the back of the machine. Hot air only travels a short distance before it exits via the back vent, extracting heat from the machine in nearly no time. In limited tests, the temperature of the machine can be controlled at about 39 degrees.Equipped with a 6-inch screen from Sharp Corporation, the viewing area has increased by 9% compared to the previous generation. Using In-Cell full lamination technology, the screen is thinner due to the reduction of a piece of glass. By applying the fourth generation of Corning Gorilla Glass, the intact rate of a 1-meter drop test is as high as 80%, and damage reduction shows a 45% improvement compared to Gorilla Glass 3. Protective design with no prominent frame, allows you to focus on your gaming. Side and upper screen borders have been kept to a minimum, with an upper border of only 5mm and a lower border of only 3mm. The screen resolution is 1280×720, it has a PPI 2.53 times greater than that of a typical 24-Inch desktop monitor. The viewing angle is up to 178°. The WIN 2 also has a capacitive touch screen.Equipped with the seventh generation ultra-low voltage IntelKaby Lake Corem3-7Y30 Processor, fabricated using advanced 14nm technology. Under the same power consumption, it can deliver about 12% performance improvement compared to the previous generation Skylake technology. The bus speed of IntelCorem3-7Y30 can reach 99.76MHz, with OPI bus speeds up to 4GT/s and peak data transfer of 4×10^9 times. Together with 4MB L3 cache, it greatly reduces the time to retrieve data from memory.Due to the increased number of transistors and architecture optimizations, the m3-7Y30 is significantly better than the x7-Z8750 used in the previous generation GPD WIN. The improvement in the measured performance of the m3-7y30 is quite obvious. The CPU-Z single-core performance reaches 1244 points, almost 4 times that of the x7-Z8750. Multi-core performance reaches 2688 points, 2 times that of the Z8750. The overall performance is close to the third generation Intel i7-3770K.The emergency response speed of the m3-7y30 has increased significantly thanks to Speed Shift technology which can instantly boost CPU Turbo. Compared to the 0.1 second response time of the m3-6y30, the response time of the m3-7y30 is only 0.005 seconds, killing nearly all the stutters in team battles.Utilizing 9th generation IntelHD Graphics 615 with 24 execution units(EUs) and a maximum dynamic frequency of 900MHz, the Win 2 graphics performance surpasses that of its predecessor which uses 8th generation HD Graphics 405, with only 16 EUs and a maximum dynamic frequency of only 600MHz.When parallel processing graphics data in a high throughput situation, the HD Graphics 615 performance is up to 220% better than the discrete graphics NVIDIA GeForce GT240. Coupled with the fact that the system resolution is not that high, the WIN 2 can easily cope with the latest AAA games when using low game effects.The m3-7y30 only supports LPDDR3 which has a maximum operating frequency of 1866MHz. Compared to the previous generation of Z8750, the memory frequency has increased by 1.17 times. With dual-channel design, bandwidth up to 128bits, the effective wait time is reduced by 50%, enabling games to run more smoothly. RAM increase to 8GB which is twice as that of previous generation WIN.The WIN 2 features an M.2 2242 socket interface. It comes standard with a 128GB M.2 SSD. The SSD adopts SATA 3.0 based on the AHCI protocol, which has a theoretical bandwidth of up to 6Gb/s, and a theoretical transfer speed of up to 600MB/s.The M.2 SSD can be easily replaced. Players can buy 256GB, 512GB or higher capacity SSD to replace the original one. There is no capacity limit, which means it can store more games, videos and applications.As an example of SSDs speed, we tested the read speed of the Transcend TS512GMTS400 512GB SSD (which is not the standard SSD in the-WIN 2). Read speeds for this card reach 560MB/s, and write speeds reach 460MB/s. This hardware configuration design enables the machine to reach the optimal overall performance of the system, there is no system configuration bottleneck.At the player’s request, the WIN 2 retains the Micro SD card slot. The m3-7y30 supports UHS 104 ultra-high-speed SD interface, and the bus bandwidth is up to 104MB/s, which perfectly supports Micro SDXC cards.We performed a speed test using the SAMSUNG 128GB (Model: MB-MC128D) USD card on the WIN 2. The tests showed read speeds up to 86MB/s, and write speeds up to 55MB/s. These results are 2.04 times better than achieved on the previous generation WIN console, taking full advantage of its bandwidth.The price advantage of Micro SD is quite obvious compared to SSD, and the read/write speed is not lower than that of eMMC. The Micro SD is therefore a powerful complement to the WIN 2 storage options.The following table is based on the current situation of the maximum capacity of storage devices on the market, from which we can calculate that the maximum scalable storage capacity of GPD WIN 2 is 2.256TB:Set the mode switch to X to enter the Xbox 360 Gamepad mode. The Gamepad still remains the style of WIN, using Japanese ALPS double-3D joystick, with the sunk-style design, which is improved to reduce operational errors.On the left side is a classic cross style D-pad, which enables fast and accurate directional movement. On the right is the 360 style action buttons, labeled using a double-character screen-printing technique, faster and more accurate with finger touch.L3/R3 trigger buttons are located on the back of the WIN 2 together with L1/R1 and L2/R2. The newly designed trigger buttons make it easy for players to reach quickly, making the gaming experience better.WIN 2 is also equipped with two vibration motors. It's insane level of vibration effect will help you get more immersed in the game. The two vibrating motors are extremely powerful, providing you with an unsurpassed experience in both racing and shooting games. Each game has a unique and appropriate vibration mode. When playing shooting games, you can feel the recoil of the gun pushing you backward; when starting a car engine, you can feel the vibration of the engine as if you were really sitting in the car. Even the slightest vibration can be sensed, making you more immersed in the game than ever before.The WIN 2 keyboard has been designed to cope with more than 1 million key presses. Key travel has been set to avoid fatigue from long typing sessions. The keyboard has an excellent feel. THE WASD, left, right, up and down keys are designed in a protruding style, which makes PC keyboard gaming easier. The concave power button has been designed to avoid inadvertent presses. In the upper right corner of the keyboard, there is the Xbox key, which can serve as “home button”, “screenshot button” etc.Setting the mode switch to mouse mode, that is enter mouse control state.Mouse control is important for PC games, as such, the WIN 2 joystick can be used to simulate a mouse. Also, in order to meet the needs of different players, the mouse speed can be increased by pressing the L2 button. When the default speed does not agree with you, you can press the L2 button to increase the mouse speed by a factor of 2.In order to extend the battery-life, WIN 2 uses 2×4900mAh large-capacity and high-density polymer lithium batteries, with 7.6V output, 37.24Wh of power and 600Wh/L energy density. Its battery capacity is increased by 49% compared to the previous generation WIN, and the power utilization ratio is increased from 82% to 95%. The large batteries enable the WIN 2 to deliver an outstanding gaming battery life of over 6 hours. At the same time, our product is also the first game handheld to support PD 2.0 fast charge which can charge the battery to half full within 45 minutes.In addition, the charging logic of the WIN 2 has been changed. When in charging mode, the motherboard is directly powered by the source supply rather than through the battery. The WIN 2 can support a maximum power supply of 12V/2.5A. When in lack of power, the battery will support the power supply in order to ensure the long battery-life need of our players.To enhance the cooling effect, the WIN 2 is designed with a PC-class cooling solution utilizing a high-power turbofan. The fan has a dynamic speed range from 2000-10000rpm. With large-volume side-blown thermal outlet design and ultra-short outlet distance, the hot air exhaust performance is 8 times greater than that of the previous generation WIN.At the same time, the WIN 2 increases the default thermal power consumption of 4.5W to 15W. When the temperature of the CPU is between 20 ℃~80 ℃, the 60-speed dynamic temperature control will be started by BIOS to optimally balance the energy/performance ratio.As for the design of the internal structure, it has benefited from changing the L-type motherboard, to a dual motherboard superposition design. The saved room is used to store the double battery stack, which effectively prevents the conduction of heat between the battery and motherboard.The gaming improvement of the WIN 2 is very obvious. The following is a performance comparison between the WIN 2 and previous generation WIN. It shows game frame rate results for the WIN 2 and WIN:Of all the forecasts made here at CES, the smart home feels like one of the nearest to coming true. Nearly every big-name technology brand, from Google to Samsung to LG, is in the process of trying to own the way we interact with our appliances and our appliances interact with each other. But the most important name in the smart home is the one you’re least likely to find plastered inside the cavernous halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center: Alexa.
The name corresponds to Amazon’s cloud-based voice assistant, which began as the personal assistant inside the online shopping company’s Echo speaker that went on sale to the public in June. Over the course of a few months, however, Alexa has moved beyond Echo and into a host of third-party devices, in part thanks to Amazon’s $100 million Alexa Fund, which helps other companies incorporate the software into their products.
At CES 2016, Alexa is weaving its way into third-party products
Now those investments are bearing fruit. At CES 2016, Amazon is a stealth attendee. Without a booth or logo in sight, Alexa is weaving its way into third-party products here as varied as home security cameras, lighting systems, and Ford vehicles. By creating a voice interface for asking about the weather, playing music, and the mundane resupplying of paper towels and snacks, Amazon has emerged as the go-to partner for industries in need of powerful natural language processing and fast access to information from the internet. The benefit for Amazon is obvious: voice software tied directly to the Everything Store is a great way to keep people spending money on Amazon. But for an industry bedeviled by interface and compatibility issues, Alexa is an attractive way forward.
"We thought, ‘Okay, this is now a best-in-class product,’" says Jeremy Warren, the chief technology officer for home security company Vivint, which announced at CES that it has integrated the Echo and Alexa into its entire smart appliance lineup. Owners of an Echo speaker can now ask Alexa to lock their doors, turn off their lights, or adjust their Nest thermostat. Because Vivint has brokered a partnership with the Google-owned appliance maker, Amazon’s Alexa gets access to Nest products by proxy.
Gaining access to Amazon’s powerful cloud computing capabilities has its perks. But the true appeal of Alexa is a simple one: it’s voice control and nothing more. "The default way to interact with devices so far has been apps," says Sebastien de la Bastie, the managing director of French startup Invoxia. "But we believe the voice is the best interface."
Invoxia, one of the recipients of an Alexa Fund investment from Amazon last September, announced this week at CES that it’s the first third-party hardware maker to incorporate all the power of Alexa into a product other than the Echo. The company’s Triby, as it’s called, is a colorful, magnet-backed Bluetooth speaker resembling an old-school radio. It’s designed to let family members, including young children, make internet-based phone calls with one another, draw doodles and leave messages, and play music in the kitchen.
Prior to the Alexa integration, which goes out as a software update to Triby owners this spring, the company’s speaker could only be controlled with a smartphone app and its physical buttons. Soon you’ll talk to it — to Alexa, to be more precise. Invoxia is currently working on a software feature that, when combined with Alexa, will let the Triby identify every member of a household and prevent certain users, like an eight-year-old child, from ordering a truckload of candy on Amazon.
The Invoxia Triby is the first third-party device to integrate Amazon's Alexa.
Amazon’s success in the smart home can also be attributed to its disinterest in becoming a holistic ecosystem. Google is currently trying to pioneer a platform for the Internet of Things called Brillo, with a common language for low-power connected devices called Weave. Samsung now owns SmartThings, which makes a hub for routing gadgets from multiple different manufacturers, including Samsung of course, through a single app. Walk around here at CES, and you’ll find countless companies hawking the next great smart home ecosystem, with no solution providing any more clarity of vision than the next.
Amazon remains a silent but powerful force
Alexa is not designed to rule the smart home. But it’s becoming the easiest and most accessible way to talk to everything in your home with a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth chip — and for aspiring smart appliance makers to get a voice interface. All the while, Amazon remains a silent but powerful force, building a presence in the home with seemingly open arms. "For the next few years, your enemies are not the other folk [companies]," says Vivint’s Warren. "It’s ignorance and indifference."
That creates what Warren calls "coopetition" — or "frenemies" if you prefer — among startups like Vivint and tech giants like Google, Samsung, and Amazon. But at this point, partnering with Amazon is a logical choice, part of an inevitability. "Vivint not working with Amazon is not going to stop them from succeeding."Follow @jellyneo on Twitter for all the latest #Neopets news!
We've received some reports that a special service is being offered to bypass the CAPTCHAs on user and pet lookups. This is aandservice. Instead, the bad actors offering the service are stealing login credentials for your Neopets account.In the interest of keeping your account secure, do not download any program offering to skip the CAPTCHAs for you! There's no imminent danger to your account as long as you don't download anything.And of course, on the topic of security, just a friendly reminder to change your password if you haven't done so in awhile. Don't forget that Jumpstart announced a database hack that occurred several years back—and if you haven't changed your password since then, your account is at risk.Changing your password also doesn't just go for Neopets, but all of your online accounts! To see if any of your other online accounts have fallen victim, we highly recommend plugging your email into HaveIBeenPwned.com, which keeps track of mass-hacking events.Stay safe!Advertisement
This is the heart-warming moment an abused orangutan was freed after spending two years locked up in a dark wooden box.
The ape, called Kotap, was rescued by a team from International Animal Rescue and local officials at a remote village in West Kalimantan, Borneo.
Kotap, aged just four, had spent half his life shut up in the ramshackle box, measuring just 10 sq ft, with nothing but a straw and an empty plastic bottle to play with.
He was so frightened of the outside world that he cowered at the back of his cramped home when rescuers first opened the front hatch.
Heart-warming: Footage captures the moment an abused orangutan was freed after spending two years locked up in a dark wooden box
The ape, called Kotap, was rescued by a team from International Animal Rescue (IAR) and officials from the forestry department (BKSDA) of West Kalimantan, Borneo
Having spent two years in the cramped box, the ape was at first frightened to emerge. But rescuers gently coaxed him to the entrance before taking him away for specialist care and treatment
But they were eventually able to coax him to the entrance before the young animal was finally lifted to safety.
His captor, a man named Baco, claimed to have been given the orangutan by some people he met in the village of Ketapang, West Kalimantan.
Baco had spotted the small baby ape in a cardboard box and agreed to take him home and look after him.
However he soon became concerned that Kotap would disturb the neighbours and built a cage for him at the front of his house.
He had fed Kotap on a diet of human food, including bread and rice.
Baco claimed that the orangutan's favourite meal was uncooked instant noodles, washed down with a sachet of sugary drink.
Officials from the BKSDA had previously visited Baco at his home in Rabak, a village in West Kalimantan, but were unable to persuade him to hand over Kotap.
Solitude: Rescuers found that the young ape had only a plastic straw and empty bottle to play with inside his cramped home
Freedom: Kotap eventually emerged from his wooden box having initially been too scared to come out when rescuers found him
Reluctant: At first the young animal was too scared to come out and ran to the back of his box when the hatch was opened. After years in the darkness, he clearly found the sight and sound of the outside world terrifying
Enclosure: This was the ramshackle home Kotap was kept in for two years. Moments later the hatch was opened and the young animal was given a taste of the outside world
But after they explained the plight of orangutans in Borneo and that he must act in the best interests of the animal, Baco agreed to give up Kotap.
When the door of the box was opened and IAR vet Uwi extended her hand to Kotap, at first he was frightened and ran to the back of the box where he couldn't be reached. After years in the darkness, he clearly found the sight and sound of the outside world terrifying.
Uwi said: 'Kotap was very stressed by all the strangers who gathered to see him when he was taken out of the box. He became nervous and aggressive which is not surprising. So during the long journey back to the centre we kept people away from him so that he remained as quiet and calm as possible.'
Rescue bid: Kotap, aged four, was eventually lifted out of the box by rescuers and taken away for treatment and rehabilitation
The outside world: International Animal Rescue vet Uwi said: 'Kotap was very stressed by all the strangers who gathered to see him when he was taken out of the box'
Kotap 'lived a sad and solitary existence', according to rescuers who said the animal had been 'unable to exercise or express any of the natural behaviour of a wild orangutan'
Caring: Rescuers said that the orangutan had been 'deprived of everything an orangutan needs to survive in the wild'
Alan Knight, Chief Executive of International Animal Rescue, said: 'This poor orangutan had been kept alone in the dark for two long years - half his entire life. He was deprived of everything an orangutan needs to survive in the wild.
'At four years old, he should still be with his mother, learning from her how to climb and move through the forest, what foods to eat and what to avoid, and how to build a nest in the trees to sleep in each night.
'Instead, Kotap lived a sad and solitary existence, unable to exercise or express any of the natural behaviours of a wild orangutan. He was fed an unsuitable diet that could have made him seriously ill and would surely eventually have been driven mad with boredom and frustration.
The rescuers lifted him out of the crate and carried him to their car where they put him in another box so he could be transported
Alan Knight, Chief Executive of International Animal Rescue, said: 'Thankfully now, after a period in quarantine, Kotap will meet other rescued orangutans at our centre and embark on the long journey through rehabilitation back to the forest where he belongs'
Feeding time: After being rescued, the ape was transferred to a specialist unit for care and treatment. He is pictured being fed from a bottle
Monkey business: The ape seemed to enjoy his new found freedom as he was being transferred by International Animal Rescue
Recovery: After being rescued, Kotap was given fresh leaves and a bottle to drink from as he was being transferred to a better home
Kotap has undergun a periof of quarantine and will not meet other rescued orangutans to embark on the long journey through rehabilitation
'Thankfully now, after a period in quarantine, Kotap will meet other rescued orangutans at our centre and embark on the long journey through rehabilitation back to the forest where he belongs.'
Less than two months ago IAR's team rescued Amy whose sad story of cruelty and neglect was very similar to Kotap's.
Karmele Llano Sanchez, Programme Director for IAR Indonesia, said: 'It's high time people realised that, if they keep breaking the law by capturing orangutans and keeping or selling them as pets, then the species will soon become extinct.'Via WABC 7 shot in a Newark housing complex. Ali Rajohn Eric Henderson was the 10th person to be killed in Newark in the past 10 days. And now reports say that the boy had 30 bricks of heroin as well as a gun in his bedroom.
According to the Star-Ledger, the boy "had several prior arrests for drug possession and robbery, according to police documents and law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation who declined to be identified because they are not yet authorized to speak about the investigation." Most recently, he was arrested for possessing crack cocaine on August 15. After the boy was killed, "detectives from the prosecutor's homicide task force searched the boy's room and found 30 bricks of heroin, a loaded 9mm Smith & Wesson handgun and a box of.357 ammunition, the document said."
Donna Jackson, of the Newark Anti-Violence Coalition, told WABC 7, "The level of danger in this city is at an all-time high. For those of us here in Newark, we're not just the number one carjacking city in the world, we're the number one murder, crime city in this country, and we need help."
The shooting occurred at 9 p.m. at the Riverview Terrace Housing Complex, where the boy lived. About a half hour before, Mayor Cory Booker Tweeted, "Out with Police Director DeMaio tonight visiting with residents and reviewing our increased police operations." DeMaio said the various shootings were not linked, "It's just kind of a random spark-up. There's been no change in the deployment strategy we used all summer." Booker's office announced earlier that the Police Department was launching "Operation Blue Zone," to put police in troubled areas.Dear Reader,
Yes, it's a true but very rare occurrence. When air is blown or forced directly into a vagina — without allowing any air to escape — an air embolism (the abnormal presence of air in the cardiovascular system) could form, which can be fatal. Women who are more at risk for this unlikely possibility are those whose pelvic vessels are enlarged (meaning, increased blood supply to the vagina) due to a condition such as trauma and possibly pregnancy. So, if a very large amount of air were to be blown or forced into their vaginal canals, it's possible that the air could enter their bloodstream, causing a blockage in a blood vessel. As a result, some of these women, perhaps including the pregnant women's fetus, may experience complications. In extraordinary cases, some of these women (and the fetus) may die if the embolism travels to the heart or lungs.
If you like blowing air into your girlfriend's vulva, and if your girlfriend enjoys the sensations brought on by this, it may give you two some peace of mind to know that gently puffing some air into or breathing on a woman's vulva during oral pleasuring appears to be okay. However, it might be better to suck, kiss, lick, probe, press (with lips or fingers), or lightly nibble a woman's vulva or clitoris than blow or force air directly into her vagina. Safer and enjoyable oral sex on a woman mostly involves using a dam, finding out what feels good to her, and practice.
The answer, my friend, is not blowin' in the women.
Alice!Copyright by WJHL - All rights reserved Samuel Garrison
Copyright by WJHL - All rights reserved Samuel Garrison
JOHNSON CITY, TN (WJHL) - Johnson City Police Department officers arrested a man Wednesday on theft and vandalism charges, following a report of about a stolen vehicle Monday.
According to a JCPD news release, police were called to Mullican Flooring, 655 Woodlyn Road, after an employee said he vehicle had been stolen while parked in the business parking lot.
Mullican Flooring was able to provide video surveillance to police, and Samuel Garrison, 25, of Johnson City, was identified in the video.
Garrison was located on Wednesday and the victim's vehicle was found nearby spray painted and vandalized. He was arrested and charged with theft of property over $1,000 and vandalism under $500.
He was taken to the Washington County Detention Center, where he was being held on $11,000 bond.
Garrison was scheduled to appear for his arraignment in Sessions Court Thursday.
Copyright 2015 WJHL. All rights reserved.Cristiano Ronaldo has admitted that booing Real Madrid fans have made him miss former club Manchester United and the Premier League.
Ronaldo is set to lead Madrid in another Champions League final as the club takes on Juventus on Saturday (3 June), hoping to become the first team to win the competition in consecutive years.
However, despite scoring 10 goals and assisting five in the Champions League this season along with being the club's all time top scorer, the Portugal captain has been on the receiving end of boos and whistles from his own fans.
While he remains happy in Spain, Ronaldo says he prefers how the fans in England treated their players, having played for Manchester United from 2003 to 2009.
"I spent a lot of years at Manchester United and it [home fans booing] never happened to me. Not even once," Ronaldo said, as quoted on Sky Sports. "Maybe England is a case apart, the mentality is different."
"I'm very happy being in Spain but obviously I also miss England because you can't just turn off the |
repeated attempts to implement merit pay lies the erroneous notion that problems in education can somehow be chalked up to a lack of effort by teachers—that there’s no structural problem, only a lack of incentive. And that attitude, along with the refusal to put adequate resources into teachers’ development, is part of the larger repeated error that Goldstein highlights most often in The Teacher Wars: the denigration of the teaching profession, which stops the brightest, most talented students from considering it as a career. Today, teachers have many advocates and opponents—many people willing to provide an opinion on how best to do their job—but Goldstein convincingly argues that the profession still lacks the reputation that befits its importance to society.
Valuing teachers, Goldstein argues, means empowering them—and the best way to do that, in her view, is to institute a decentralized system in which “local schools are free to experiment with their own lesson plans, student assessments, and teacher evaluation systems.” She offers a number of success stories along these lines, none more interesting than Alex Caputo-Pearl’s example in Los Angeles. At Crenshaw High School, Caputo-Pearl implemented a curriculum that taught subjects using examples from students’ own experience in their community: students learned math, for example, by looking at how income affects social opportunity in south-L.A. neighborhoods.
Goldstein’s support for such teaching methods is compelling insofar as it accounts for a needed adaptability in schools. When praising Caputo-Pearl’s plan, she notes that the reasons why kids drop out of school—“they find it boring, they don’t see how it connects to the world of work, and they would rather be earning money”—often require localized solutions, the ability to shift approaches according to the demands of a specific neighborhood or student.
By the end, though, as Goldstein refers to the “limitations of our decentralized political system,” her support for such a local method begins to seem like a best-case proposition in a compromised world. And even then her optimism appears to stand on shaky ground, in part because of her own rigorous historical research and her ability to pursue different sides of a controversy and seemingly uphold and undercut them all. Earlier in the book, she recounts the fight for community control in New York in the late Sixties, which was sparked by a backlash against desegregation from black separatist groups who wanted black neighborhoods to have full hiring and curriculum decision-making powers at their schools. That fight ultimately demonstrates a great danger of local control—the possibility that it will fracture cities and countries into isolated communities.
It also pinpoints how localization goes against what should be the starting point for any conversation about education: that schooling should be public, common; that it should be about the shared world we hope to create or keep alive for our children. Starting with such a premise does mean facing knotty subjects: school prayer in the U.S., policies enforcing secularism in France, proper recognition of different cultures and students’ personal circumstances. But arguing about education ultimately comes down to arguing about the kind of society we want to create, about how to prepare kids, in Hannah Arendt’s words, “for the task of renewing a common world.” And this means vigorously arguing about what that world should look like, not allowing ourselves to retreat into isolated practices and beliefs.
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Such ambitious visions of education’s role in the social fabric of a nation are not anathema to Goldstein. She clearly sees education as crucial to how a country defines itself. She supports approaches like those in Finland, where public education is “one thread of a comprehensive social safety net for children, one that includes affordable childcare, housing, health care, college tuition, and vocational training, too.” But acknowledging the need to augment education reform with improvements to our social safety net does not necessitate Goldman’s push for localization—a pragmatic solution, perhaps, but one that risks ignoring what’s really at stake. Under the surface of the debates about education in America looms a larger conflict: one between an individualist mindset—which puts an emphasis on providing excellence in education at some schools and letting parents compete to see who benefits from it—and a collectivist one that believes in something like Arendt’s notion of school’s role in crafting a common world.
Ultimately the move toward over-testing is tied to this larger problem of limited thinking about what education, and education reform, should look like, of being more concerned with the individual than with the wider society. A collectivist perspective on education would, for example, acknowledge the importance of universal preschool and, as Goldstein emphasizes often, the still-incomplete task of desegregation. But Goldstein’s preference for reforms “that are seeded from the ground up, not imposed from the top down,” as she writes, risks reinforcing another form of individualism, or of particularism, even as it dismantles an inflexible bureaucracy. A top-down approach is certainly a burden when it constrains itself to rigid notions of what can be quantified and analyzed. But a ground-up approach that allows conversations about the collective good to be sidelined leaves its own problems.
Education systems will, no matter how you spin it, help mold the world we want for the future. Schools are one of the most direct means by which a society instills its basic principles. The Teacher Wars reminds us that good teaching is an essential, if not sufficient, part of fulfilling these larger goals. It also makes a convincing case that education reform must account for particular local concerns, needs, and approaches. Many of the proposals Goldstein makes could, no doubt, be integral parts of a larger project of education reform. But a time when success is too often measured through limited parameters, even when facing problem of the broadest consequences, is not one for shrinking from ambitious ventures. In that respect, Goldstein doesn’t quite engage with the biggest hurdle to proper education reform: acknowledging that constrained thinking does not sharpen our focus and improve our insights; it only limits our view of the world—convincing us, falsely, that we can do nothing to change it.
Did you enjoy this essay? Check out our holiday sale for special seasonal deals on gift subscriptions, themed sets, totes and more.Nguyen (not her real name) has been displaced by the planned development since April 26. Her comments were taken by RFI’s Vietnamese service
The land grab has been like a foreign invasion. For us country people, the land is our sole means of earning a living and feeding our children.
Up until now, we haven’t been able to dialogue with investors or the authorities about the project’s parametres. It’s as if they’re stealing our land. In the beginning, they offered to compensate us with 19.5 million dongs [around 700 euros] and 360 square metres [around 0.09 acres] of land. Offended, we contested the sum. The offer then went up to 54 million dongs [close to 2,000 euros]. These days, a rural family with two children spend on average 100 million dongs [3,600 euros] per year; in other words almost twice what was offered. What would we live off for the last six months of the year? The authorities explained to us that they would give us job training in different fields, but I just don’t see how that would work for those of us who are already 40 or 50 years old. Besides, there are very few opportunities in the area.
"No one has ever explained to us how this project will be useful in the future, and why it is justified"
We’ve protested against this project for the past eight years on an administrative level, no one has reacted either locally or nationally. No one has ever explained to us how this project will be useful in the future, and why it is justified. What’s more, we know that it’s not essential. It’s clear that the very powerful company that’s been pushing the project is hoping to make profit on real estate speculation.
The way things were done shows that there’s been an abuse of power. The government mobilised a lot of police. They went as far as to pay off thugs to destroy our crops. They were mowed down by a bulldozer. Our fields looked like they had been hit by a war, or swept clean by a tsunami. It was so sad.
We will continue to fight for our rights and for the fair application of the law. The foreign press has recently began reporting what the Vietnamese authorities have subjected us to. The Communist Party [which is currently the ruling party in Vietnam] is supposed to be an extension of the people. They’re supposed to come from agricultural backgrounds like us. It’s unfathomable that they would now steal our land.Scientists at the Max Planck institute in Munich, Germany recruited six lucid dreamers with years of experience for their study. Once in their dream, the subjects signaled researchers with left-right-left-right eye movements and then immediately started clenching their left hand ten times. Then they performed the eye movements again and made ten clenches with their right hand. The sideways eye movements were distinguishable from the spontaneous rapid eye movements on the EOG (motor eye component of an EEG) and gave a time point for researches to measure the dreamed fist clenches. Scientist found the clenche activated the expected areas in the contralateral sensorimotor cortex.
Previous brain lesion studies in cats and Rapid eye movement behavior disorder indicated that the brain might enact dream movements activity similar to when awake, but that the movements are prevented by active motor paralysis downstream of the signal. This study was the first to image the brain during specific dream content, and it showed that dreaming movements have similarity to actual and imagined fist clenches. If this finding also holds true for the sensory areas of the brain, it indicates that the visual decoding work of labs like Jack Gallant at the University of California, Berkeley could be used to record and visualize dreams–that is if you canstay still and manage to fall asleep through the loud clunkings of a claustrophobic fMRI machine.
The Gallant Lab reverse-engineers video from the brain activity from subjects watching it.
Interested in the neuroscience of sleep? Check out my post: Genetics of Sleep – How much do you need?You may not be aware of this, but China currently has a console ban that has been in place since 2000. The reasons why are a tightly kept secret, but obviously China doesn’t want it’s young citizens to waste their lives in front of a TV screen and have fun like the rest of us. However, now six years after the worldwide release of the PlayStation 3, the console might make it into China.
Sony has received a safety mark for the PS3 which is needed to sell products in China. This does not necessarily mean China will get the PS3 tomorrow, or even this year, but the day is coming.
Awhile back Sony managed to release the PS2 in China by stating it was a computer. If all goes well, maybe the Chinese can get the latest Sony system soon.
Source Geek
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Hawaii County Civil Defense Eruption Update for 8 a.m. November 19, 2014
This morning’s assessment continues to show very little activity along the down slope breakouts and no advancement has been noted since Saturday. Weather conditions did not allow for an upslope assessment and attempts will be made to conduct another assessment later this morning. Although no activity was observed downslope of the crack system, numerous surface breakouts and flows were noted yesterday in the areas from the vent to the crack system indicating lava remains in the system. The nearest surface flow activity and surface breakouts are approximately 5 miles upslope of Apa’a Street.
Smoke conditions are light with a light trade wind blowing the smoke in a south southwest direction. Smoke conditions may increase in some areas and residents down wind that may be sensitive or have respiratory problems are advised to take necessary precautions and to remain indoors.
The evacuation advisory for those residents down slope of the flow will continue and residents will be kept informed of the flow status and advancement.
The Pahoa Village Road between Apa’a Street and the Post Office Road will remain closed and limited to area residents only. Access to the businesses and commercial areas of the Pahoa town can be made through the Pahoa Village Road at the intersection of Highways 130 and 132 and the Post Office Road. We apologize for any inconvenience the road closure may be presenting with and remind everyone that the Pahoa town center and businesses are open and accessible.
Civil Defense and public safety personnel will be operating in the area round the clock to maintain close observations of flow activity.
Additional updates will be broadcasted as conditions change.
We would like to thank everyone for your patience and understanding and your cooperation and assistance is greatly appreciated.
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Lava Flow: Community Meeting Thursday (Nov 20), Information Center Open
Hawaii 24/7 will be broadcasting this meeting live at www.hawaii247.com/live/
The next lava flow community update meeting will be held with representatives from Hawai‘i County Civil Defense and the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory on Thursday, November 20 at 6:30 p.m. at the Pāhoa High School Cafeteria.
In addition, the County of Hawai‘i has established an Incident Command Center and Informational Resource Center at the Pāhoa Community Center. Residents are invited to the information center from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday for answers to their questions.
For the latest Civil Defense message, go to www.hawaiicounty.gov/active-al…. For more information, contact Hawai‘i County Civil Defense at (808) 935-0031.
View Hawaii County Lava Flow Information Centers in a larger map
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The American Red Cross has opened a shelter at the Sure Foundation Church in Puna, at Orchidland Estates (16-1592 Pohaku Circle, Keeau, HI 96749), for residents evacuated from their homes due to the lava flow in Pahoa.
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Active breakouts from tube system near Puʻu Kahaualeʻa approximately 1.8 km (1.1 mi) downslope of Puʻu ʻŌʻō. Photo is looking uprift, or toward the southwest. Puʻu ʻŌʻō is on the skyline in the middle of the photo. Photo taken Monday, November 17, 2014 courtesy of USGS/HVO A geologist takes a sample of molten lava and quenches it in a bucket of cold water to “freeze” the crystalline structure. Lava samples are collected once a week to track the chemistry of the erupted lava over time. Photo taken Monday, November 17, 2014 courtesy of USGS/HVO Geologists survey the cross-sectional area of the lava tube using Very Low Frequency (VLF) measurements. Photo taken Monday, November 17, 2014 courtesy of USGS/HVO View looking downhill toward the stalled tip of the flow and Pāhoa Village Road. The transfer station is visible in the left of photo with stalled lava just within the boundary. No active lava breakouts were observed in this lowest part of the flow and below the crack system. Photo taken Monday, November 17, 2014 courtesy of USGS/HVO Burning vegetation at breakouts along margins of flow about mid-way down the flow field above the crack system. Photo is looking upslope toward Puʻu ʻŌʻō. Photo taken Monday, November 17, 2014 courtesy of USGS/HVO Thermal images from Friday (November 14) to Monday (November 17) show the decline in activity levels around the flow front over the weekend. While sluggish breakouts were observed near the cemetery in Pāhoa over the weekend, these breakouts are now inactive. Furthermore, today there were no significant surface breakouts in the area immediately upslope of Apaʻa St./Cemetery Rd. Only one tiny hotspot was visible in this area, about 1 km (0.6 miles) upslope of Cemetery Rd., which might be a single small breakout. Although activity has stalled in this portion of the June 27th lava flow, the other photos from today (see above) indicate that new breakouts are present farther upslope on the flow field. Images courtesy of USGS/HVO A comparison of a normal photograph with a thermal image of the new breakout near Puʻu Kahaualeʻa. The breakout consists of two separate lobes, with the longer, and more active, one traveling northeast along the base of the 2007 perched lava channel. Images taken Monday, November 17, 2014 courtesy of USGS/HVO In addition to the large breakout near Kahaualeʻa shown above, there was a series of smaller breakouts that appeared over the past day just upslope of the ground crack system, and about 8 km (5 miles) downslope of Puʻu ʻŌʻō. Images taken Monday, November 17, 2014 courtesy of USGS/HVO A comparison of a photograph and a thermal image of an HVO geologist sampling lava from the leading tip of the new breakout that originated near Kahaualeʻa. The recently active, but cooling portions of the flow (red and purple areas in upper left portion of image) have average surface temperatures around 300 C (572 F). The actively flowing area in the center of the photograph that the geologist is sampling from (yellow and white colors) has surface temperatures between 600 and 970 C (1100-1800 F). The lava hidden beneath the crust remains well insulated, and previous studies have shown the lava has temperatures around 1140 C (roughly 2000 F). Images taken Monday, November 17, 2014 courtesy of USGS/HVO
USGS/Hawaiian Volcano Observatory Kilauea Status Update for 9:14 a.m. Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Activity Summary: Kīlauea Volcano continues to erupt at its summit and within its East Rift Zone. The downslope portion of the June 27th lava flow below the crack system, near Kaohe Homesteads and Pahoa, is not active, but breakouts remain active in the upslope portion of the flow between 1.6 km (1 mile) and about 11 km (7 miles) northeast of Puʻu ʻŌʻō. Kīlauea’s summit has had deflationary tilt during the past two days, and the level of the summit lava lake at Halemaʻumaʻu Crater fluctuated slightly.
HVO scientists conducted field observations on the lowermost part of the June 27th lava flow yesterday. They found no indication that lava was still moving through the lava-tube system or on the surface between the flow tip near Pahoa Village Road and as far as about 1.2 km (0.75 mi) upslope of Apa`a St./Cemetery Rd. Overflights yesterday by Hawai`i County Civil Defense identified several surface flows on top of and along the margins of the June 27th flow between 1.6 km (1 mile) and about 11 km (7 miles) northeast of Puʻu ʻŌʻō. The lowermost breakout was located in the middle of the crack system on the East Rift Zone, indicating that lava has reoccupied the tube system at least this far from the vent. A USGS overflight is scheduled for later today.
Puʻu ʻŌʻō Observations: No significant changes were noted near Puʻu ʻŌʻō. Seismic tremor continued with relatively steady amplitude, and webcams revealed no strong variations in the pattern of glow from degassing vents nor the configuration of the crater floor. The tiltmeter at Puʻu ʻŌʻō showed deflationary tilt over the past two days. The GPS-measured length across the cone has not changed significantly since July. The most recent measurement of sulfur dioxide emissions from the East Rift Zone was 320 tonnes per day on October 31, 2014.
Summit Observations: Inflationary tilt switched to deflationary tilt two days ago. The surface height of the lava lake in the Overlook vent fluctuated slightly. Volcanic tremor persisted at fluctuating amplitudes based on spattering activity in the lake. Small amounts of particulate material were carried aloft by the plume. Summit emissions of sulfur dioxide were measured at 6,200 tonnes/day on November 5 (see caveat below), but winds did not allow for repeated measurement through the week-long period ending November 11, 2014.
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Pahoa Public & School Library Remains Open; Offers 24/7 Wi-Fi Access
While the Kilauea lava flow advances, the Pahoa Public & School Library will remain open as long as conditions remain safe, announced State Librarian Richard Burns.
The Library, located on the campus of Pahoa High and Intermediate School, provides materials, reference services, programs, public computers and free wireless Internet access to the Pahoa community as well as the public, charter, and private schools in the area.
During this critical time, the Library will offer free after hours Wi-Fi service that will be accessible 24/7 as far as the signal extends beyond the perimeter of the building. In addition, Mountain View Public and School Library and Keaau Public and School Library will also offer this free Wi-Fi access for area residents.
Wi-Fi users are advised to connect to the “HSPLS-Lava” network.
As the lava flow crosses through the town, the Library may temporarily close due to poor air quality conditions, but it is expected to reopen once conditions are safe.
“In an effort to provide access to the resources our Puna neighbors need, we are extending the hours of our free Wi-Fi service so that they can access the Internet for information, communication, recovery resources and other necessities” said Burns.
The Pahoa Public & School Library is located at 15-3070 Pahoa-Kalapana Road. Public service hours are: Monday from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m.; Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturdayand Sunday closed. Visit the Library or our HSPLS website: www.librarieshawaii.org for more information.
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USPS Puna Lava Flow Contingency Plans (Oct. 28, 2014)
The U.S. Postal Service Honolulu District Emergency Management Team (EMT) has been meeting regularly to monitor the progress of the Puna lava flow and is reviewing contingency plans that will enable the Postal Service to continue to serve affected customers.
The District is in close contact with Hawaii County civil defense authorities and managers of potentially affected Hawaii island Post Offices. Contingency plans are being informed and guided by general civil defense public safety directives and specific concerns over the safety of Postal Service employees.
One of the factors that the EMT is closely monitoring is the impact to air quality of sulfuric dioxide emissions from the lava and smoke from burning forestry.
Adjustments will be made to postal operations as needed to ensure that employee safety is not compromised by air quality.
The Pahoa Post Office will remain open for business as long as it can operate without jeopardizing the safety or security of our postal employees, our customers and the mail.
If the Pahoa Post Office is evacuated, the Hilo Post Office will likely serve as a stopgap base of operations.
The District is making arrangements to lease an alternate facility near Pahoa that can be operational soon after an evacuation. The Postal Service is committed to continue delivery to its Pahoa customers as long as it is safe to do so.
Contingency plans will likely evolve as the lava flow continues to impact access to Pahoa and the lives of its residents.
Plans must consider employee safety concerns, the availability of resources and the Postal Service’s commitment to customer service.
The bottom line is that, regardless of how this lava flow event plays out, the mail will be delivered. We will find a way to get it done.
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DISRUPTIONS FOR DEPARTMENT OF WATER SUPPLY CUSTOMERS ON PAHOA VILLAGE ROAD
Customers in the Affected Area may experience intermittent water shut-off this afternoon, October 28, 2014, due to valve installation work in the area.
Upon resumption of water service, the waterlines will be flushed and cleaned during which time you may notice turbid and/or discolored water.
You may also notice trapped air in your plumbing which will be released as you initially use water.
Affected customers are asked to take any and all precautions necessary to protect the customers’ property and facilities including, but not limited to, disabling electrical power to pumps and/or any other devices whose normal operation may be dependent on water pressure and/or water supply, and which might be harmed if automatically energized during the water shut-off.
If you have any questions, call Carl Nishimura at 961-8790.
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CHANGE IN WATER PRESSURE DUE TO LAVA FLOW
AFFECTED AREA: CUSTOMERS NORTH OF THE LAVA FLOW ALONG PAHOA VILLAGE ROAD INCLUDING APAA STREET AS WELL AS ALONG HIGHWAY 130 FROM KEONEPOKO STANDPIPE/SPIGOT STATION UP TO AND INCLUDING THE UPPER PORTION OF KAHAKAI BOULEVARD; PAHOA, HAWAII
Should the flow reach Pāhoa Village Road, the Department of Water Supply will be shutting valves on each side of the lava flow. This will result in a drop in pressure for some customers. The change will occur imminently. The water system pressure will be decreased by approximately 50 pounds per square inch (psi).
Should you have any questions, call (808) 961-8050.
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View Alternate Routes In/Out of Lower Puna in a larger map
Potential evacuation routes/alternative roads.
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Information Graphics by Dr. Mark Kimura, UH-Hilo
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Hawaii Electric Light Preparing for Potential Impacts from Lava Flow
Hawaii Electric Light is closely monitoring the progress of the Kilauea lava flow. There is no immediate threat to its facilities or power lines.
The company continues to work with Hawaii County Civil Defense and other agencies to monitor and evaluate the flow and is prepared to respond.
Because of the unpredictable nature of the flow, Hawaii Electric Light has developed several plans to keep the power on and will put into action the plan that best fits the situation.
The safety of employees and community is always the top priority.
“Our plans are based on key objectives that include keeping employees and the community safe and keeping the power on for our customers as long as is safely possible,” said spokesperson Rhea Lee. “In developing our plans, we consulted with volcanologists, Hawaii County Civil Defense and other County agencies, leaders in the Hawaiian community, and other partners.”
Plans include, but are not limited to:
Protecting power poles from the heat generated by the lava by partially encasing select wooden poles with heat resistant and dispersive material
Increasing the distance between select power poles to span the lava flow
Extending our distribution lines on Government Beach Road and other areas as an alternate means to provide power to Puna subdivisions should the normal power distribution lines become inoperable
Relocating generators to the Puna District to provide an alternate source of generation should the flow isolate the area from the island-wide power grid
Crews have started work on Government Beach Road. In addition, pole protection prototypes were built in the Puna area.
“There is a lot of focus on protecting poles as a means to retain the current transmission and distribution system,” Lee said. “The designs developed are experimental, but we are hopeful that they will be successful and can be used on select wooden poles as the lava progresses.”
In addition, Hawaii Electric Light is exploring the possibility of operating a micro-grid in the event the lava flow isolates lower Puna from the power system.
“A micro-grid is disconnected from the utility grid and generates power for a specific area,” Lee said. “This option may allow us to continue to provide power to the lower Puna community until we are able to rebuild transmissions lines that are damaged by lava and interconnect these lines to the grid.”
However, outages may occur despite efforts to keep the power on for as long as possible. As the flow gets closer to our facilities, we will provide more specific information as to how customers could be impacted.
For customers who
evacuate, the company recommends:
Shut off electricity at the main breaker or switch
Unplug or turn off electric equipment and appliances
Call Customer Service at 969-6999 to request
a service disconnect or transfer
Hawaii Electric Light’s free “Handbook for Emergency Preparedness” provides detailed information on preparing for emergency situations. The handbook is available in English, Cantonese, Ilocano, Korean, and Vietnamese and can be found at the company’s business offices, on its website www.hawaiielectriclight.com, or by calling 969-0137.
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LAVA DANGER FORCES STATE LAND CLOSURE FOR PUBLIC SAFETY
Due to the recent lava flow activity adjacent to the Kaohe Homesteads area in the Puna district, the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) has closed all state unencumbered lands in the immediate vicinity.
These include the parcels designated by Tax Map Key numbers: (3) 1-5-01:21, 26 and (3) 1-5-08:01. Signs have been posted at various access points warning the public of the hazardous conditions.
DLNR has been receiving reports of tour groups and individuals wandering onto state lands to get a better look at the lava. Although the lava flow has temporarily stopped, there are outbreaks still entering onto state lands.
To ensure safety, DLNR is closing this area to all but essential personnel.
DLNR has also closed Wao Kele O Puna forest reserve, and Kahaualea Natural Area Reserve. Both areas are off-limits to all persons.
Entry into closed lands is a violation of Hawaii Administrative Rule Sec. 13-221-4 and Hawaii Revised Statute 171-6, and is subject of penalty up to $5,000 for the first offense. The Governor’s proclamation enhances the penalties for any offense committed during this emergency.
“DLNR intends to prosecute any trespassers who willfully violate the closures and place enforcement officers and emergency personnel at increased risk,” said William J. Aila,Jr., DLNR chairperson.
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Emergency Preparations Trigger Closure of Pahoa Senior Center
The county Department of Parks and Recreation has closed its Pahoa Senior Center so the facility may be used as an emergency fire station servicing the lower Puna community threatened with lava inundation.
Until the lava threat from Kilauea Volcano ends, the Hawaii County Nutrition Program and the Senior Club will operate from the Nanawale Community Center.
Normal programming and scheduling will be offered, however, the Nanawale Community Center will be closed Oct. 20-31 so it may be used as a polling place for the General Election. Affected seniors will be notified of a temporary relocation during the voting period.
Coordinated Services for the Elderly (CSE) and Elderly Recreation Services (ERS) have been relocated to the Keaau Senior Center. For more details regarding the Department of Parks and Recreation’s elderly services, please call CSE at 961-8777 or ERS at 966- 5801.
The Department of Parks and Recreation apologizes for any inconvenience caused by the closure of the Pahoa Senior Center and thanks the public for its patience and understanding during this time of emergency.
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AT&T PREPARED TO KEEP CUSTOMERS CONNECTED DURING LAVA FLOW
AT&T is committed to providing its customers with reliable communications before, during and after weather events and natural disasters – and has one of the industry’s largest and most advanced disaster response programs to keep its networks operational.
“Staying connected during natural disasters like the Puna lava flow is critically important to consumers, businesses and our emergency management officials,” said Jeffrey Yamane, AT&T Director of Network Engineering, Hawaii. “That’s why AT&T invests a tremendous amount of resources in our network reliability and disaster response capabilities.”
Local AT&T network maintenance teams have developed contingency plans that will allow us to rapidly respond and restore service if any of our network infrastructure is damaged or destroyed by the Puna lava flow. Our response may include the deployment of COWs (Cell on Wheels) and portable generators.
AT&T standard pre-disaster network preparations typically include:
Testing the high-capacity backup batteries located at cell sites.
Preparing COWs (Cell on Wheels) for deployment.
Staging extended battery life and portable generators and maintaining existing fixed generators.
Topping off generators with fuel at cell sites and central and field-level switching facilities.
Staging generators in safe locations for their immediate deployment once the natural disaster has passed.
AT&T is the first private sector company to receive certification under the Department of Homeland Security’s Private Sector Preparedness, or PS-Prep, program. PS-Prep certification validates that AT&T is able to maintain or recover its own business operations in the face of an emergency or disaster, whether natural, man-made, or cyber in nature.
With $600 million invested in the Network Disaster Recovery (NDR) program, AT&T’s arsenal of equipment includes more than 320 technology and equipment, making it one of the nation’s largest and most advanced disaster programs.
The NDR team works closely with other AT&T response teams, local AT&T network personnel, regional Emergency Operations Centers and Local Response Center. In the event of damage, teams are poised to restore and maintain service until permanent repairs can be made.
AT&T also conducts readiness drills and simulations throughout the year to ensure our networks are prepared and our personnel are ready to respond at a moment’s notice. NDR will complete its 74th full-field recovery exercise this year. Since its inception in 1991, the NDR has responded to more than 72 declared disasters across the U.S. Additionally, the AT&T Global Network Operations Center monitors our networks 24/7.
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UnitedHealth Group Acts to Support People Affected by Lava Flow
UnitedHealth Group and its benefits and services businesses, UnitedHealthcare and Optum, are taking immediate action to help people on the island of Hawaii who may be affected by the lava flow from the Kilauea Volcano.
This includes a free emotional-support line to help people in the affected communities and assisting health plan participants who may be affected and need to make alternate arrangements to ensure continuity of care.
Free Help Line: Optum, a leading health and behavioral health services company, is offering a free emotional-support help line.
The toll-free number, 866-342-6892, will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for as long as necessary. The service is free of charge and open to anyone. Specially trained Optum mental health specialists help people manage their stress and anxiety so they can continue to address their everyday needs. Callers may also receive referrals to community resources to help them with specific concerns, including financial and legal matters.
Along with the toll-free help line, emotional-support resources and information are available online at www.liveandworkwell.com
Help Finding a Network Care Provider, Early Refills: Plan participants who need help finding a care provider in the UnitedHealthcare network or obtaining early prescription refills can call customer care at the number located on the back of their medical ID card.
For plan participants who may have misplaced their medical ID card, call 866-633-2446, 8 a.m.-8 p.m. (in the local time zone), Monday through Friday. People enrolled in employer-sponsored and individual health plans who have a smartphone can download the free Health4Me app, which provides instant access to their ID card, network care providers, their personal health benefits and more. The Health4Me app is available as a free download at the Apple iTunes App Store and the Android Market on Google Play.
UnitedHealth Group is a diversified health and well-being company dedicated to helping people live healthier lives and making health care work better. With headquarters in Minnetonka, Minn., UnitedHealth Group offers a broad spectrum of products and services through two business platforms: UnitedHealthcare, which provides health care coverage and benefits services; and Optum, which provides information and technology-enabled health services. Through its businesses, UnitedHealth Group serves more than 85 million people worldwide.
For more information, visit UnitedHealth Group at www.unitedhealthgroup.com
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AMERICAN LUNG ASSOCIATION WARNS OF HEALTH EFFECTS FROM SMOKE
The American Lung Association in Hawaii warns visitors and people living near the lava flow in Puna to take precautions against smoke exposure from burning vegetation and low levels of sulfur dioxide.
This smoke is a mixture of gases and fine particles released as vegetation burns. In addition to burning your eyes, these fine particles and gases can be inhaled deeply into your lungs, making it harder to breathe.
Exposure can worsen other chronic health conditions such as asthma or heart disease.
Exposure to sulfur dioxide, a gas emitted by volcanoes, can also be harmful, burning the nose and throat and causing breathing difficulties.
Residents with respiratory problems such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and also those with chronic heart disease should take extra precautions during this time and call their physician immediately if problems develop.
“Even those without lung diseases may be at risk during this time,” said Kim Nguyen, Executive Director of the American Lung Association in Hawaii. “With exposure to smoke, there is an increased risk of dangerous health effects ranging from respiratory tract irritation to more serious illness, including reduced lung function, bronchitis, worsening of asthma, and premature death. This is especially true for children, older adults and outdoor workers.”
People living near affected areas are encouraged to do the following:
Stay inside as much as possible, with doors and windows shut. Make sure only clean air circulates through air conditioners and/or air cleaners by using the recirculation setting.
When driving through smoky areas, car windows and vents should be kept closed. Air conditioning should be set to “recirculate” to avoid exposure to unhealthy outside air.
Avoid exercising outdoors, particularly if you smell smoke or experience eye or throat irritation.
Individuals with asthma are encouraged to contact their physician regarding any changes in medication they may need to cope with smoky conditions. The American Lung Association advises asthma patients who cannot reach their doctor to continue to take their medication and closely follow their asthma action plan as prescribed.
If you have questions, you can call the American Lung Association’s Lung HelpLine at 1-800-LUNG-USA (choose option #2) to speak to a lung health expert.
For more information about the American Lung Association in Hawaii or to support the work it does, call (808) 537-5966 or visit www.lung.org/hawaii
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HAWAII ISLAND HUMANE SOCIETY
Unpredictable lava flows remind us that upfront planning now can ease stressful situations should there be a need to evacuate. As Benjamin Franklin once said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
The Hawaii |
, below which he signed his name and included his Social Security number.[7] Initial news reports indicated that Hawkins wrote in his suicide note, "I'm going out in style"; however, the phrase does not appear on the publicly released document.[8]
The day after the shooting, the Hawkins family released a statement expressing their condolences for the victims.[37] On December 13, 2007, Hawkins' mother, Maribel Rodriguez, issued a formal apology for Hawkins' actions in an interview on Good Morning America.[1][38] On January 7, 2009, Rodriguez was featured on season 7 episode 77 of the Dr. Phil show.[39]
Hawkins was the subject of the series premiere of the Investigation Discovery series Evil Lives Here, a show that features testimonials of the loved ones of murderers, which premiered on January 17, 2016. It was his father and ex-stepmother's first public interviews since the shooting.[40]
See also [ edit ]Opposition MPs say they're going to try to force the prime minister to produce evidence about an altered document at a House of Commons committee.
Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae says the opposition will table motions next week at committee to force the offices of Stephen Harper and International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda to table documents about the infamous "not" inserted on a memo that otherwise would have okayed $7 million in funding for aid organization Kairos.
Rae says the opposition won't drop the issue and vowed to track down whoever inserted the three-letter word, changing the meaning of the typed document.
"Is there an email that says 'do this'?" he asked.
"Who are all the people who received the email? Governments operate with records and with paper. There is a paper trail, there's an email trail. This thing is not going to go away."
International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda in the Commons last week. ((Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)) Oda says it was someone on her staff who inserted the "not" at her instruction. She says the memo reflects her decision.
"We intend to pursue this and I can just say to the government that it's going to be in the dentist chair for weeks to come," Rae said.
"We are not going to allow a minister to mislead the House of Commons and not tell the truth to Canadians about an issue of significance in her department, and simply get away with it."
"If they're refusing to come forward with the information, then the only alternative is root canal. And that's what it's going to be," he said.
Parliamentary privilege
The opposition lodged a formal complaint with House Speaker Peter Milliken last Thursday, arguing Oda breached parliamentary privilege by misleading the House over who recommended denying funds to Kairos.
Inside Politics blog (CBC) What is the Autopen?
The Conservatives officially responded Friday, arguing the facts don’t support the allegation that Oda broke the rules.
MP Tom Lukiwski said the document with the "not" inserted was meant only to communicate the minister’s decision. He said it wasn’t intended to be made public.
The next day, the party reportedly distributed a memo that said Oda was out of town when the decision was due. The memo said her staff inserted the "not" at her instruction and used a machine called an Autopen — that mimics her signature — to sign the document.
NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar says Canadians don't like being lied to. He says the story resonates with voters.
"They care about people not doing their job. They care about when people say they're going to be different and they're not," Dewar said.
"It's about hypocrisy... (Canadians) don't like when people don't tell the truth and when people try and play them."
Conservatives respond
The opposition has tabled a foreign affairs committee report in the House of Commons that opens the door to possible sanctions against Oda over her responses to the committee last year. Milliken isn't expected to rule on the matter until next week at the earliest.
Conservative MPs filed a supplementary report, saying they don't agree Oda is in breach of privilege or that she intended to mislead the committee.
"The minister does understand that she could have more clearly communicated the purpose and intent of why and how her office implemented her direction, and she has apologized to the House of Commons for how this issue has been handled. In that statement, she clearly said that it was never her intention to mislead either the House of Commons or the committee," the Conservative response read.
If Milliken were to decide Oda's actions constituted a breach, the matter would then go back to a committee to decide whether a vote should be held in the House on the breach question.
If Oda became the first sitting minister to be held in contempt of Parliament, that would put pressure on Harper to remove her from the cabinet.Now, did I just do a bait and switch with the headline to grab your attention, only to offer up something less dramatic than it’s promise?
No, not at all.
A simple click on the link below will take you to something you have never heard before, a radio show, with corporate sponsorship, that deals fairly, even supportively, with anti-feminism and men’s rights. Gotta love those Brits! The Beatles, The Stones, and now this!
In this in-depth critique of modern feminism you will hear the voices of Angry Harry, Erin Pizzey and Roland from Man-Woman-Myth, whose astounding video work forms the backbone of this program. There is an early reading from George Rolph’s fine work, as well.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN, and look for Men’s Matters.
Then email your support to [email protected]Image caption Critics of the congressional bill say its definition of 'cyber threat' is too vague
The US House of Representatives has passed a cyber-security bill amid a veto threat from President Barack Obama.
The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (Cispa), would allow the government to access web users' private data on suspicion of a cyber threat.
It would also allow easier information-sharing between security agencies and private web firms.
Advocacy groups claim that it is aimed at file-sharers rather than hackers.
They also raised concerns about the transparency of the act.
Vetothreat
In a statement on Wednesday, the White House said Mr Obama would veto the act if it reached his desk.
The administration said the law repeals "important provisions of electronic surveillance law without instituting corresponding privacy, confidentiality and civil liberties safeguards".
The bill passed the House on Thursday by a margin of 248 votes to 168. Cyber-security legislation is also being considered in the US Senate, but its bill differs considerably from Cispa and is not yet scheduled for a vote.
Before its passage, the House amended the bill to cover information garnered for the investigation of cyber-security crimes, protection of individuals from death or serious bodily harm and the protection of minors from exploitation.
Privacy groups quickly condemned the bill's passage.
"As we've seen repeatedly, once the government gets expansive national security authorities, there's no going back," Michelle Richardson, of the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement.
"We encourage the Senate to let this horrible bill fade into obscurity."
Bill sponsor Mike Rodgers argued the bill would make the US "a little safer and our economy better protected from foreign cyber predators".
The House bill won support from tech industry figureheads whereas an earlier piece of legislation, the Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) failed after web firms lined up with activists to criticise it.
Facebook, AT&T, Intel, Verizon, and Microsoft were among some 800 firms who indicated they would back the latest bill.
Writing on Facebook's corporate blog a week ago the firm's vice-president of US public policy, Joel Kaplan, said Cispa "would impose no new obligations" on Facebook to share data with anyone.
It also "ensures that if we do share data about specific cyber threats, we are able to continue to safeguard our users' private information, just as we do today," he added.A reader sent us a screen shot of the setting page of Nokia’s Quick View clock, which shows a clock on the screen even when the device is off.
The page is in Hungarian, but for the benefit for readers in other country the text reads:
Quick View Schedule
A quick view off after 15 minutes of inactivity In order to save energy. Night Mode Set the date
Night mode dims the view of the rapid between the specified dates. Start time
End time
It seems the clock will not be on all the time, but will only be on for 15 minutes at a time, possibly detecting activity with the accelerometer or other activity. Also at night it will turn red, and hopefully not keep us awake 🙂
The screen shot is from a Nokia Lumia 920 running the GDR2 update, which hopefully is another indication we will not have to wait too long for the software.
Thanks to our tipster.A recent theme here is how men are pressured to act unnaturally in today’s environment. This causes a great deal of anguish among males. In my last post on why girls go for bad boys, I explained the phenomenon of why girls seem to prefer the alpha bad boy types over the much more stable, nicer beta males. However, this leaves a very important unanswered question that was left in the comments section:
OK, just one question: if this is all true, why haven’t beta males been bred out of the population? 1. Social Conditioning Feminists claim to be against traditional sex roles, but that only applies to women’s roles. They still embrace the ideas of chivalry and men paying for a date, among other things. Although chivalry is thankfully getting destroyed more and more each year it is still very alive and kicking in some people. The MSM and many people from older generations still sell the idea that being a “good man” is the key to winning a girl’s heart. Therefore most men are still beta because they have been lied to by the authority figures in their lives (TV and parents, in that order) for so long that they refuse to accept the facts after they have been thrown right in their face. I’m sorry if the image above made anyone throw up. 2. Arranged Marriages Arranged marriages have been very common around the world and across cultures in pre-industrial revolution times. In all of these cultures the idea of gaming women would be useless. If a man wanted to get a woman then appealing to a girl’s hypergamy would only result in getting killed by the girl’s father and other male relatives. The men who were most successful were the ones who were most appealing to the father. These were the beta males who could prove that they would be the best at taking care of the the father’s daughter and his grandchildren. So in cultures where there were arranged marriages the beta was king. Men have adapted/evolved over thousands of years (hundreds of generations) to be appealing to the girl’s father not the girl herself. Since these cultures rewarded virtuous behavior in males, betas would thrive and prosper more than if girls were free to choose their own mates and bad boy behavior was rewarded (like it is today). Cultural survival of the fittest in action. Over hundreds of iterative generations the alpha male, who was most likely extremely common in pre-civilizational hunter gatherer societies, was almost completely replaced by the blue collar worker beta male. However, since female fertility was so precious to the continued survival of early civilization, society could not ban women who were attracted to the alpha male from reproducing. Women who were attracted to bad boys were forced via arranged marriage to marry beta males. Loading...
3. Hard Times
Neglected alpha male children could not survive without a caring father in earlier times before welfare and society’s safety net. An American woman living on a homestead in the western U. S. during the mid 1800s would not survive for long without a man to protect her and her children from wild animal attacks and to plow the fields so they would have food on their table. Yes, a few women did it without a man, but it was rare.
Although they may have preferred a different type of man, it was simply not an option. Screwing the alpha male bandit would have resulted in being shunned by society and dying alone. If a man were given an option of death or marrying and staying with an HB6, most men would choose life. So again, evolutionary pressures were put on men to become beta while women stayed biologically the same as they were in hunter gatherer society.
However, in today’s society this is no longer the case. A woman who makes $8 an hour working as a barista at Starbucks can afford a small studio apartment with heating and A/C and never have to worry about animal attacks. She can enjoy movies, music, and live a life that is much more luxurious than the most well-to-do 1800’s homesteader’s wife could even imagine. Women hardly need a man anymore if they are single. If they wish to have children they would prefer having a man around of course, but with the welfare state it is much easier to do without one than before.
4. Nosy Neighbors In Small Towns
Comments on my “Why Girls Go For Bad Boys” article also pointed out the problem of paternity fraud. The fact is that about 10% of children are not born by the man the woman says is the father. Readers claimed that because of this there is no way that evolution would favor the beta husbands because they were not the ones reproducing.
To be clear, all paternity fraud is bad and I am not diminishing the damage it caused by saying this, but 10% paternity fraud still leaves 90% of children being sired by the husband so the beta genes would still be favored. We can not know what the rate of paternity fraud is prior to the development of paternity tests, but we do know that most people lived in small rural communities where it is nearly impossible to keep a secret. Also the husband would often work on the fields just outside the house so the opportunities to have an affair were probably much lower than today when a husband is predictably gone from 9-5 every day.
The existence of some natural alpha males in today’s society shows that the above reasons were not good enough to completely replace alpha males with beta males. However, they were enough to change the demographic of the typical man’s natural state toward beta when the right conditions were in place.
Undoubtedly our early history was very challenging times for the alpha male as he would often find himself at odds with the expectations of his neighbors. He was forced to act against his natural impulses in order to find acceptance. Now it is the time for the natural beta male to go against his natural instincts if he wishes to find a place in the changed modern world. The current culture is unsustainable, but we are not going back to traditionalism and marriage so men need to be prepared to adapt to whatever is to come in the following decades.
Read More: This is Why Girls Go For Bad BoysRegarding the latter part, yes, that’s actually an F-750 from the 2016 model year. The nearly 10-foot-tall Tonka truck debuted at the Work Truck Show to the acclaim of both kids and grown ups. After all, this Tonka truck is a really big toy for big boys.“From Generation Z to the Greatest Generation, Ford and Tonka continue to set the standards for tough trucks,” declared John Ruppert, general manager of Ford Commercial Vehicle Sales and Marketing, during the event. “People of all ages have been counting on Ford F-Series and Tonka trucks to get the job done – from construction site to sandbox – for more than 60 years.”Compared to a standard 2016 model year F-650/F-750 commercial workhorse, the Mighty Ford F-750 Tonka boasts with a number of aesthetic upgrades such as the custom front grille framed by the Blue Oval’s hallmark nostrils. Under that yellow paint job with black, white and red details lies a fully functional medium-duty dump truck.If you’re curious, the beast that propels this huge plaything is a 6.7-liter Power Stroke V8 turbo oil burner paired to a commercial-grade TorqShift HD automatic transmission. In its most potent output, the Power Stroke of the 2016 Ford F-650/F-750 churns out 330 horsepower and 725 lb-ft (983 Nm). Speaking of which, those in the market for such a machine will have to wait until production starts this summer.A decision is reportedly imminent from White House chief of staff John Kelly on whether Steve Bannon will keep his job, according to administration officials with knowledge of the situation. Axios reports that man West Wing officials are now asking "when," not "if," Bannon goes.
Axios points out that Bannon, who has run afoul of Trump in the past, is now suspected by the president of leaking about his West Wing colleagues.
Trump resents the publicity Bannon has been getting as mastermind of the campaign. Many West Wing officials are now asking "when," not "if," Bannon goes. Chief of Staff General John Kelly has been reviewing Bannon's position. A recent deluge of media coverage of Bannon - including Bannon's explosive conversation with the American Prospect - have not escaped either the president's or Kelly's attention.
One White House source twists the knife:
"His departure may seem turbulent in the media, but inside it will be very smooth. He has no projects or responsibilities to hand off."
Interestingly, the market is bouncing on these headlines (presumably this would be a win for Cohn).
Which is odd because the actual report contains absolutely no additional information at all that Bannon may or many not fired.
However, Axios does note that there are a number of reasons why Bannon may survive...
Trump often sends mixed signals about his personnel plans, and makes decisions — both to keep and dismiss people — on whim. Bannon, with his close connection to the president's base, is the one West Wing official who could do authentic damage to Trump on the outside. We're told that Bannon's friendship with the billionaire Mercer family, who has been an important Trump ally, is a factor in the president's decision and could be part of the strategist's survival package.
One Bannon friend warned: "Get ready for Bannon the barbarian."Welcome to Dames Who Make Games, Gamerwife’s interview series with the lovely ladies who make our video games. Whether you’re a QA tester or a company VP, we want to hear what you have to say. And remember to click “Continue reading” for the whole story.
Regular readers of Gamerwife may recognize Dames Who Make Games interviewee Sasha S. as one of the makers of Let There Be Life, a peaceful little game I reviewed some months back. In addition to being a self-taught artist, Sasha and her husband have made the leap into indie game development with their company, Backwards pieS. Sasha was kind enough to take time from porting Let There Be Life on mobile to answer some questions about her inspiration, influences, and of course, favourite games.
Gamerwife: Let’s start at the beginning, what was the first game you ever played?
Sasha S.: Oregon Trail when I was in elementary school. The first game I ever owned was the 1990 hand-held Little Mermaid game by Tiger Inc.
GW: What made you decide on a career in games?
Sasha: When my husband and were engaged, I was in the process of changing careers. I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to do but I wanted to do something with children.
I thought about writing and illustrating children’s books. I took a few art classes and a class on writing for children. When my husband was let go from from the serious games company he was working for at the time, he wanted to start his own indie game studio. We decided that it would be too much for one person to handle and we both jumped into creating Backward pieS (a play on our last name, Seip). It was a perfect fit for me because now I could create art, and do something for children.
GW: Where did you go to school and what did you study?
Sasha: I am self taught, but took a few art classes from the local adult education programs in our area, and a few at the local Audubon Center. I always loved art and drawing. I learned game design through just watching people play our games, and having discussions with my husband.
GW: What was your inspiration for Let There Be Life?
Sasha: Let There Be Life came about from the Edge Online Get Into Games competition in 2013 (Ed: They were the first runner’s up). The theme for the competition was “Do No Harm.” I love nature and gardening, and came up with the idea of building enchanted trees. Each tree wanted to grow, but didn’t want to hurt his flower friends below with the shade cast by his leaves.
I wanted to make an art game that everyone can play. I want children and even their grandparents to be able to play (perhaps together) so we had to have simple controls. It’s my hope that Let There Be Life will be able to bring joy and relaxation to its players, because life can be hard sometimes. I wanted to make a game that wasn’t like any other game out there.
GW: Were there particular games or artists that influenced your take on Let There Be Life?
Sasha: The art for the game was hand-painted watercolor that I created myself. I took inspiration from wildlife artists and Beatrix Potter.
GW: What are the best/worst things about working in video games?
Sasha: There are so many wonderful things about working in video games and having my own indie studio… where do I begin!
The first thing would be working with my husband. I also love being able to be at home with my pets and making my own hours.
Next would be the joy I get when I hear or see someone enjoying one of my games. Through games I can try to bring a little happiness to lots of people. I really love it when I hear someone say that their child really had fun playing my game.
As for the worst… one is definitely finding a bug in our game and then telling my husband to fix it!
Another bad thing about working in games is the anxiety of worrying about whether our game will be successful. Living in fear of not being able to make a living doing what you love is not fun. I always worry that someone will just flat out hate my game and criticize it.
GW: Are there unique challenges you’ve faced as an independent developer? What were they and how did you overcome them?
Sasha: Running a studio has so many challenges– from getting the tech to work, to getting things done on time, to finding bugs and fixing them. Creating a game that ‘makes an artistic statement’ yet is enjoyable for people is a sometimes difficult balancing act.
I overcome these challenges by taking a deep breath, popping the kettle on for tea, and just plugging away at them one by one. I try to approach everything calmly… If all else fails I step away and do yoga. When I come back I usually have a solution.
GW: Have you ever had issues with harassment or discrimination as a women in video games?
Sasha: No, I have the good fortune of working with my husband. We are a small studio– just the two of us. I haven’t had any issues with fellow developers or game studios.
I think times are slowly starting to change and women are becoming more accepted. Although, we still have a long road to perfection.
GW: What advice do you have for other women who want to be involved in game development?
Sasha: I would say to other women, “don’t give up.” Remember that you have value and you have your own set of talents. If you have an idea, speak up. Take risks, and don’t worry about failing. If you should make a mistake, learn from it, fix it, and then don’t worry about it.
I would also say that us women need to stick together. I like remembering the great women in the past who got us where we are today. To quote Rosie The Riveter: “We Can Do It!”
GW: What games are you playing right now?
Sasha: Am I allowed to say my own game, Let There Be Life?
I’ve been working so hard porting Let There Be Life to mobile that play testing my own game has been the only game playing I’m doing right now. Hopefully when I’m done with the ports I can play some more indie games. Maybe even some Oregon Trail and Little Mermaid!
GW: Favourite game of all time or game you wish you had made?
Sasha: There’s no specific game that I wish I had made, but I would love to work on games that bring awareness to different environmental issues and the conservation of species such as in Audubon’s Mission Migration.
I don’t really have a favorite game of all time, but in general I like games that have interesting characters, beautiful art, and that are nature-themed and/or bring awareness to environmental issues. A good example would be Ecco The Dolphin. And I really enjoy just riding the horses around in Red Dead Redemption and Skyrim (though I leave the combat to my husband!)
About Sasha:
Growing up Sasha was never allowed to play video games, and now she makes them! Now that she is married to a game developer she has embraced her inner artist. She can bring her art to life in the games that she and her husband Jason make. When she’s not making games, she enjoys working on her own art which is wildlife or nature-themed. She also enjoys gardening, bird watching and going to steampunk events. I live Shes lives in Pennsylvania with her husband Jason and a bunch of crazy pets, including a cockatoo named Angel.
Thanks again, Sasha!
You can download her game, Let There Be Life, from the Backwards pieS website.Over the last decade or so, cell phones have become as important to our everyday lives as any other object. And as one thing thrives, another wanes — in this case, the street-side pay phone. Once a staple of urban (and even suburban) life, coming across a pay phone now seems like a rare occurrence.
But in the mid-1990s — well before cell phones were common, let alone ubiquitous — the Malaysian state of Sabah on the island of Borneo found pay phones disappearing for another reason: someone was stealing them. Before long, 900 of the pay phones went missing, totaling about a quarter of those provided in the area by the local phone company, Telekom Malaysia.
The mystery of the stolen pay phones was strange to say the least, baffling authorities. Detached from their bases, the phones could not longer be used to place a call, and, therefore, were not obviously useful. And with no clear motive, Telekom Malaysia could not take decisive action in hopes of stemming the tide of thefts.
But in time, the culprit turned up — and the fishing industry was to blame. Some fish have been known to be lured in by sound as much as, say, chum or worms. According to the Independent, Malaysians sometimes bang bamboo sticks together underwater as a method for attracting a catch, and in the UK for example, the sound of a fly hitting the water has been known to attract fish, not scare them away.
For the Borneo fishermen, it turned out that the pay phones’ handsets made for good sonic fish bait as well. The fishermen were detaching the handsets, connecting a high-powered battery, and placing the handset near (or in?) the water. Also according to the same Independent article, the resulting sound attracted tilapia, grouper, and snapper to the phone, where the fishermen’s nets awaited them. (How the fishermen figured this out in the first place is anyone’s guess.) The bait worked better than worms or any other food.
How Telekom Malaysia prevented the theft of further phones — if at all — was left unreported.
Bonus fact : In 1990 — again, an era before cell phone ubiquity, and also, before the real-time information-on-demand we’re accustomed to today — finding out what happened at a baseball game (or any sporting event) outside of your local media market required waiting for the evening news broadcast or the next day’s newspaper. Pay phones helped change that, becoming a key ingredient in a scheme to get up-to-the-minute baseball scores, as recounted by Baseball Prospectus. In June of that year, Beckett Baseball Card Monthly magazine asked its readers to mail them with the phone numbers of pay phones at stadiums, ideally with a view of the scoreboard. In October, just in time for the playoff races, the magazine printed its findings. The idea? Fans at home could call the pay phones hoping that a fan in the stadium would pick up and read the scoreboard to them.
From the Archives: The 411 on Area Codes: New York City has 212. Across the country is 213, in Los Angeles. How did this come to be?
Related: A replica 1950’s pay phone, in red, with working coin slot. No idea whether it can attract fish, but it can probably be used to call someone to find out the score in a baseball game.>
Thank you to technology and culture historian Edward Tenner, author of “Why Things Bite Back” and “Our Own Devices,” for helping me track down a source for this story.As we look back on the horrors of the dictatorships and autocracies of the past, one particular question consistently arises; how was it possible for the common men of these eras to NOT notice what was happening around them? How could they have stood as statues unaware or uncaring as their cultures were overrun by fascism, communism, collectivism, and elitism? Of course, we have the advantage of hindsight, and are able to research and examine the misdeeds of the past at our leisure. Unfortunately, such hindsight does not necessarily shield us from the long cast shadow of tyranny in our own day. For that, the increasingly uncommon gift of foresight is required…
At bottom, the success of despotic governments and Big Brother societies hinges upon a certain number of political, financial, and cultural developments. The first of which is an unwillingness in the general populace to secure and defend their own freedoms, making them completely reliant on corrupt establishment leadership. For totalitarianism to take hold, the masses must not only neglect the plight of their country, and the plight of others, but also be completely uninformed of the inherent indirect threats to their personal safety. They must abandon all responsibility for their destinies, and lose all respect for their own humanity. They must, indeed, become domesticated and mindless herd animals without regard for anything except their fleeting momentary desires for entertainment and short term survival. For a lumbering bloodthirsty behemoth to actually sneak up on you, you have to be pretty damnably oblivious.
The prevalence of apathy and ignorance sets the stage for the slow and highly deliberate process of centralization. Once dishonest governments accomplish an atmosphere of inaction and condition a sense of frailty within the citizenry, the sky is truly the limit. However, a murderous power-monger’s day is never quite done. In my recent article ‘The Essential Rules of Liberty’ we explored the fundamentally unassailable actions and mental preparations required to ensure the continuance of a free society. In this article, let’s examine the frequently wielded tools of tyrants in their invariably insane quests for total control…
Rule #1: Keep Them Afraid
People who are easily frightened are easily dominated. This is not just a law of political will, but a law of nature. Many wrongly assume that a tyrant’s power comes purely from the application of force. In fact, despotic regimes that rely solely on extreme violence are often very unsuccessful, and easily overthrown. Brute strength is calculable. It can be analyzed, and thus, eventually confronted and defeated. Thriving tyrants instead utilize not just harm, but the imminent THREAT of harm. They instill apprehension in the public; a fear of the unknown, or a fear of the possible consequences for standing against the state. They let our imaginations run wild until we see death around every corner, whether it’s actually there or not. When the masses are so blinded by the fear of reprisal that they forget their fear of slavery, and take no action whatsoever to undo it, then they have been sufficiently culled.
In other cases, our fear is evoked and directed towards engineered enemies. Another race, another religion, another political ideology, a “hidden” and ominous villain created out of thin air. Autocrats assert that we “need them” in order to remain safe and secure from these illusory monsters bent on our destruction. As always, this development is followed by the claim that all steps taken, even those that dissolve our freedoms, are “for the greater good”. Frightened people tend to shirk their sense of independence and run towards the comfort of the collective, even if that collective is built on immoral and unconscionable foundations. Once a society takes on a hive-mind mentality almost any evil can be rationalized, and any injustice against the individual is simply overlooked for the sake of the group.
Rule #2: Keep Them Isolated
In the past, elitist governments would often legislate and enforce severe penalties for public gatherings, because defusing the ability of the citizenry to organize or to communicate was paramount to control. In our technological era, such isolation is still used, but in far more advanced forms. The bread and circus lifestyle of the average westerner alone is enough to distract us from connecting with each other in any meaningful fashion, but people still sometimes find ways to seek out organized forms of activism.
Through co-option, modern day tyrant’s can direct and manipulate opposition movements. By creating and administrating groups which oppose each other, elites can then micromanage all aspects of a nation on the verge of revolution. These “false paradigms” give us the illusion of proactive organization, and the false hope of changing the system, while at the same time preventing us from seeking understanding in one another. All our energies are then muted and dispersed into meaningless battles over “left and right”, or “Democrat versus Republican”, for example. Only movements that cast aside such empty labels and concern themselves with the ultimate truth of their country, regardless of what that truth might reveal, are able to enact real solutions to the disasters wrought by tyranny.
In more advanced forms of despotism, even fake organizations are disbanded. Curfews are enforced. Normal communications are diminished or monitored. Compulsory paperwork is required. Checkpoints are instituted. Free speech is punished. Existing groups are influenced to distrust each other or to disintegrate entirely out of dread of being discovered. All of these measures are taken by tyrants primarily to prevent ANY citizens from gathering and finding mutual support. People who work together and organize of their own volition are unpredictable, and therefore, a potential risk to the state.
Rule #3: Keep Them Desperate
You’ll find in nearly every instance of cultural descent into autocracy, the offending government gained favor after the onset of economic collapse. Make the necessities of root survival an uncertainty, and people without knowledge of self sustainability and without solid core principles will gladly hand over their freedom, even for mere scraps from the tables of the same men who unleashed famine upon them. Financial calamities are not dangerous because of the poverty they leave in their wake; they are dangerous because of the doors to malevolence that they leave open.
Destitution leads not just to hunger, but also to crime (private and government). Crime leads to anger, hatred, and fear. Fear leads to desperation. Desperation leads to the acceptance of anything resembling a solution, even despotism.
Autocracies pretend to cut through the dilemmas of economic dysfunction (usually while demanding liberties be relinquished), however, behind the scenes they actually seek to maintain a proscribed level of indigence and deprivation. The constant peril of homelessness and starvation keeps the masses thoroughly distracted from such things as protest or dissent, while simultaneously chaining them to the idea that their only chance is to cling to the very government out to end them.
Rule #4: Send Out The Jackboots
This is the main symptom often associated with totalitarianism. So much so that our preconceived notions of what a fascist government looks like prevent us from seeing other forms of tyranny right under our noses. Some Americans believe that if the jackbooted thugs are not knocking on every door, then we MUST still live in a free country. Obviously, this is a rather naïve position. Admittedly, though, goon squads and secret police do eventually become prominent in every failed nation, usually while the public is mesmerized by visions of war, depression, hyperinflation, terrorism, etc.
When law enforcement officials are no longer servants of the people, but agents of a government concerned only with its own supremacy, serious crises emerge. Checks and balances are removed. The guidelines that once reigned in police disappear, and suddenly, a philosophy of superiority emerges; an arrogant exclusivity that breeds separation between law enforcement and the rest of the public. Finally, police no longer see themselves as protectors of citizens, but prison guards out to keep us subdued and docile.
As tyranny grows, this behavior is encouraged. Good men are filtered out of the system, and small (minded and hearted) men are promoted.
At its pinnacle, a police state will hide the identities of most of its agents and officers, behind masks or behind red tape, because their crimes in the name of the state become so numerous and so sadistic that personal vengeance on the part of their victims will become a daily concern.
Rule #5: Blame Everything On The Truth Seekers
Tyrants are generally men who have squelched their own consciences. They have no reservations in using any means at their disposal to wipe out opposition. But, in the early stages of their ascent to power, they must give the populace a reason for their ruthlessness, or risk being exposed, and instigating even more dissent. The propaganda machine thus goes into overdrive, and any person or group that dares to question the authority or the validity of the state is demonized in the minds of the masses.
All disasters, all violent crimes, all the ills of the world, are hoisted upon the shoulders of activist groups and political rivals. They are falsely associated with fringe elements already disliked by society (racists, terrorists, etc). A bogus consensus is created through puppet media in an attempt to make the public believe that “everyone else” must have the same exact views, and those who express contrary positions must be “crazy”, or “extremist”. Events are even engineered by the corrupt system and pinned on those demanding transparency and liberty. The goal is to drive anti-totalitarian organizations into self censorship. That is to say, instead of silencing them directly, the state causes activists to silence themselves.
Tyrannical power structures cannot function without scapegoats. There must always be an elusive boogie man under the bed of every citizen, otherwise, those citizens may turn their attention, and their anger, towards the real culprit behind their troubles. By scapegoating stewards of the truth, such governments are able to kill two birds with one stone.
Rule #6: Encourage Citizen Spies
Ultimately, the life |
write and speak so carefully that it took most people two or three readings to figure out that I was directly challenging many of the foundations upon which the New Age is built. Actually, my culturally sensitive capacity to attack without attacking and criticize without criticizing was so effective that some avid readers still don't know what I was saying.
From a vantage point outside the New Age culture, my culture’s disavowal of emotions and the intellect may seem very strange and nearly inexplicable. Nevertheless, it is a very real cultural component that must be understood and considered if any useful communication is going to occur. If we want to successfully communicate with someone, we've got to understand not just their language, but the cultural context from which their language springs. From what I've seen in both the New Age and the skeptical cultures, this understanding is absent. I certainly didn't understand the skeptical culture until I spent real time considering it as a culture—and I know from my reading that most people in the skeptical culture don't understand the New Age culture at all. As a result, the yelling between our cultures just becomes louder while the real communication falls into the chasm that divides us. In all the din, people in my culture hear what they deem to be hyper-intellectual and emotionally charged attacks upon their cherished beliefs, while people in your culture hear what they deem to be wishful thinking, scientific illiteracy, and emotionally charged salvos in defense of mere delusions.
This is of course a tragedy, but after reading through the skeptical literature for the last three years, I feel that this tragedy may be avoidable. I understand your culture now, and I understand the concern, care, and interest you have for the people in my culture. I'm now able to read past text I once considered inflammatory and see the dedication behind it-not just your dedication to competent research and information-gathering, but your dedication to clear communication. I see your faith in human intelligence, your anger about swindlers and charlatans, your open-minded ability to question authority and accepted wisdom, and your willingness to fight to further a cause close to your heart. My favorite people in the New Age culture share these same qualities. I feel that people in your culture are capable of reaching out to my culture in sensitive ways that will have a chance of being heard—because it’s vital that you are heard.
It’s vital that a way be found to help people in my culture question, think about, and critically interpret the barrage of information and misinformation they receive on a daily basis. However, it’s also vital that the information be culturally sensitive. For instance, the first time I visited the skeptical health care Web site called Quackwatch, it felt as if I were walking into enemy territory. “Quack” is a very loaded word-it’s a fighting word! Though site owner Dr. Stephen Barrett has every right to call his excellent Web site anything he likes, I wonder why it couldn't have been called, for instance, HealthWatch, HealingInfo, DocFacts, or something equally nonthreatening. Why do I have to type the word “quack” when I want a skeptical review of the choices I make in medical care? And why do I have to spend so much time translating on the skeptical sites I visit-or just skipping over words like scam, sham, quack, fraud, dupe, and fool? Why do I (the sort of person who actually needs skeptical information) have to see myself described in offensive terms and bow my head in shame before I can truly access the information available in your culture?
I have a selfish reason for asking these questions, because one of my first ideas was to make my own Web site a culturally sensitive portal to the skeptical sites—yet I cannot find a way to do so. I've got a Web page mock-up brewing in my files—a page that I've rewritten maybe fifty times or more-that tries to introduce the concept of skepticism in an open and nonthreatening way. I'd like to include links to the brilliant urban legends site (snopes.com), to Bob Carroll’s online Skeptic’s Dictionary (skepdic.com), to CSICOP and the Skeptical Inquirer (csicop.org), and to The Skeptic (skeptic.com). I also really wanted to include Quackwatch (quackwatch.org) and James Randi’s site (randi.org)—but I just can't find the words. Sure, I can use my site to prepare people for the journey, but I know from experience that they would be in for quite a shock once they clicked on the links. I mean, it’s one thing to find out that much of my culture and belief system was based on gossamer and hearsay, but it’s another thing altogether to see people like myself being denigrated and pitied.
I found your culture and persevered through the (perhaps unintentionally?) insulting text and the demeaning attitudes because I had a serious need. I had a need to understand the avalanche of New Age ideas, gadgets, meditation techniques, and personalities I encountered as my career gathered momentum. I saw so much as I traveled and spoke to people in my culture, and so much of it worried me that I began to use the Internet to organize this avalanche and acquaint myself fully with information in my field. It was a harrowing journey, to say the very least. I waded into your culture for much-needed information, and ended up losing my own culture in the process. During the most difficult throes, I joked that I would have had to cheer up to be merely despairing—and that I would have had to calm down to be merely enraged. I'm still working through this.
What I see in the tragic clash between the New Age and skeptical cultures is that, for the most part, the skeptics have not yet been able to speak in a way that can be heard. Certainly, neither have people in my culture been able to perform that same feat. I see some scientific types working in the New Age culture, trying to prove that chi exists or prayer works (or whatever it is they're doing this week). There’s an awful lot of scientific jargon all over the New Age now, and while it’s sad to see science being bent and mangled by my culture, I have to say that it shows we're listening to you. It shows that we're trying to get it right-to say things in a way you can hear. I know that my culture’s sloppy and disrespectful use of science is something that angers and confuses many people in the skeptical community, but can we look at it in a different light?
People in my culture have heard you and we're trying to answer—but we don't understand you. Our cultural training about the dangers of the intellect makes it nearly impossible for us to utilize science properly—or to identify your intellectual rigor as anything but an unhealthy overuse of the mind. I know that sounds silly, but think of the way you view our capacity to dive deeply into matters of spiritual or religious study. You don't often treat our rigor as scholarship, per se (though it takes quite an intellect to understand and organize the often screamingly inconsistent sacred canon)—instead you tend to treat our work as an overabundance of credulity or perhaps even a stubborn refusal to listen to sense.
It is possible that our two warring cultures will never build a bridge across the deep rift that divides us. I know that in my own case, the transition from my culture to yours was long, arduous, and deeply painful. It was not an easy traipse across a well-constructed bridge. In essence, I had to throw myself off a cliff. I had to leave behind my career, my income, my culture, my family, my friends, my health care practitioners, most of my business contacts, my past, and my future. I say this not to garner sympathy but to show what the leap truly entails. The New Age is a complete culture with its own rules, ideals, infrastructure, and social life. When I finally realized that my cultural training had me teetering on a foundation of candyfloss and dreams—and worse, that my work had encouraged others to teeter alongside me, I was inconsolable, yet I had absolutely no one to turn to.
I've made it, I think, through my rage and horror at my own complicity in helping people remain susceptible—and perhaps through my grief and despair (though that’s more cyclical) about my own miseducation. Now I'm considering what to do from here. I've discovered in just the few (less than ten) conversations I've had with faith-based people that skeptical information is absolutely threatening and unwanted. What I didn't understand until recently is that when you start questioning these beliefs, there’s a domino effect that eventually smacks into your whole house of cards—and nothing remains standing. Opening the questioning process is a very dangerous thing, and people in my culture seem to understand that on a subconscious level. In response to their extreme discomfort, I've become completely silent around believers—which is hard, because they make up most of my friends, family, and correspondents.
If I were in this business for the money, I would have never seriously questioned what I was doing. I would have turned back as soon as my research challenged or threatened me. But I wasn't in it for the money. I was there to help people, often very disturbed people who were trammeling after this cure, that device, these gurus, or those miracle supplements. I tried to help people in my culture make sense of all the ideas and gadgets that were coming at them with such rapidity, but I was unable to make even a dent. When I understood fully that, no matter how good my intentions, the mere mention of things like auras, chakras, and “energy” brought with them a host of truly unsafe and untested assumptions—and that I was leading people into an arena where skepticism and critical thinking were forbidden—I knew that it was time to stop, and stop completely. It was a wrenching, isolating, and despair-filled decision, but since my focus is to help others, it was the only ethical or moral shift for me to make.
I respectfully ask that you in the skeptical community consider making a similar (though hopefully not so jarring) shift in your behavior and approach to us. I understand now, after years of reading and research, that the skeptical culture exists because of a very real concern for the welfare and well being of others. Of the two cultures, I can honestly say I now vastly prefer the skeptical one. However, I know firsthand that the skeptical viewpoint cannot be heard or assimilated in the New Age and metaphysical community; it is anathema, and that’s a shame for every single one of us. It is a shame because the search for the truth, the concern for the welfare of others, the need to be treated with respect, and the need to be welcomed in a culture—are all things my people share with yours. We have a different language and different references, but we share these basic human needs. I would ask you to respect our humanity, and approach us not as if you are reformers or redeemers. I would ask you to approach us as fellow humans who share your concern and interest in the welfare of others. I would ask you to be as culturally intelligent as you are scientifically intelligent, and to work to understand our culture as clearly as you understand the techniques, ideas, and modalities that have sprung from it. We are a people, not a problem.
I think I have found a way to speak across the chasm, to you. I am now learning to perform that same feat in reverse—to talk to people in my culture about your culture, but that’s a lot harder. I first need a rest, and I need to be in a real school, studying real science and getting a real degree (people in my culture tend to pursue offbeat degrees in offbeat subjects at offbeat schools). Watching people in the New Age has been as hard on me as it has been on you. Underneath all the magic, the wise ghosts, and the never-ending remedies lies a well of pain and loneliness that is immense and overwhelming. I always saw it—I always saw the excruciating truth of my culture, and I thought I could help. That I didn't help—not truly—is possibly the greatest devastation of my life. I need to heal from being a healer.
My voice was an important one in my culture; therefore, I've got to take responsibility for what I've done. I need to educate myself and come back into the fray in a healthy and respectful way. Maybe by the time I've organized my thoughts, a bridging culture will already exist. Maybe I'll find a way to be heard—or to translate the skeptical lexicon in such a way that people in my culture can access it without being insulted or shamed. One thing I'll be sure to stress is the fact that there is actually more beauty, wonder, brilliance, and mystery in science than there is in the mystical world.
One of the biggest falsehoods I've encountered is that skeptics can't tolerate mystery, while New Age people can. This is completely wrong, because it is actually the people in my culture who can't handle mystery—not even a tiny bit of it. Everything in my New Age culture comes complete with an answer, a reason, and a source. Every action, emotion, health symptom, dream, accident, birth, death, or idea here has a direct link to the influence of the stars, chi, past lives, ancestors, energy fields, interdimensional beings, enneagrams, devas, fairies, spirit guides, angels, aliens, karma, God, or the Goddess.
We love to say that we embrace mystery in the New Age culture, but that’s a cultural conceit and it’s utterly wrong. In actual fact, we have no tolerance whatsoever for mystery. Everything from the smallest individual action to the largest movements in the evolution of the planet has a specific metaphysical or mystical cause. In my opinion, this incapacity to tolerate mystery is a direct result of my culture’s disavowal of the intellect. One of the most frightening things about attaining the capacity to think skeptically and critically is that so many things don't have clear answers. Critical thinkers and skeptics don't create answers just to manage their anxiety.
Maybe I'll find a way to capitalize on my culture’s thirst for answers, and my people’s capacity to work with conflicting information (metaphysical ideas change every six months or so and therefore people in my culture are very accustomed to switching mental gears). I have faith now that I didn't have before: faith in your culture’s concern and integrity, and faith in my culture’s curiosity and capacity to learn new things. I've also learned firsthand that bad training, though damaging, is not a life sentence.
I have a lot of work and research to do, but I do see a possibility now that I didn't see before. I want to thank you for your work and your efforts to protect people like me from harm. You make a difference. I hope one day to be able to do the same.The aim of the present study was twofold: First, we wanted to revisit the claim that human cooperative communication evolved as part of a larger, uniquely human, adaptation for cooperation and cultural life in general1,2. Second, we examined whether bonobos are the better model species for understanding the prerequisites of human communication10. To do so, we investigated whether bonobos and chimpanzees, both of which engage in general cooperative activities11,12,13, use distinct features characteristic of human social action in conversation16,17. By taking into consideration intra- and inter-species variability and by focusing on the mother-infant dyad, our results showed that all observed dyads across groups frequently engaged in turn-taking sequences to negotiate joint travel. They established participation frameworks via gaze, body orientation and the adjustment of initiation distance, and they used adjacency pair-like sequences characterized by gesture-response pairs and response waiting. Regarding temporal relationships between signals and responses, we found that mother-infant dyads of both species used the whole spectrum of responses, including immediate, overlapping and even delayed responses. Immediate responses match the temporal relations between turns in human speech consisting of relatively little cultural variation (e.g. overall cross-linguistic median of 100 ms, ranging from 0 ms in the English and Japanese culture, for instance, to 300 ms in the Danish and Lao culture)19. Our findings therefore support and expand the results of Rossano15, by demonstrating that gestural exchanges observed in mother-infant dyads of bonobos and chimpanzees are often very similar in timing to human action in conversation and embody the most crucial features of human cooperative conversation4,27: These gestural exchanges are bidirectional coordination devices, comprising the two implicit roles of signaller and recipient. In learning to use these gestures, individuals learn to play and to comprehend both roles no matter which role they are performing (soliciting to leave a location or being solicited to leave a location). Although we recently showed that chimpanzee mothers and their infants differ in many of the gesture types employed to initiate joint travel30, gestures shared by mothers and infants might involve role-reversal imitation (i.e. when one uses a gesture toward others the way others have used this gesture toward oneself), but also take the other’s perspectives on the event of joint travel. Furthermore, to reach the joint goal (of leaving a location), signallers made efforts to communicate in ways that were comprehensible to the recipient, for instance by combining initiatory behaviours with gaze and orienting the body to recipients. In addition, they seemed to ‘clarify’ the intended goal by using several adjacency pair-like sequences composed of the same or different gestures, when the first communicative attempt had not been successful. Turn-taking sequences of pre-linguistic human children go a step further in that recipients ask for clarification when needed and employ ‘negotiation of meaning’33. Furthermore, the rapid turn-taking in human conversation involves indefinite varying contents of turns, multi-modal deployment of vocal and gestural signals, and also seems without parallel, given the sheer amount of time and effort invested in communication31 (but see for nonhuman primates and birds34,35).
Overall, our findings strengthen a recent proposal by Levinson and Holler31 emphasizing the role of turn-taking behaviour for evolutionary scenarios of human language. They suggest that human language, despite its tight integration of speech and gesture, is a system composed of layers of abilities of different types and different antiquity. Thus, unpeeling the layers should enable us to understand the evolution of human language from an original rapid exchange of gestural or vocal material, into a system where the complexity of the linguistic and gestural material that is expressed in relatively short bursts has grown to the very limits that human cognition can process31.
In sum, sequentially organized, cooperative social interactions are not simply by-products of individuals living in human enculturated environments15, but play a crucial role in communicative exchanges of mother-infant dyads of bonobos and chimpanzees living under active selection pressures. These results challenge the human-ape divide, which suggests that human cooperative communication evolved as part of a larger adaptation of humans’ species-unique forms of cooperation2 ratcheted via existing and simpler components of primate cognition, such as group action and manipulative communication26. Our findings indicate that cooperative communicative interactions seem to play a crucial role in mother-infant dyads of bonobos and chimpanzees and, more generally, in nonhuman animals, for which shared goals and relatively low levels of competition prevail. Similarly to the universally organized social-interaction matrix of human conversation19, the results suggest that our closest living relatives have a strong universal infrastructure underlying their gestural interactions, which serves to minimize gaps and overlaps and allows for efficient information exchange. Further research on the methods and model species commonly used to draw inferences about evolutionary precursors to human communication is warranted (see for recent developments in other areas of cognitive ethology36), to enable (i) higher sensitivity to the social characteristics and/or ecology of a given species and (ii) a vital understanding of the structure and cognitive complexity underlying turn-taking sequences14 and communicative exchanges such as vocal alternations34 and duetting37.
Concerning our second aim of examining whether bonobos are the better models for precursors to human communication, a comparison of the investigated parameters showed behavioural differences between species, but not within species. Specifically, bonobo dyads (i) accompanied their signals more frequently with gaze, (ii) stayed in closer spatial proximity to each other for mother-infant coordination, and (iii) preferred to use overlapping and immediate responses. In contrast, chimpanzee dyads (i) were more likely to orient their bodies toward a recipient before signalling, (ii) showed a higher number of gesture-response pairs and response waiting, (iii) displayed overall more ‘communicative persistence’ to obtain the desired goal of joint travel, and (iv) used all three response tempi with relatively similar frequencies.
Three hypotheses may account for these observations. First, differences in communicative patterns may be explained by differences in ecological environments. For example, habitat characteristics such as thickness and growth of terrestrial herbaceous vegetation (THV) may differ considerately between the sites, resulting in different degrees of visibility and thus communication space and eye contact. Although THV is clearly more prevalent in bonobo habitats than in chimpanzee habitats38, differences in THV might also exist between the two chimpanzee habitats, resulting in relatively higher levels of visibility at Kanyawara38 compared to Taï South39. If this hypothesis were true, we would have expected to find differences in communicative behaviours between the Kanyawara and the Taï South community and between bonobos and chimpanzees in general. This does not accord with our observations.
Second, differences in communication styles between bonobos and chimpanzees are a by-product of the studied age range, particularly because chimpanzee infants may generally develop more quickly than do bonobo infants. For instance, Kuroda40 suggested that growth rates of bonobos and chimpanzees differ considerably, such that bonobos undergo a slower development of (i) spatial independence, (ii) locomotor skills (e.g. climbing, walking quadrupedally, riding on mother’s back), and (iii) social interactions with conspecifics (e.g. approaching, playing). This proposed delay in general development in bonobos may also have a crucial impact on the speed of communicatory skill development. If this hypothesis were true, we would have expected to find that age had a significant impact on the investigated parameters, with bonobo infants showing certain parameters such as use of gaze, adjustment of body orientation and response waiting, as well as overlapping responses, significantly later than chimpanzee infants. However, this was not the case. Body orientation and initiation distance were the only parameters for which a developmental effect was found, with increases of adjustment of body orientation towards mothers and initiation distance with age in both bonobo and chimpanzee infants. Overall, chimpanzee dyads initiated joint travel from larger distances than did bonobo dyads. These results are in line with findings of de Lathouwers and colleagues41, who showed that immature chimpanzees spend more time at larger distances from their mothers than do immature bonobos. Our study confirms that chimpanzees indeed develop spatial independence more quickly than do bonobos.
Third, bonobos and chimpanzees might employ different communication styles. Consistent with this hypothesis and based on our investigated parameters, bonobos and chimpanzees could be characterized by two clearly distinguishable communication styles accompanied by different temporal relationships: Bonobos frequently combined their communicative signals with gaze while in close proximity to the addressee, and they often used speedy responses. The underlying temporal relationships often matched those underlying human turn transition during speech19, with predominantly single adjacency pairs but also recipients responding before signals had been fully articulated. Chimpanzees, on the other hand, adjusted their body orientation toward recipients and used a generally slower mode of communication that involved more gesture-response pairs, higher frequencies of response waiting and delayed responses. Bonobo communication thus seems to resemble a subtle dance coined of flowing movements by signallers and recipients, while chimpanzee communication is structured with temporally separated and clearly recognizable units such as signal, pause and response. Chimpanzee signalling mirrors the structure of other social interactions, such as aggressive and grooming interactions, which are also characterized by typical negotiation sequences42,43, thereby demonstrating the significance of clearly structured interactions in chimpanzee society.
While future studies with additional age classes, communicative functions and dyads are of course mandatory, our study provides the first evidence that mother-infant dyads of bonobos and chimpanzees living in their natural environments employ different communication styles to convey the same message. Moreover, if certain communicative patterns are already observable in mother-infant coordination, the first step of co-regulated social interaction44, it is likely that these patterns are also crucial for general communication abilities of the species. Thus, generalization to behaviours of other dyads of a given community may be possible to some extent.
Although the long-standing bonobo-chimpanzee dichotomy has been challenged by new data emphasizing intra-species over inter-species variability28, bonobos and chimpanzees still seem to differ considerably concerning distinct characteristics of their social matrices. Males are more influential in chimpanzee society than in bonobo society45,46, with male chimpanzees heavily competing within their communities to gain indirect and direct fitness benefits13,46. This competition results in linear dominance hierarchies, male harassment and male-female dominance, but also strong social bonds and cooperative behaviour between males in the form of short- and long-term alliances (e.g. in the form of coalitionary behaviour, grooming, meat sharing and border patrols13,46). High levels of aggression, including lethal attacks, characterize intergroup encounters in chimpanzees, and infanticide has been observed within and between communities47. In contrast, bonobo society is characterized by co-dominance between the sexes, prolonged mother-son relationships45, and strong bonds between unrelated females45,48, resulting in a more flexible choice of coalition partners. Although between-group encounters in bonobos are usually friendly and peaceful49, there is anecdotal evidence of attempts of infanticide by males50 but also females51. Given the gregariousness of bonobo females, the threat of female infanticide could explain the need for close range communication between mothers and their dependant offspring.
It has been argued that species-specific social matrices and behaviours have been evolutionarily shaped by the distinctive morphology, connectivity and molecular biology of brain regions and pathways involved in social and environmental appraisal of threats and vigilance and control of emotional responses23,24. For instance, bonobos have more gray matter in the dorsal amygdala and a larger pathway linking the amygdala with the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC)24. This neural circuitry has been implicated in both top-down control of aggressive impulses and bottom-up biases against harming others, as well as increased empathic sensitivity and prosocial behaviour24. In addition, bonobos have approximately twice the density of serotonergic axons in the amygdala compared to chimpanzees51, contributing to appraisal of the emotional context and significance of the environment52. These differences in neural circuitry are in line with recent experimental findings showing that bonobos tend to exhibit more cautious temperaments53, reduced ‘emotional reactivity’11, and greater tolerance when competing over food-resources36. The results of our study suggest that crucial features characterizing human communication, such as gaze and anticipation of recipients’ behaviour2,5, may be more significant in bonobo than in chimpanzee communication. Bonobos appear to exhibit a higher social awareness of the communicative situation and the anticipated meaning of a given signal, strengthening recent results demonstrating a bonobo-chimpanzee divergence in tasks requiring attention to social causality22.
Bonobos may therefore represent the most representative model for understanding the prerequisites of human communication10. However, additional analyses of the communicative and cognitive abilities of our closest living relatives are compulsory for a complete understanding of the impact of social and possibly cultural matrices on communication styles and tendencies. In addition, examples of convergent evolution in distantly related species can provide clues to the types of problems that particular communicative mechanisms are ‘designed’ to solve54,55. We thus hope to inspire future research that not only incorporates additional dyads and contexts, but also conducts taxonomically informed comparisons of species engaging in turn-taking behaviour during general interactions and communicative exchanges.
In sum, our results provide substantial evidence that the two primary model species for the origins of human behaviour, bonobos and chimpanzees, differ in their communication styles. While bonobos seem to anticipate and respond to signals before they have been fully articulated, chimpanzees engage in more time-consuming communicative negotiations. Both species use sequentially organized, cooperative social interactions to engage in a joint enterprise: Leaving together to another location. Their communicative interactions thus show the hallmarks of human social action during conversation and suggest that cooperative communication arose as a way of coordinating collaborative activities more efficiently. Our results strengthen a recent proposal by Levinson and Holler31 suggesting that the apparent gulf between animal and human communication may be bridged by looking for precursors adaptations to human language in turn-taking interactions.Welcome to Curbed’s first-ever Transportation Week! From how to improve public transportation in cities, ranking the best car-free neighborhoods across the country, and a friendly competition between NYC, San Francisco, and Los Angeles to determine which has the best public transit, this week is all about how we get around in our favorite cities. All aboard!
I’m sure there are some people out there who will take issue with what I’ve chosen for my worst rush hour commute. After all, isn’t the subway at rush hour—particularly these hellish past few months, when it seems like every day brings more delays and snafus—actually a nightmare?
And while I do think that’s a fair argument, I decided to go with biking over the Brooklyn Bridge for a few reasons. For one, I wanted to try a different type of transit for each of these challenges, and biking made sense in this case. I’m not a regular bike commuter, but my husband is, and when I asked him what the worst route through NYC on a bike would be, the Brooklyn Bridge was the first thing that came to mind—thanks to the throngs of meandering tourists, joggers, and cyclists that crowd its span every day. An informal poll of cyclists on Twitter the night before my ride confirmed the same.
I decided to ride a Citi Bike, because 1) I don’t have a bike of my own, and 2) as the bike-share program expands within the five boroughs, it’s become a more reliable transportation option. (Plus, I got a free pass thanks to the company’s Women’s Bike Month initiative—so it was a win-win.)
But Citi Bikes are big and a bit bulky; so take the normal awfulness of crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, add in a hulking 45-pound piece of metal, and try to navigate it during rush hour, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. Or do you? (And would it be worse than L.A. traffic?) I was determined to find out.
I live in Brooklyn Heights, not too far from the entrance to the bridge, so I picked up a Citi Bike near Cadman Plaza at around 8:30 a.m., strapped on my helmet (and my GoPro), and was on my way.
Things got off to a good start; I was pleasantly surprised by the recent improvements made to the “cattle chute,” the less-than-pleasant name for the shared pedestrian/bike pathway that connects to Tillary Street, so getting onto the bridge was easy. The weather was nice, it hadn’t gotten too crowded, and I was feeling good. “I don’t know why I was so freaked out,” I thought to myself.
So yeah … I got cocky and I forgot about the bridge’s incline. Before I even reached the first of its two enormous Gothic arches, I had to stop and catch my breath, and then walk the Citi Bike up to the wider expanse next to the tower. I texted my husband: “I had to stop, I think I’m gonna die.”
Meanwhile, the actual bikers—who knew I wasn’t one of them—whizzed by me, with more than a few ringing their bells or yelling the telltale “on your left!” before they passed. I got lucky, though, as far as rush hour traffic goes; while there were plenty of cyclists out, there were only a few pedestrians, most of whom knew well enough to not get into the bike lane.
Eventually I got back on my bike and pedaled, very slowly, over the rest of the bridge. And here’s the truth: my ride wasn’t actually that bad. In fact, I was probably more of an irritant for the everyday riders than they were for me. I had to weave around people a few times, and navigating the very narrow bike lane on the bridge is not exactly fun (I almost cycled head-on into the side of the bridge at one point), but I completed the ride in about 20 minutes and lived to tell the tale.
But I think things would have been different had I gone out during the evening rush hour, when more people are out trying to catch the sunset on the bridge. At least next time I do this (if there is a next time), I’ll feel more prepared.It hasn’t even been a week since gay marriage was legalized in New York, but already you have people of faith complaining that they won’t be able to do their jobs:
Barbara MacEwen, the town clerk in upstate Volney who is responsible for signing marriage licenses in the town, said she’s morally opposed to same-sex weddings and does not intend to affix her signature to any marriage documents for gay or lesbian couples. … “If there’s any possible way to not do it, legally, then yes, I would not want to put my name on any of those certificates or papers,” MacEwen told POLITICO. “That’s their life, they can do it, but I don’t feel I should be forced into something that’s against my morals and my God.” … MacEwen, a 75-year-old Republican, said she will be on the ballot this fall for a fifth full four-year term as clerk of the town of about 6,200 people. … … MacEwen said she doesn’t expect an uptick in activity in her town, which is about 30 miles from Syracuse. “I don’t know of anybody like that in my town,” she said. “I’m sure that there might be, but I haven’t heard about anybody.”
As if gay people would be anxious to tell her about their sexuality…
Not signing the marriage documents will soon be against the law. I know MacEwen wants to play the Christian Martyr role, but she doesn’t get a choice in this matter.
If she wants to be a bigot and discriminate against gays and lesbians, she can go work for a church. They’re the ones who demanded the exemption to treating all people with dignity and respect.
No one gives a damn about MacEwen’s pathetic morals — morals that are threatened by two people in love.
If she can’t do her job, she can resign or get fired. Good riddance.Laura Storm is an award-winning photographer, diver, and passionate champion for ocean conservation. She’s been obsessed with seeing understanding everything in our oceans — ranging from the smallest plankton to the biggest whales for nearly her entire life. Diver Magazine’s “Buddy of the Year” award inside her extensive dive log and she’s received numerous awards in underwater photography.
Luckily, we’ve caught Laura during one of her surface intervals to talk with us about her career, diving, photography, and her advice to others interested in pursuing a life spent under the sea.
Can you please tell us a little about who you are and your work as a diver, photographer, and conservationist?
Diving and the oceans have always been my grand passion in life. That and the animal kingdom. Ever since I was knee-high to a grasshopper and running wild on the African plains, I’ve been fascinated by pretty much everything we share our planet with. My childhood was filled with off-the-beaten-track travel and extraordinary wildlife encounters. Perhaps I was born to walk a path less obvious but I knew from an early age that I wanted a life of adventure and exploration.
Photography edged its way into my world and then became an obsession. During my years as a deep-water safety diver I was occasionally asked to film at major freediving events; national or world record attempts and big competitions. A typical brief was to stream live video footage from depth to a topside audience of judges and spectators.
After I stepped down from safety diving, I started shooting stills images underwater. I hit the ground running because I already had this wealth of experience from being around wildlife. Spending months on the road in the heat and dust, year after year, watching animals do what they do best is a brilliant apprenticeship.
My conservation efforts are a way of giving back, paying my dues to the ocean. I’m acutely aware of how precarious the balance of nature is – never more so than right now. I think we’re on a knife-edge and it’s going to take determination and a united effort to steer things in the right direction; to secure a future for our oceans and seas and all of life that depends upon them. It’s better to be part of the solution don’t you think? And so I do what I can; I give talks to raise awareness, write articles and I blog a little. I have also donated a few of my awarded images and contributed educational nodes for organisations like Mission Blue and the Shark Trust.
How old were you when you learned to dive, and where did you learn? Were you hooked immediately or did it take a while for you to really fall in love with diving?
It’s strange but I don’t recall ever learning how to swim. It’s one of those things that must have come naturally to me. I wish I could say the same about diving but my initial foray into SCUBA was fraught with challenges and frustration. Looking back, I remember that I was completely smitten by the idea of being a diver and because I was so adept on the water, had some misguided expectation of a smooth transition to depth.
I was only 12 at the time and was living at altitude in Nairobi. The only SCUBA place in town was a British Sub-Aqua Club that used a run-down hotel pool to train in. The water was freezing, the equipment antiquated and the lessons laborious. After months of soggy slog, I still hadn’t dipped beneath the surface of the ocean. It didn’t help that the Big Blue was 500km away!
But the ocean kept calling and my slow-burn start eventually paid off. Since those early struggles I have gone on to enjoy decades of adventure, diving in incredible places and interacting with animals that I’m fascinated with.
Can you tell us about a dive that has always stood out in your memory?
So, so many, but let me tell you about one that was truly epic! Ten years ago I was diving up at Wolf and Darwin in the Galapagos. It’s |
in his school:
"The commandments have been a compass for our lives," he said.
Yes, indeed. Historical.
It is especially ironic that the Sekulow cross defense comes in a military context, because the problem of military Christian favoritism has been ongoing for many years. The scandal at the Air Force Academy a few years ago caused quite a fuss, and there are numerous other documented incidents as well. Somehow, despite the obvious problem of overzealous Christians in the military, we are asked to believe that reasonable observers should understand a 13-foot cross towering over military property as being something other than a pro-Christian endorsement.
Indeed, ordinary people are supposed to understand that this huge cross is not a pro-Christian statement by the government but merely, to use Sekulow's words, "a universal symbol of remembrance." The soldiers who erected the cross may have had the noble and benign intentions of honoring fallen comrades when they did so, but surely there are other ways to pay such respects. If all parties agreed that honoring soldiers is the end goal, a satisfactory means of doing so, one that doesn't involve enormous Christian symbolism hovering over the military base, could certainly be found. There are innumberable ways of honoring military service and sacrifice, so that's not the problem here.
Rather than even consider such options, however, Sekulow demands that we see the cross as something other than a religious symbol. Sure, Jay. It's not about religion.
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Dave on TwitterThis Is How Putin Used Bots, Professional Trolls, And Wikileaks To Move An Election
A Five Chapter Trump-Russia Saga
When it comes to discussing the Russian challenge to democracy, a lot of vague technical jargon like active measures, asymmetrical information warfare, and social botnets, get thrown around. But if we look at what’s actually happening, we’ll find a tried and true KGB tactic used much more efficiently with social media.
Those in charge of propaganda efforts create conspiracy theories, find disaffected groups that will gladly accept them, then help amplify what they just learned by circling back around and citing their retellings of these conspiracies.
Those interested in counter-intelligence operations often cite 1983’s Operation Infektion as a textbook example of this echo chamber method at work. Its goal was to capitalize on the discovery of AIDS and its explosion into a global pandemic by convincing millions that it was an American bio-weapon.
The same exact tactics are used to this day by Russian intelligence agencies. The only difference is the inclusion of technology into their toolkit to speed up dissemination. That’s how an idle tweet by a seeming nobody can end up being front page news in a few days.
Now, it’s important to make a distinction between Russian propaganda and fake news. While the two might overlap, the latter isn’t necessarily part of a misinformation campaign. Some of it is done for fun and profit from ad revenue.
In fact, one Macedonian town actually had a massive economic boom thanks to far right social media accounts promoting fabricated stories and conservative clickbait. Other fake stories came from viral tweets by people who genuinely didn’t mean to jump to toxic conclusions and regretted it, and clickbaity partisan propaganda also played a significant role.
But there absolutely were shady manufactured stories directly attributable to Russian agents spread on conspiracy theorists’ favorite channels, and splashing into the mainstream after gaining critical mass online.
One of the best examples of this may be Pizzagate, which was started by random Twitter accounts which scanned WikiLeaks dumps attributed to Russian hacks, supercharged on 4Chan,and heavily fanned by bots. It was picked up by conspiracy outlets like InfoWars, and eventually made its way into major newspapers and prime time TV as Michael Flynn’s son tweeted about it, resulting in an eclectic pizzeria being flooded with death threats.
This doesn’t mean that everyone who supported this story was in bed with Russians. In fact a whole lot of people were convinced that this was terrifying truth dying to get out.
And that’s the genius of Putin’s propaganda corps. They know how to tailor their message to create viral conspiracy theories and the technical firepower to get enough eyeballs on it to convert true believers. They also scour the web for existing ones that play into their narrative perfectly.
And the Kremlin comes with backup. Try to challenge them and an army of professional trolls, known for years to be experts in the manufacturing and spread of kompromat and conspiracies, shows up en masse to defend the stories they planted and keep spreading them ever farther. They show up in every place categorized in social media to varying degrees and experiment until they start to fit in and gain followers. These trolls use their reputation to push narratives as anodyne as “look, Russians are good guys for peace and stability” to the opposite extreme of “Hillary had people murdered.”
In 2016, Russian troll farms went even farther. Buying ads on Facebook and commanding at least a significant portion of the botnets that accounted for almost a fifth of all political tweets sent during the election, they essentially used the same exact tactics any PR or marketing shop would use to advertise a new product or a TV show.
By carpet-bombing mass media until it’s impossible to avoid what they’re pitching, they start real conversations among real people, and then feed on that attention to amplify their message even more. The only difference is that they were selling anger and frustration instead of something like a new smartphone.
And it worked. Roiled by the economic turmoil of globalization and looking for scapegoats, conservative social media users who formed Trump’s base often fit the ideal profile of avid conspiracy theorists. They were threatened by rapid change and felt powerless to stop it on their own, looking for an external enemy to blame.
This is in part why they flocked to Trump. Years of pundits telling them that the nation was collapsing, that they were the only true Americans left, and anyone who looked or thought differently wasn’t also a fellow citizen but an existential threat, set them up perfectly for the storm of propaganda unleashed their way.
Ultimately, their stories are often picked up by sites like InfoWars, Global Research, and Before It’s News where they’re cited as facts in some overarching conspiracy that will hopefully make it in some toned down form to Breitbart or Newsbusters. From there, these stories can explode into the conservative media sphere where these sites tend to dominate the conversation and back each other up, along with encouragement from the conspiracy theorists who helped fan the flames.
This is when Russian state-ran RT and Sputnik can jump in, pick up the chatter, and pretend that they’re reporting a story someone else broke in the West, lighting up our prime time news channels and sanitized Twitter feeds with conspiracies and rumors they created and, for the lack of a better term, laundered through our social media. This helps keep the story alive and going on conservative sites, especially Brietbart, which dominates social media on the right, and often fuel its “globalist elitists and grifters vs. hard-working, honest folks with good, old fashioned values” narratives.
Clint Watts, an expert in Russian cyber campaigns, testified before the Senate that armies of Twitter bots are steering President Trump to stories that come from RT, Sputnik, InfoWars, and Breitbart, trying their hardest to float them to his timeline when they know he’s on social media. If, as liberal conspiracies claim, Trump is taking marching orders from Putin, willingly or not, why deploy these active measures to change his opinion, especially one you’re supposedly dictating to him? And why would his aides manage his alarmingly unhealthy media diet often seeded with hoaxes and Russian propaganda?
Enter Wikileaks
But that’s not the only trick Russians have from the KGB’s disinformational heyday. There’s also the art of creating the right compromising materials, or kompromat. Sex tapes are a classic, as are pictures that framed the right way support a false narrative.
However, in recent years, Putin has acquired a new tool for giving his opponents massive headaches, a tool called WikiLeaks. It may have taken a while to fully spin up, but over the last year it’s paid enormous dividends for his campaigns along with his frontline hacking groups: Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear.
After expending itself with the leaks provided by Chelsea Manning, WikiLeaks was going through some rough times. Julian Assange alienated many of his closest friends and co-workers, and journalists described him as paranoid. After taking refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he still remains, it seemed like Assange had no allies left.
Suddenly, however, he announced his own show on RT in which he interviewed anti-American guests that fanned the same conspiracy theories Russians wanted to spread about the Arab Spring, the expansion of the EU, anti-corruption protests in Moscow, and NATO.
Meanwhile, leaks about the Russian elite’s secret, frequently ill-gotten fortunes never seemed to end up on WikiLeaks despite Assange threatening to leak them, often falling to other hackers to expose, or to whistleblowers like lawyer and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny. (In fact some of Navalny’s work is referenced in this series.)
During and after the election, Assange towed Russia’s line precisely, interviewing former spy Ana Chapman on his show, encouraging her as she lavished praise on Trump and said that Clinton “had blood on her hands.” And of course, there were the e-mail dumps containing the seeds of many of Clinton’s scandals.
After Trump’s election, in which it fed the conservative media sphere, WikiLeaks started to become even more belligerent and antagonistic. It created a “truth squad” to roam social media and “correct” journalists they thought were unfair. It leaked the CIA’s cyber warfare toolkit, leading to a strong rebuke of the Trump administration, which used to quote its e-mail dumps on a regular basis.
It also readily piled on to the 4Chan-coordinated anti-Macron social media campaign, releasing an 11th hour dump of his e-mails when his campaign was unable to respond under French law, a dump furiously promoted by armies of Twitter bots and populist Twitter personalities who blasted “the biased leftist media” while literally campaigning for Trump.
Luckily for Macron, his campaign was wise to the trick and might have left some bits of fake information to put the dump’s authenticity into question. WikiLeaks eventually had to backtrack after Russian metadata was found among supposedly French files.
Still, right now, WikiLeaks is Putin’s digital bulldozer. It seems ready to hack anyone who stands in its way and ensures its survival with a doomsday file allegedly containing the kind of material that could start World War 3 according to the internet.
WikiLeaks also might have strange links to the UK’s Leave campaign as evidenced by ex-UKIP mouthpiece and Brexit cheerleader Nigel Farage visiting Assange in person at the Ecuadorian embassy and telling curious reporters that he forgot why he was there for an hour, or what he talked about with WikiLeaks’ boss. Either Farage has a serious problem with short-term memory, or he really didn’t want to discuss the investigation into his relationship with big data tycoon and Breitbart financier Robert Mercer, or the leaked e-mails in which UKIP pledged to defend him from any legal threat. This, by the way, is the same Breitbart that has pushed for a Trump presidency since he announced his run to confused guffaws from the media.
In recent days, Mercer is so fed up with investigations into his links to the Brexit vote, Trump, Breitbart, and WikiLeaks that he threatened to sue The Guardian, likely trying to take advantage of notoriously lopsided British libel laws.
He’s not the only possible financial and media muscle being mentioned either. Farage’s frequent appearances on RT stirred rumors of a Russian hand tipping the scale in favor of Leave voters while simultaneously funding Le Pen’s National Front, another virulently anti-EU party. Keep in mind that this was the same election WikiLeaks and 4Chan tried to sway at the last possible minute when the polls predicted a more than 20 point victory for Macron in the run-off.
And that attempt to sway the French election seems to indicate that after Trump won, someone marshaling the Russian disinformation machine was pretty sure they could sway elections with strategic data dumps and social media campaigns were propaganda was signal boosted by bots. But we’re getting head of ourselves. First we need to answer the question of what really happened in the American election…
Compromised By Money Laundering, Trump Was The Perfect Candidate For PutinThe nation's fourth largest carrier, Sprint, is building out 4G LTE service in 279 subway stations in New York City. The project will be completed in 2017, and will bring 800MHz and 1.9GHz spectrum into each station. High traffic locations in Mid-town Manhattan and in Queens, will be outfitted with 2.5GHz spectrum for faster data speeds at those stations.Six million riders a day traveling to and from the New York City boroughs of Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx, will be covered by Sprint's subway station service. Currently, Sprint has 83 NYC subway stations covered with its 4G network, more than Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile have hooked up.Sprint also announced that its Direct 2 You delivery service is expanding. Now, Sprint customers in Charlotte, N.C., Cincinnati, Las Vegas, Nashville, New Orleans, Pittsburgh and Salt Lake City can have their new Sprint phone hand delivered. At the same time, the driver will be happy to move over content to the new unit, and show the phone owner exactly how to set-up and use his/her new handset. Other cities offering the service include New York, Chicago, L.A., Denver and Atlanta.Those who use Direct 2 You can be entered into a contest to win $250,000. Snap a selfie of you and the Direct 2 You representative, and post it on Instagram or Twitter using the hashtags #Direct2You and #Sweepstakes. The contest ends on New Year's Day.source: Sprint ( 1 ), ( 2 ) via AndroidCentralPeruvian police officers recently pulled off a major drug bust, seizing 325 kilograms (715 pounds) of cocaine ready for shipment out of the central jungle.
The Mar. 7 operation was significant, representing nearly one-third of the cocaine seized so far this year in Peru. But authorities were even more pleased with the capture of a small plane for smuggling the drugs to neighboring Bolivia and, from there, to parts unknown.
In the 1980s and 1990s, cocaine-ferrying planes dotted Peru's skies. Now they're back: the US State Department says small planes are now the “primary method of transporting cocaine” out of the country, replacing sea transport. In its annual report on narcotics released earlier this month, the State Department estimated that upward of 180 metric tons were exported this way in 2013.
But how to stop these flights is a vexed issue. A significant number of countries in Latin America, most recently Venezuela in late 2013 and Honduras in January 2014, have enacted laws allowing local air forces to shoot down suspected drug planes over their territory.
Peru has a similar law, but it has been suspended since April 2001, when the Peruvian Air Force, accompanied by a CIA support plane, mistakenly shot down an aircraft carrying missionaries. A US Baptist missionary from Michigan, Veronica Bowers, and her adopted infant daughter were killed. Her husband, young son, and the pilot survived.
Thirteen years on, some Peruvian lawmakers argue the time has come to reinstate the shoot-down policy.
“Peru is the only country that does nothing to stop irregular flights over its national territory," says Congressman Carlos Tubino, a retired general. "The policy of keeping the Air Force out of the fight against drugs has been an absolute failure and the results are there for anyone to see, but no one wants to make a decision."
Tubino acknowledges that the incident with the missionary plane was a tragedy, but he says that the policy should be revived and last November authored legislation to that effect. He's now pushing for the congressional defense committee to approve his bill and send it to the floor for a vote.
Peru is currently the world’s largest grower of coca – from which cocaine is extracted – and cocaine producer. Coca plants cover close to 150,000 acres, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
President Ollanta Humala’s government has made strides in dealing with the coca-cocaine problem, eradicating 93,900 acres of coca, which would have yielded 290 metric tons of cocaine, in the past two years. This year's eradication target for this year is about 74,000 acres.
Inaction in tackling the drug flights means Peru will continue waging an “indirect war against drug trafficking that is focused on eradication and stopping precursor chemicals used to make cocaine, but without an interdiction strategy,” says Tubino, an opposition politician. “It is simply inexplicable.”
Alternative options
Peru lags its neighbors in cocaine interdictions, according to local and international reports. In 2013, Peru seized approximately 8 percent of the cocaine it produced, while Bolivia was above 20 percent and Colombia topped 40 percent.
But Carmen Masias, head of Peru's anti-drug agency, DEVIDA, says a revived shoot-down policy isn't the way to go. Ms. Masias prefers a non-lethal strategy that includes tearing up clandestine runways and using police aircraft to force planes to land, which is how the Mar. 7 operation unfolded. DEVIDA says that 110 clandestine airstrips were destroyed in 2013, with another 20 eliminated in the first two months of this year.
“We have made progress with [coca] eradication and development, including alternative crops. We have had important success, but recognize that the challenge is enormous,” Masias says.
Peru's government recently turned its attention to coca production in a a Maryland-size stretch of jungle known as the VRAEM, named after valleys formed by three rivers. Since 2003, the area has been under a state of emergency because of terrorist activities by remnants of the Shining Path and has an estimated 49,000 acres of coca production.
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Eradication has never occurred in most of the zone, but this year the government wants to tear up 39,500 acres manually. Peru, unlike Colombia, does not allow aerial spraying for eradication so plants are yanked out using shovels and picks.
As Peru debates the merits of shooting down drug planes, Tubino supports extending eradication to the VRAEM. Not to do so “would be like extending the welcome mat to drug cartels," he says.UPDATE (9:46 a.m.): Controversy's canceled, you guys. The NFL says what the official did was "standard officiating procedure." Details here.
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- Brace yourselves for another officiating controversy involving a field goal at the end of a Jets-Patriots game, America. Because what the heck is this?
Thursday night, Jets kicker Nick Folk tried a 58-yard field goal on the game's final play. The try was obviously a longshot (duh): Folk had never made a kick attempt longer than 56 yards, and this one was blocked by Patriots defensive end Chris Jones. The Patriots won, 27-25, and the Jets got to slink back to Florham Park to figure out what to do, their season in ashes now that they're 1-6 with six straight losses.
Now, the Jets did plenty wrong and deserved to lose. Their season is a trash heap because they stink. But this isn't a good look for the NFL's officiating crew.
Check out what happened just before the ball was snapped. Patriots linebacker Dont'a Hightower approached the line of scrimmage and attempted to stand just over Jets long snapper Tanner Purdum. According to the rule book, this should have been a five-yard penalty. But instead, an official stepped in, grabbed Hightower by his right arm, and presumably told him to move over, which Hightower quickly did. But why?
An NFL spokesman did not immediately return an email message seeking comment, but that might have something to do with the fact that it's now past 3 a.m.
You can watch the video here; I'd embed it, but the NFL would rather not do anything to make life easy for its fans.
The video begins just as the official steps up to nudge Hightower aside. I've screen-grabbed it for you at the top of this post. And here's a close-up Vine that gives a clearer view of the official's actions:
Loading *PLEASE SHARE*... HOLD UP DID YOU SEE THE REF SAVE N.E FROM GETTING A PENALTY FOR LINING UP OVER THE CENTER???? He should've just thrown the flag ARE YOU KIDDING ME? @NFL View on Instagram
The entire sequence is an odd echo of the last Jets-Patriots game, played last October down in North Jersey. That afternoon, Jones—yes, the same player who blocked Thursday night's game-ending kick—blocked a 56-yard Folk field goal attempt in overtime. But, at the time, Jones was assessed a penalty for pushing teammate Will Svitek into the line of scrimmage, which violated a rule the NFL had only implemented prior to last season. Jones was assessed a 15-yard penalty, the Jets got a new set of downs, and Folk later hit a field goal from 42 yards out to win the game. That triggered some confusion over the what the rule actually said. And the NFL would later admit the Jets should have been flagged for the same type of infraction earlier in the game.
But at least that was an honest mistake. What happened Thursday night seemed to be active intervention on the part of an official to prevent what, by rule, should have been a penalty. Had Hightower stayed where he was, inside the shoulder pads of Purdum, Rule 9-1-3(a) calls for a five-yard penalty for illegal formation: "When Team A presents a punt, field-goal, or Try Kick formation, a Team B player, who is within one yard of the line of scrimmage, must have his entire body outside the snapper’s shoulder pads at the snap."
But the official intervened instead, and immediately after Hightower got nudged, he moved outside Purdum's shoulder pads, where he was lined up legally. Again: Why?
A five-yard penalty would have given Folk a shot at a field goal attempt from 53 yards out. There's obviously no telling whether Folk would have made it, but he has successfully kicked five field goals from 53 yards or greater in his career, and he was a perfect 13-for-13 on field goals this season—including one from beyond 50 yards—before his would-be game-winner Thursday night got blocked.
Dom Cosentino may be reached at dcosentino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @domcosentino. Find NJ.com Jets on Facebook.Does it matter what name people use for God? This is the question thrown up as a result of a strange development in Pakistani etiquette.
Until about 10 years ago "Khuda hafiz", which means "God protect you", was the phrase commonly used to say goodbye. But, in the past decade, "Khuda hafiz" began to be overtaken by a new term "Allah hafiz". Now, "Allah hafiz" is used by everyone from religious clerics to fashion models and the country's top TV anchors.
While languages change and evolve with time, and Pakistan certainly has bigger problems such as corruption and militancy, the alteration has unsettled liberals in Pakistan, who say it reflects a wider change in the country's cultural landscape.
Khuda is the Urdu word for God, borrowed from Persian. Yet today, some people claim that Khuda can refer to any God, while Allah is the specific name for God in the Qur'anic scripture. Others have gone so far as to claim the word Khuda may even have pagan origins.
The promotion of "Allah hafiz" first began in the 1980s under the rule of General Zia-ul-Haq when Pakistan was involved in the US- and Saudi-backed jihad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. According to some reports, "Allah hafiz" was first used in public in 1985 by a well-known TV host on the state-run PTV. However it would be years later that the greeting took off.
The arguments used by Muslims who are against using the name Khuda appear similar to the ones used by those Christians in the United States who say Allah is a different God to the one they worship. There is no denying there are key theological differences between Islam, Christianity and other religions when it comes to the nature of God, but these don't necessarily mean people from different faiths can't use the same name, while simultaneously holding on to their own unique beliefs.
A few years back, a Roman Catholic bishop from the Netherlands, Tiny Muskens, attracted media interest after calling on people of all faiths to use the name Allah for God: "Allah is a very beautiful word for God. Shouldn't we all say that from now on we will name God Allah? What does God care what we call him? It is our problem."
And millions of English-speaking Muslims have no hesitation in using the name God to refer to Allah. There are more than 10 million Christians who live in the Middle East who use Allah to refer to God. In Malaysia, there has been controversy on the matter for years about Christians being allowed to use Allah to refer to God, with even churches being attacked by some Muslims who object.
Some have speculated the name Khuda may actually come from the word "Khud" which means "self" ("Khud-a" therefore translating as "self-revealing"). In Pakistan, the name Khuda is rooted in the very culture and history of the country. In the national anthem the final verse makes a reference to Khuda. A few years back a very popular film came out with the title Khuda Kay Liye ("For the Sake of God"). When former president Pervez Musharraf left office in 2008 he famously said in his farewell speech "Pakistan ka Khuda hafiz hai" ("God protect Pakistan").
Some continue to use the "Khuda hafiz" despite the popularity of "Allah hafiz". To these people, "Khuda hafiz" is part of an ideological battle to retain what they see as a more pluralistic approach towards religion, yet for others it is tradition or nostalgia that keeps the usage alive. Outside Pakistan, "Khuda hafiz" is also known to be used in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and among Muslims in India.
Interestingly, while Allah is an Arabic word, the Arabs themselves don't use "Allah hafiz" – which is a purely Pakistani-manufactured invention mixing Arabic with Persian. Rather the Arabs use "ma salama" or "Allah ysalmak" when parting company. And for any who feel there is no need to mention God in a greeting in any language, remember even the English word "goodbye" derives from "God be with you", which was the standard greeting at one time.
• Follow Comment is free on Twitter @commentisfreeIf you’re reasonably confident with using pipes and redirection to build command-line strings in Bash and similar shells, at some point somebody is going to tell you off for a “useless use of cat “. This means that somewhere in your script or pipeline, you’ve used the cat command unnecessarily.
Here’s a simple example of such a use of cat ; here, I’m running an Apache log through a pipe to awk to get a list of all the IP addresses that have accessed the server.
# cat /var/log/apache2/access.log | awk '{print $1}'
That works just fine, but I don’t actually need the cat instance there. Instead, I can supply a file argument directly to awk, and the result will be the same, with one less process spawned as a result:
# awk '{print $1}' /var/log/apache2/access.log
Most of the standard UNIX command-line tools designed for filtering text actually work like this; like me, you probably already knew that, but fell into the habit of using cat anyway.
For tools that don’t take a filename instead of standard input, such as mail, you can explicitly specify that a file’s contents should be used as the standard input stream. Consider this line, where I’m mailing a copy of my Apache configuration to myself:
# cat /etc/apache2/apache2.conf | mail tom@sanctum.geek.nz
That works fine, but we can compact it using < as a redirection symbol for the same result, and a command line a whole five characters shorter:
# mail tom@sanctum.geek.nz </etc/apache2/apache2.conf
If you overuse cat, then these two methods will probably enable you to fix that with a little effort. Incidentally, the second method can also be extended to provide in-place arguments for tools that read from files, by adding parentheses. Here, for example, I’m comparing the difference in output when I run grep with two different flags on the same file, using diff :In The Conversation, David Brooks and Gail Collins talk between columns every Wednesday.
John Cuneo
David Brooks: Gail, we’ve been having our online conversations since the 2008 election, but this is the first one they’ve asked us to do for the actual newspaper. Are we really ready for the big time? My view is that it’s like when Jennifer Aniston tried to make the leap to the big screen. A possible disaster, leading to embarrassment for all involved.
Gail Collins: Yeah, right now we’re talking for Web and print. Does that make us biplatform? I’ve never had a conversation on paper before. It’s making me feel all crinkly. But our mission is to discuss the Republicans. Super Tuesday is coming! What are you feeling?
New rules empower protest candidates and weaken the parties.
David: My first emotion is pity, and the tremendous ocean of it I feel for Mitt Romney. Think of it. There he was a few years ago sitting on the front porch of his fourth summer home innocently wondering why the trees of New England are so unpleasantly tall, and he turns to his buddies, who own Nascar teams, hotel chains, political parties and various small emirates, and he asks them if it would be a good idea if he ran for president.
They point out that a presidential campaign would allow him to recite obscure verses of patriotic songs all across America, so he agrees to do it.
Yana Paskova for The New York Times
Gail: All the while knowing that he would eventually have to explain why he once drove to Canada with the family dog strapped to the roof of the car …
David: It must have seemed so innocent. Now here it is eight years later. He’s stuck in a miserable slog against kamikaze candidates who have nothing to lose. His reputation is flushed down the loo. The passion of his most fervent supporters rarely even rises to room temperature. The value of the nomination, even if he gets it, is quickly diminishing, like a bowl of potato chips on Newt Gingrich’s TV tray.
Do you think Mitt Romney is enjoying himself right now? Would any normal person want this?
Gail: Well, my answers would be A) if he’s winning, he’s happy and B) presidential candidates are not normal.
But what do you think is going to happen next? If this campaign has made Romney sound like a goofball, it’s made Rick Santorum impersonate a rabid ferret. Santorum actually started out the season sounding like the smart-but-ignored, off-putting-but-hardworking guy in the debates. But now he’s the candidate who thinks it’s a good plan to appeal to working-class voters by saying that John Kennedy made him want to puke.
I’ve always thought it was going to be Romney. I think everybody outside of the Santorum family thinks it’s going to be Romney. Even Callista Gingrich is probably secretly resigned to the inevitable.
David: My guess is that we’ve entered the long, slow gantlet phase of the campaign. Romney gets the nomination, but everybody gets to spend the next few months poking him with hot irons — his competitors, the media, the Democrats.
If I were Romney, I’d spend the next period of the campaign reading the Stoics, maybe Marcus Aurelius: “Misfortune nobly borne is good fortune.” Or perhaps Epictetus: “Difficulties show what men are. Therefore when a difficulty falls upon you, remember that God, like a trainer of wrestlers, has matched you with a rough young man. Why? So that you may become an Olympic conqueror; but it is not accomplished without sweat.”
Gail: I do love the way you throw Epictetus in when I’m least expecting it.
David: The odd thing is that Santorum seems to be enjoying all this. That’s in part because he has a tropism for the tragic. Most of us look past bad events. We want life to look like our photo albums — a bunch of happy faces, editing out all the bad times. But Santorum seems to dwell on misfortune — the enemies the country faces, the depravity closing in on us, the unfair criticism hurled against him, the terrible things that have happened. When the campaign goes into its fallen state, he has the pleasure of seeing his tragic worldview confirmed.
Gail: One of the interesting things we’ve learned during this campaign is how many really loopy billionaires this country has. How could somebody who had enough judgment to make more than $20 billion come to feel that what this country really needs is President Newt Gingrich?
David: The primary campaign would be over if not for the Citizens United decision. If Gingrich and Santorum didn’t have “super PAC” sugar daddies, they couldn’t afford to run campaigns. They’d have dropped out and Romney would be cruising.
Super PACs empower protest candidates. Super PACs prolong primary campaigns. Super PACs weaken parties. The irony is that Barack Obama is the first beneficiary of the new campaign finance rules.
Gail: Although he is definitely short on billionaires. No matter how many rich guys the president has in his corner, I am confident that super wealth unleashed is going to wind up helping the Republicans in the long run. And I can’t believe any normal citizen is looking at what’s happening with anything but horror.
Since we’re on the subject of campaign rules, tell me: What’s the story with the demise of winner-take-all primaries? Romney won Michigan, but Santorum got nearly the same number of delegates. Even if Mitt does really well on Tuesday, the delegates could still be divided up in a way that may well leave him with only a modest lead over his opponent. So Santorum can keep on losing but still send the nominating convention into chaos.
This used to be a system that only the softhearted Democrats inflicted on their primaries. Everybody wins! The Republicans were the tough guys who said, sorry, we can nominate only one person.
David: Excellent point. The shift in the Republican delegate selection process is an insult to the ghost of Ayn Rand, assuming she has a ghost. I’d only point out that there is no sign that the quality of nominees has increased since the bad old days when party bosses ran things.
Gail: Another reason it’s so hard to round up enough support to clinch the nomination — no matter how nuts your opponents are — is because many people who are elected as delegates in caucus states aren’t actually committed to voting for the person they were theoretically committed to.
Are you ready to admit the caucus system has to go? Look what happens! You hold the elections under conditions that exclude a vast number of qualified voters. Then you tally the votes in a way that makes it impossible to tell who really won if the race is close. And based on those totally suspect results, you send people off to a state convention, where they elect delegates who can generally do whatever the heck they want.
One of the interesting things we’ve learned is how many really loopy billionaires this country has.
David: Personally, I love the caucus process, while acknowledging its flaws. I remember once going to a Democratic caucus in Iowa where the supporters of John Edwards tried to lure away the vegan supporters of Dennis Kucinich by offering them steaks. It’s the sort of quirky artifact that us Burkeans love.
Gail: So where are you with Mitt Romney these days? You used to tell me that he’d be really good once he actually got the nomination and was free to repudiate all the positions he’d made up to get through the primaries.
David: I don’t know if he’ll be a great nominee, but I still think he’d be a fine president. I keep running into people who worked with him at Bain or when he was governor and they saw he was an awesome manager. Even Democrats say this.
Gail: I hear that, too. However, I cannot stress too often that running the country is not the same as running a business. Not even remotely.
David: One way to think about Romney is this: Are his troubles mostly a result of his weaknesses as a candidate or the oddities of the Republican electorate this year? I’d say it’s 30 percent Romney’s fault and 70 percent that large parts of the Republican electorate want someone who either is a joke (Cain) or can’t possibly win or govern (Santorum).
I just wish one of these candidates would describe an enactment strategy. How, realistically, are any of them going to get their legislation passed?
Gail: This has been a bad patch for moderates in general. Did Olympia Snowe’s retirement from the Senate send another signal that their days are over?
David: Not over, but in hibernation. On Tuesday I wrote a column calling for mainstream Republicans to get in there and fight for their party. The very same day, Snowe decides to call it quits. Shows my influence.
There’s no way the Republicans can continue to drift inevitably into a protest movement, though. The electorate has moved right, but not that far right.
Here’s what I think may happen. Romney gets the nomination and is defeated. Republicans decide they are sick of nominating “moderates” and next time they go haywire. Then the party gets really crushed and sanity returns.
Gail: Really gloomy for your side, but it certainly works for me.SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) – A 20-year-old man suspected of fatally shooting a teenage couple found in a car in Santa Fe last month has been arrested in Colorado.
The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office says that Ricardo “Ricky” Martinez was located Saturday morning at an apartment complex in Colorado Springs. He was taken into custody without incident.
The U.S. Marshals Service, which assisted in a surveillance operation, had added Martinez to its list of New Mexico’s Most Wanted Violent Fugitives.
Martinez is wanted in the shooting deaths of 18-year-old Venancio Cisneros and 13-year-old Anamarie Ojeda.
Authorities say he will be extradited back to New Mexico within the next two weeks.
Melicendro Martinez, the |
ly Misleading Disclosures to Government Authorities—Concerning 2006 and Prior Years
Submission of False and Materially Misleading Disclosures to Government Authorities—Concerning 2006 and Prior Years #28. Mon., October 3: Unauthorized and Illegal Operation of Gulf Coast Recovery Fund—Starting September 2008
Unauthorized and Illegal Operation of Gulf Coast Recovery Fund—Starting September 2008 #29. Tues., October 4: Deceptive Procurement of a Memorandum of Understanding with President Obama’s Transition Team—Starting in November 2008
Deceptive Procurement of a Memorandum of Understanding with President Obama’s Transition Team—Starting in November 2008 #30. Wed., October 5: Submission of False and Materially Misleading Disclosures to Government Authorities—Concerning 2007 and Prior Years
Submission of False and Materially Misleading Disclosures to Government Authorities—Concerning 2007 and Prior Years #31. Thurs., October 6: Unauthorized and Illegal Operation of William J. Clinton Foundation Corporation (Florida)—Starting in June 2009
Unauthorized and Illegal Operation of William J. Clinton Foundation Corporation (Florida)—Starting in June 2009 #32. Fri., October 7: Unauthorized and Illegal Operation of Clinton Global Initiative, Inc. (CGI)—Starting in September 2009
Unauthorized and Illegal Operation of Clinton Global Initiative, Inc. (CGI)—Starting in September 2009 #33. Sat., October 8: Unauthorized and Illegal Operation of Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (CHAI)—Starting in September 2009 WEEK #6 #34. Sun., October 9: Submission of False and Materially Misleading Disclosures to Government Authorities—Concerning 2008 and Prior Years
Submission of False and Materially Misleading Disclosures to Government Authorities—Concerning 2008 and Prior Years #35. Mon., October 10: Unauthorized and Illegal Operation of Clinton Bush Haiti Fund—Starting in January 2010
Unauthorized and Illegal Operation of Clinton Bush Haiti Fund—Starting in January 2010 #36. Tues., October 11: Unauthorized and Illegal Operation of Alliance for a Healthier Generation, Inc.—Starting in February 2010
Unauthorized and Illegal Operation of Alliance for a Healthier Generation, Inc.—Starting in February 2010 #37. Wed., October 12: Undisclosed Activities Working With Laureate Education, Inc.—Starting in 2010
Undisclosed Activities Working With Laureate Education, Inc.—Starting in 2010 #38. Thurs., October 13: Submission of False and Materially Misleading Disclosures to Government Authorities—Concerning 2009 and Prior Years
Submission of False and Materially Misleading Disclosures to Government Authorities—Concerning 2009 and Prior Years #39. Fri., October 14: Unauthorized and Illegal Operation of Clinton Health Access Initiative-UK (CHAI UK)—Starting in November 2011
Unauthorized and Illegal Operation of Clinton Health Access Initiative-UK (CHAI UK)—Starting in November 2011 #40. Sat., October 15: Submission of False and Materially Misleading Disclosures to Government Authorities—Concerning 2010 and Prior YearsTim Palmer reported this story on Monday, November 2, 2015 12:42:53
TIM PALMER: Paul Ehrlich's book The Population Bomb dropped like one on its readers in the late 60s.
It presented an apocalyptic vision of humanity strangling the globe through overpopulation, and the dystopia it predicted was to arrive within 20 years; hundreds of millions would starve to death in North America in the 80s; Western societies like England would cease to exist in a generation.
The book sold in its millions.
Paul Ehrlich concedes he blew the timing. He didn't foresee the great scientific advances in crop production - the Green Revolution - that averted the threat of mass starvation in the 70s and 80s.
Ffor decades, he paid the price: derided as the ecologist who cried wolf.
But he doesn't think he's wrong, and in a new book - Killing the Koala, Poisoning the Prairie - the Stanford Professor in Population Studies sets out more reasons why our current way of life is very much on borrowed time.
PAUL EHRLICH: Basically it all boils down to us over-consuming; that's a function of having too many people, and too many rich people, consuming too much per person. Of course, there's roughly two to three billion people on the planet who don't consume enough, so we have a very complex situation.
My colleagues have attacked me on that. Jim Brown, a member of the National Academy, said that Anne and I were crazy to say there was a 10 per cent chance of civilisation surviving; he says it's only 1 per cent.
So we're having a battle over that.
TIM PALMER: Are you prepared to put a timeframe on that? Given that timeframes have in the past caused some-
PAUL EHRLICH: No, no, time frames are difficult. I wouldn't put a time frame on it, but I would say I would be very happy if I knew now that my great grandchildren in 2060 or 2070 could still lead something like the life that you and I lead.
TIM PALMER: So only 50 years away? Civilisation-
PAUL EHRLICH: It could be less.
TIM PALMER: -will meet that challenge. What would you identify as the single greatest impending challenge to civilisation?
PAUL EHRLICH: There are a couple of things that we would call discontinuities. For instance, I and many other people think that the chances of a large-scale or even a small nuclear war are extremely high now, particularly between India and Pakistan or, of course, between, as we push Putin around, a full-scale one; and that would end - either one - would end civilisation as we know it, but how can you predict when that might happen?
And the other thing of course is the disease situation worse than Ebola, which could also change everything almost instantly.
But if you look at the general trends: the climate disruption, the poisoning of the planet; if you look at the loss of biodiversity, which is the loss of our life support systems and so on, I would expect what we're having now: continuing deterioration - as the population grows: less democracy. Automatically less democracy if the population grows.
All that stuff is going to come together and is going to make an awful mess. We're in the start of the mess now.
TIM PALMER: Decades ago, of course, your focus was strictly on the raw numbers of population, what the Earth could carry without starving itself, and of course famously your book 'The Population Bomb', which caused a sensation - I think it sold two million copies at the time - but you became the punching bag for conservative anti-ecologists, who said that you failed totally in your predictions - because you did predict that hundreds of millions would starve to death in the 70s and 80s, tens of millions of North Americans.
You accept of course that the Green Revolution is-
PAUL EHRLICH: Well yeah, but you know it's interesting. Norman Borlaug, who I knew, who is the inventor of the Green Revolution, told me how right I was, and said in his Nobel Peace Prize speech that it would buy him a couple of decades, maybe, to solve the population problem, and spent much of his later years working on the population problem.
But the main problem with the conservatives in this case and today is they can't read. What they attacked, what I said in The Population Bomb, was the battle to feed all of humanity is over. Right now we have about 800 million people starving and more than two billion who are micronutrient-malnourished. They just don't happen to be Donald Trump.
TIM PALMER: So you don't resile at all from what you wrote in The Population Bomb?
PAUL EHRLICH: No, I'd write different things today. Listen, what scientist would say exactly the same things 40 years later? You learn a lot, and for instance, the people that I talked to, and I probably should have talked to other people, were much less optimistic about the Green Revolution as others, thinking that farmers would not adopt it very rapidly.
And it turned out that they adopted it very, very rapidly if they were rich enough to drill the wells and buy the fertiliser that worked.
But there's still a huge debate about whether, in the long run, it's going to have been the right thing, because we face another situation today with two and a half billion people, more people than were alive when I was born, coming on the planet now and around 2050.
We don't have any Green Revolution waiting for them.
TIM PALMER: That was my next question. Your predictions were defeated by an unexpected scientific achievement. Do you now say that we're at the limits of science, science can't expand again to take care of this potential apocalypse?
PAUL EHRLICH: That's, I hope science can take care of the impending apocalypse. But it was a very different situation at the time of the Green Revolution in that we had a working in-hand technology. There is no such thing in the rich world that-
TIM PALMER: In the absence of such technology, you seem to not believe that it's within mankind to change behaviour to live within these constraints?
PAUL EHRLICH: My entire research over the last 20 years has been on that exact question. That is: how can we move cultural evolution in a direction to solve these problems, to get foresight capacity, to close down everything that looks towards the future?
The world is run by gigantic corporations who look to the next quarter. It should be run by small family corporations that look to the next 200 years.
We also have, of course, faith-based economics. And faith-based economics is the fundamental problem. That is, economists have the faith that on a finite planet, their cure for everything is growth, and as a very famous economist, Kenneth Boulding, said in 1966: if you think you can have perpetual growth in a finite system, you're either a madman or an economist.
And they're still at it.
TIM PALMER: Ecologist, author and Stanford professor, Paul Ehrlich, I was speaking to earlier.
You can hear a longer version of that interview on our website.Visa kalendarium
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Som beriden högvaktssoldat arbetar du för Livbataljonen, vilket är Sveriges enda bataljon som är förlagd i centrala Stockholm. Bataljonen har två huvuduppgifter: ceremoniella uppdrag samt skydd av Sveriges försvarsmaktsledning, regering och riksdag – så kallad högvakt. I den statsceremoniella verksamheten ingår att genomföra beriden vaktparad, bevaka både Stockholms- och Drottningholms slott samt medverka vid korteger och hedersvakter vid utländska besök.
Hälften av din arbetstid som beriden högvakt går åt till att öva och genomföra den statsceremoniella tjänsten, vilket också innebär att du tar hand om hästskötseln. Resten av tiden används för att öva med din enhet och förbättra dina personliga färdigheter som skyttesoldat.Countries Where the Internet is Restricted
At a time when net neutrality is being hotly debated all over the world, there are a few countries that severely restrict the usage of the internet. In many of these countries speaking out your mind can lead to imprisonment or in extreme cases even execution.
Let us take a look at some countries where internet is controlled by the government and going against it may lead you to trouble.
North Korea
North Korea is notoriously isolated. But what would come as a shock to internet lovers around the world is the fact that for most of the North Koreans this privilege is non-existent. The internet is under government control and as per reports, about four percent of the total population has access to it. These are basically some ambassadors, government officials, and outside assistance groups. There are 1,024 known IP addresses in North Korea as compared to some 1.5 billion in the United States. So the question is how do people in North Korea go about their lives without internet. Here, the ordinary people get access to Kwangmyong, which opened in the year 2000 and is a national, walled-off intranet, or simply called a pseudo internet. But the catch is that it has around 5,500 websites and information is limited as people are only able to see what the government wants them to.
Cuba
The internet in Cuba is tightly controlled by the government. The ICT environment of Cuba is characterized by slow connectivity and high prices make it unaffordable for a large section of the society, and heavy government regulation. The government has set up Wi-Fi hotspots in a few places but accessing these would cost an average Cuban about a tenth of his monthly salary.
But things seem to be changing for the better. The country recently announced that broadband internet service would be launched in two pilot projects in the capital Havana. This comes as a breather to scores of citizens who had to resort to innovative ways to access the internet and create apps. The launch of broadband would definitely lead to a change in the life of people, at least those living in Havana.
Iran
Iran is another nation where the internet is highly regulated. Reports suggest that only 40 million people use internet in the country. This is not a significant number in a country which has around 78 million people. The government has banned many western media sites such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. As Iran is a conservative nation, pornographic sites are heavily banned but many sites pertaining to society, art and news are also not accessible. The government also filters traffic based on its content. However, the youth of the nation has a way of bypassing that. A recent survey, which was released by the nation’s ministry of youth and sports, said that about 70 percent of the youth of the nation surfed the internet using anti-filters.
China
An economic powerhouse which is famed for its companies such as Lenovo and Alibaba, China also has one of the most rigid censorships. There are an estimated more than 600 million people in China who use the internet. However, the government resorts to the Great Fire Wall, which is an extensive Internet filtering and censorship system. Searches are filtered, sites are blocked and any content that is considered inconvenient is erased, especially pertaining to Tiananmen Square massacre or independence of Taiwan. Sites like Twitter, Facebook and Google are either blocked or severely restricted.
Syria
War-torn Syria will definitely find a place on the list of countries where the Internet is severely restricted. Since 2011, when civil war broke out in the country, the government has heavily curbed internet and other means of communication. The government has used systems which have been instrumental in preventing the spread of images as well as news that show the official campaigns to destroy rebellions against it. The government of Syria monitors the internet very closely. Citizens have also been arrested for expressing their opinions.Credit: DC Comics
Credit: DC Comics
Two classic DC 'cosmic' characters (and a villain) return in October and are teaming up to prevent an interplanetary war in Hawkman and Adam Strange: Out of Time, a new six-issue limited series by writer Marc Andreyko and interior/cover artist Aaron Lopresti.
Here is DC's description of the series:
"Residing on Earth and out of the hero game, Adam Strange finds himself trying to live a 'normal' life, until he’s literally pulled back into adventure again as a seemingly normal Zeta beam transmission returns him to the planet Rann, where he hopes to be reunited with his beloved Alanna. But instead, he finds the once great city of Ranagar in ruins with millions dead, and the once peaceful Alanna is now calling for the blood of Rann’s oldest enemy, Thanagar, home of the Hawkmen.
"Sensing something is amiss, Strange enlists the aid of Thanagarian policeman Katar Hol, aka Hawkman, who is also trying anything possible to avert war. Together the two try and uncover who’s really behind the destruction of Rann while at the same time preventing Rann and Thanagar from marching into interplanetary armageddon!"
Hawkman and Adam Strange: Out of Time debuts on October 5.Laughter is one of the great gifts human beings can give to one another. There’s something cathartically rejuvenating about being doubled over with guttural chortles while witnessing a peerless satirist tackle cinematic miscalculations of a colossal magnitude. Few people have made me laugh more than Doug Walker. His long-running web show, “Nostalgia Critic,” is the MacBook Generation’s answer to “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” and has provided fans with weekly doses of hilarity over the past six years. Blending inspired gags with insightful commentary, each episode features Walker as the titular critic, whose formidable rage at ineptitude suggests Armond White by way of Daffy Duck.
I’ve watched every single one of the Nostalgia Critic’s reviews, dating all the way back to “Transformers: The Movie” on April 6, 2008. All of them are available on Walker’s site, ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com, which also showcases the work of various online entertainers and film enthusiasts around the globe. The ambition of Walker and his team at Channel Awesome, Inc., has only grown over the years, resulting in epic undertakings such as musical reviews (“Moulin Rouge”) and priceless celebrity cameos (Mara Wilson’s vengeance-fueled appearance in Walker’s “A Simple Wish” review is a flat-out classic). Walker has even succeeded in skewering films that he genuinely likes, such as Steven Spielberg’s “Hook.”
In honor of the Nostalgia Critic’s upcoming anniversary, Indie Outlook is ranking the Top 11 Nostalgia Critic Reviews, complete with links to the full videos and memorable quotes from the NC himself. Why Top 11? Because, as a wise man once said, “I like to go one step beyond.”
11. The Room (2003) July 13, 2010
No modern bad movie is as phenomenally successful, universally beloved and endlessly entertaining as Tommy Wiseau’s painfully earnest relationship drama, reportedly filmed “with the passion of Tennessee Williams,” but lacking all of the aforementioned master’s talent. Since this is one of the first recent films reviewed on the show, the Critic ends up traveling to a post-apocalyptic future (overrun with flying seahorses) in order for the picture to register as properly nostalgic. The trip was well worth it, considering how the Critic’s reactions to every squirm-inducing scene are as uproarious as the film itself. Though Wiseau initially ordered for the video to be taken down, it has subsequently been praised by “Room” co-stars Juliette Danielle and Greg Sestero, the latter of whom was interviewed on an episode of Walker’s series, “Shut Up and Talk.”
“You didn’t know it was him? You didn’t recognize the five-foot, girly-haired French zombie until he took off his sunglasses?!”
10. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) December 16, 2011
Many critics couldn’t resist reviewing Ron Howard’s holiday turkey in the rhyming verse favored by Dr. Seuss, whose poetic genius and anti-consumerist message were sullied by this gloomy slapstick-laden exercise in wretched excess (though Jim Carrey admittedly earns a few genuine laughs amidst all the shrill desperation). The Critic puts his peers to shame by delivering his entire 20-minute review in the form of an epic Seussian rhyme, and it’s a masterwork in its own right. He even manages to rhyme some of the selected clips he’s chosen, not just from “The Grinch,” but from other yuletide perennials, such as “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” I believe Seuss would’ve appreciated the moment toward the end where the Critic is forced to confront the voices of those who actually like Howard’s “Grinch,” causing him to ponder the true meaning of criticism.
“Ugggh…Really? We’re letting the brat sing here?/It sounds like something that came out of Charlotte Church’s rear.”
9. Top 11 Drug PSAs June 22, 2008
One of the great pleasures of “Nostalgia Critic” is how it sheds light on obscure oddities so mind-boggling in their wrong-headedness that you can barely believe that they actually exist. That’s especially true of the number one selection on this list ranking the top 11 funniest vintage drug public service announcements. Every single one of them is worth a look, from the Lynchian head-scratcher featuring a young John Michael Higgins to the unsettling and arguably racist clip of a drug dealer morphing into a satanic snake. Yet it is the top video chosen by the Critic that caused me to laugh so hard that I practically hyperventilated. I wouldn’t dare ruin the surprise, though allow me to simply say that it stars an ’80s-era celebrity who is the last person on earth one would ever expect to be a serious spokesperson against drug use. It must be seen to be believed.
“Look at this show and tell me that it isn’t somehow inspired by an illegal substance.”
8. The Christmas Tree (1991) December 24, 2013
Good animation is so easily taken for granted. Replicating human emotions in drawings that must mimic the rhythms of organic movement is no easy task to achieve, a truth that becomes readily apparent when faced with an animated train wreck like Flamarion Ferreira’s 45-minute cartoon, rightly dubbed by the Critic as the worst Christmas special ever made. The comparisons that have been made between this staggeringly inept travesty and “The Room” are entirely justified, since the animators and voice-over actors prove to be entirely incapable of delivering anything resembling a convincing performance. When two parents learn that their daughter has fallen off a cliff, their faces remain catatonic while their eyelids slide slowly up and then down again. It is the animated equivalent of Wiseau’s infamous non-performance in “The Room.”
“I’m going to check with the doctor and see if I am clinically still alive.”
7. Casper (1995) October 20, 2009
Speaking of cartoons, Walker and his team have proven to be remarkably skilled at incorporating animated characters into episodes that enhance the comic timing of various gags (I loved the exasperated tumbleweed that rolls through the comedic dead zone of “Good Burger” before stomping off the set). Yet the NC’s finest achievement in animation remains the foul-mouthed Casper (voiced by Walker) who accompanies the Critic during his review of Brad Silberling’s live-action reboot. Though I enjoyed the film as a kid, this review reminded me of just how over-stuffed it is with lazy cultural references, and just how little atmosphere or tangible awe it contains. Walker’s Casper actually turns out to have far more personality and edge than his generic doppelgänger in Silberling’s film, especially when he tries to school the Critic in the art of comedy.
NC: “That’s not funny.”
Casper: “Oh please!…Do you know what the pure essence of all comedy is?”
[long pause]
NC: “So they go into the house where they’re suddenly greeted by—”
Casper: “TIMING!”
6. The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978) December 22, 2009
My favorite Christmas present that I’ve ever received from the NC was his review of the spectacularly ill-advised TV special that George Lucas has tried and failed to hide from the public. Featuring the main cast members of “Star Wars,” exuding all the holiday cheer of condemned prisoners, this badly dated variety show continuously halts its flimsy storyline (about Chewbacca traveling back home to celebrate “Life Day” with his obnoxious family) with awful musical numbers and tedious comic routines from Harvey “Stir Whip!” Korman. The high point turns out to be Bea Arthur as a singing bartender whose cantina is shut down by the Empire. This leads to a marvelous sketch consisting of re-edited footage from “Return of the Jedi” and inspired voice-over work from Walker’s brother and close collaborator, Rob, in which the Emperor reveals his Bea Arthur fixation to Vader.
“This is wrong…this is a Holocaust of wrong.”
5. Signs (2002) June 12, 2012
After being floored by his one (and doomed to be only) masterpiece, “The Sixth Sense,” I clearly remember straining to like M. Night Shyamalan’s shoddy sci-fi thriller in the theater, looking past its awkward dialogue, ludicrous plot and lifeless performances in order to savor its fitful bursts of well-crafted suspense. Yet the Critic’s review set me straight on how this inexplicably praised embarrassment was the harbinger of all the dreck to follow. Shyamalan’s script reaches Tarantinian levels of indulgence, while his pedestrian camerawork pans back and forth so often that Walker accentuates it with a hilarious sound effect. Yet what’s funniest of all is the sheer idiocy of the aliens, who can’t even manage to open a door, as illustrated in a hysterical bit of vaudevillian voice-over work. In the words of MST3K’s “Mitchell,” “Oh no—a door! I didn’t plan on this!”
“Apparently the only thing that can kill the aliens is water…Probably should’ve thought that through before attacking a planet MOSTLY COVERED IN WATER!”
4. Dawn of the Commercials November 12, 2013
Upon the Nostalgia Critic’s rebirth after a brief retirement, Walker sought to include sketches in his long-form reviews that spotlighted the comedic work of sidekicks Malcolm Ray and Rachel Tietz. They were a welcome addition to the show, though in my opinion, their contributions were never given a better showcase than in the NC’s anticipated return to spoofing commercials, mocking everything from passive-aggressive baby dolls to pompously patriotic pancakes. Yet the biggest laughs in this video occur in the sketches themselves, bolstered by some of the best writing on any Nostalgia Critic episode. Tietz, who recently left the show, had always sported a rubbery-faced exuberance rivaling that of Kristen Wiig. Her brilliant skewering of sickeningly shallow “Milk” ads and her portrayal of a horny witch (who hits on Greg Sestero) are a joy to behold.
“Milk: Because personality should come—never.”
3. The Garbage Pail Kids Movie (1987) March 11, 2009
Picked by Walker as the worst film he’s ever forced himself to sit through (thus far), Rod Amateau’s grotesquely abysmal kid’s movie is about as easy to stare at for a prolonged amount of time as the sun. Based on John Pound’s playfully gross trading cards, this unseemly trash heap is populated by costumed actors with immobile animatronic faces and charming names like Valerie Vomit and Greaser Greg, who carries his own pocket knife (how cute!). In the middle of this mess is “Facts of Life” star Mackenzie Astin, who looks about a decade younger than his assigned love interest, despite the fact that they’re only a year apart. On the creepiness scale, this slop is off the charts. On the scale of ingenuity, few NC sequences beat this review’s operatic finale, in which the film’s cataclysmic repulsiveness fractures space and time, sending the Critic through a “2001”-like wormhole toward an excremental fate.
“Beauty has always been in the eyes of the beholder, and anyone who has eyes can clearly see that they are ugly as sin.”
2. Pearl Harbor (2001) February 19, 2013
Rarely has the NC’s anger at offensively bad filmmaking resonated on such a raw and rousing level than in his bruising takedown of Michael Bay’s self-congratulatory bore. Instead of focusing primarily on the titular attack, Bay devotes much of his film’s screen time to a childish love triangle, while reducing the real-life deaths of thousands of Americans to exploitative action carnage. Clearly offended by Bay’s tone-deaf posturing, the Critic delivers an exhilarating rant that comes off as startlingly heartfelt, chastising the director for his irresponsible propagandizing sensationalism. Intercut with the review is an extended sketch that deftly satirizes Bay’s masturbatory approach to storytelling, with Walker (as Bay) paying spirited homage to Tim Burton’s “Ed Wood” (click the above title for the unedited review). One of the finest examples of a Nostalgia Critic review functioning triumphantly well as both comedy and critique.
“When you take it upon yourself to represent something that really happened, and it’s still painful and hurts a lot of people, that means you have to do two things: 1. You have to grow up and be an adult, and 2. You have to represent these people as best as humanly possible, you son of a B—CH!”
1. Titanic: The Legend Goes On… (2000) March 24, 2009
Here it is, folks: the Nostalgia Critic review that turned me from a casual fan into a lifelong devotee. Apparently mistaking the plot of James Cameron’s “Titanic” as a fictional melodrama with no ties to historical events, Italian director Camillo Teti decided to cash in on the mega-blockbuster’s success by making his own kiddie version, an animated musical complete with plagiarized Disney characters and a detestably happy ending. Teti also thought it would be a good idea to have a scene where a mouse is saved by a dog that materializes out of nowhere and proceeds to rap, “It’s Party Time!” It’s impossible to estimate just how much laughter this single video has brought to me over the years. Though the NC later unearthed another animated version of “Titanic” that he claimed was even worse (and, in some ways, it inarguably was), nothing, for my money, tops the deplorably hellacious atrocity of the rapping dog.
“Waaaaah, I lost my ball! This is the worst possible thing that could happen to me on this trip!”
For the complete list of Nostalgia Critic videos, click here.
AdvertisementsThe 41-year-old, who has led the club to 13 titles since taking charge, is seemingly going to leave in the summer and the Catalans will look to replace him with a man he idolises
By Pilar Suarez and Martin del Palacio Langer Barcelona have made Marcelo Bielsa their prime candidate to succeed Pep Guardiola should the Catalan coach decide to leave the club,understands.The former Spain international met with Blaugrana president Sandro Rosell and sporting director Andoni Zubizarreta on Thursday, and informed the pair of his desire to take a sabbatical from the game after four years at the helm of the Catalan giants.Guardiola, who has led Barca to 13 titles since taking charge in the summer of 2008, is expected to confirm his departure to his players at a team meeting on Friday morning, and it is then believed he will address the media alongside Rosell at a press conference at 11.00CET after a scheduled training session.Should the 41-year-old officially announce his intention to leave Camp Nou, the club have set their sights on luring Athletic Bilbao boss Bielsa. The Argentine is out of contract in the summer and has the unanimous backing of the Blaugrana board, as well as that of Guardiola, who considers Bielsa the best coach in the game today. Indeed, it is thought that Guardiola may even be asked to attempt to persuade Bielsa to make the move to Catalunya.In the event that the 56-year-old Rosario native shuns Barcelona's advances and decides to remain at San Mames, the Catalan giants will then seek to appoint someone from within Guardiola's inner circle, namely assistant Tito Vilanova, former B team boss Luis Enrique, who is currently in charge of Roma, or even ex-youth team coach Oscar Garcia.Failing that, Barca could turn to former Villarreal coach Ernesto Valverde, or a foreign alternative, such as Germany's Joachim Low. However, the club's directors do not believe it will come to that as they are confident of landing Bielsa, their prime candidate for the position.The career of Stephen Strasburg has been a unique path of bumps, plateaus, and peaks, with the first three months of the 2015 season bringing the journey to its nadir. Before being sent to the DL following his May 29th start, Strasburg featured an ERA of 6.55, paired with a 1.72 WHIP and a strikeout rate of 20.7% – the worst of his career. Many hoped that his time off the field recovering from a left trapezius strain would help Strasburg clear his head and reclaim his seat among the elite. He returned to the hill on Tuesday and I watched hoping to see a reborn ace. Here is Stephen Strasburg’s GIF Breakdown of his June 23rd start against the Atlanta Braves in 11 HD GIFs.
As always, let’s first look at his strikezone plot for the evening:
The first thing that will pop out is the amount of lone yellow at the bottom of the strikezone with black spots exclusively featured in the middle or top of the zone. It’s good to see Strasburg keeping his Curveball low, preventing a hanger that can be hit a long way, but he clearly struggled to get on top of both his Fastball and Changeup, keeping the ball elevated and limiting sink. The heart of the plate features a bloated tally of pitches, most likely due to Strasburg’s goal of attacking batters and getting acclimated to the stage as opposed to making an effort to locate effectively. Nevertheless, this wasn’t vintage Strasburg out of the gate, and hopefully he can perform better as he gets back into the groove.
Now let’s take a look at each of his pitches individually across the evening:
Fastball: 63.9% thrown, 94.8 MPH, -5.4 Runs Above Average
As previously mentioned, Strasburg clearly was not focusing on location, and grooved a good amount of Fastballs, just like the second pitch of the game to Jace Peterson:
The vibe of the outing was that Strasburg was feeling his way back the game after only one rehab start following his May 29th game. He wasn’t trying to do too much, but it came at the cost of consistent command and nibbling around the corners. That doesn’t mean that he didn’t make some great pitches with his Fastball, though. In his second batter, he threw both of these pitches back-to-back to Cameron Maybin:
You may need a few cycles before you can understand there are two pitches in that GIF, both around 97 MPH and on the outside black. They were two of the best Fastballs of the night and got him ahead 0-2 quickly. However, there is a problem here. Without much movement on the pitch and consistently targeting away against Right-handers, these pitches turn into this:
What seems to be a solid pitch is poked the other way for a single by a poor hitter in Chris Johnson. Yankee pitcher Nathan Eovaldi suffers from the same problem as pitches often get slapped to right field for hits despite blazing speed and good locations. The problem is two-fold: Strasburg lacks dramatic movement on his Fastball, making it easier to square up and drive as the ball travels deeper to the plate, and doesn’t favor his secondary pitches enough to create uncomfortable at-bats. As we’ll discuss, Strasburg didn’t throw a single Changeup to a right-handed batter and rarely targeted the inside corner, making it easier on batters to lock-in on a Fastball and have confidence in the at-bat.
But let’s not lose sight of the fact that he can at times blow it by guys with solid run. Here’s a great example of using his heat correctly against left-hander Jace Peterson:
So he has the tools to be effective with the pitch, but still has strides to make with location and faith in his secondary pitches to make his Fastball more deceptive. This will be one of the first elements of Strasburg’s game I will being paying attention to in his next start.
Curveball: 18.5% thrown, 80.8 MPH, -4.4 Runs Above Average
What has made Strasburg so deadly in the past was his ability to throw Curveballs whenever he wanted and exactly where he wanted them. While his command wasn’t poor, Strasburg gravitated away from using his biting hook when he needed to make a solid pitch. Instead, he favored to use it in 0-1 counts to make batters quickly fall to 0-2. In fact, all four of these GIFs are 0-1 pitches, perfectly exhibiting his mental approach with his Curve. These two fell perfectly to the bottom of the |
hit on the next pitch "That's trouble" - when the opposing team gets a hit to score at least one run
- when the opposing team gets a hit to score at least one run "Give 'em a thrill" - when a Sox player has a chance to make the crowd roar with excitement
- when a Sox player has a chance to make the crowd roar with excitement "Where was that pitch?" - when the umpire calls a ball that Hawk thinks was a strike
- when the umpire calls a ball that Hawk thinks was a strike "Before we show you our picks to click you at home select yours" - referring to the daily contest between anouncers which player will have the best game
- referring to the daily contest between anouncers which player will have the best game "I loooooove that duck." - when Hawk expresses his love for the duck that shows up on the graphic for the daily Aflac Trivia Question
- when Hawk expresses his love for the duck that shows up on the graphic for the daily Aflac Trivia Question "Carmines" - the nickname Hawk has for the Red Sox (carmine is a shade of red)
- the nickname Hawk has for the Red Sox (carmine is a shade of red) "Twinkies" - the nickname Hawk has for the Twins
- the nickname Hawk has for the Twins "And this ballgame...is OVA!!" - after the Sox earn a victory (especially emphatic if it is an exciting game)
- after the Sox earn a victory (especially emphatic if it is an exciting game) "That'll end the [inning number]. Good guys coming to bat." - after the opposing team ends their half of the inning
- after the opposing team ends their half of the inning "Did he? Yes he did!" - when an opposing batter strikes out on a close check-swing
- when an opposing batter strikes out on a close check-swing "There's a base hit up the middle right through the wickets." - after a base hit through the pitcher's legs
- after a base hit through the pitcher's legs "Pickett (Pick it) Wilson!" - after a Sox infielder makes a tough play on a ground ball
- after a Sox infielder makes a tough play on a ground ball "I love fireworks in the day time." - Hawk says when during a day game a Sox player hits a home run and the stadium shoots off fireworks.
- Hawk says when during a day game a Sox player hits a home run and the stadium shoots off fireworks. "Lookin' for it, got it, couldn't do nothing with it" - when a Sox player guesses correctly what/where the next pitch will be, and just misses hitting it well
- when a Sox player guesses correctly what/where the next pitch will be, and just misses hitting it well "You know who was good at (whatever they're talking about)? [Insert a player who hasn't played for a half century.]" - Hawk reminiscing his playing days...which was not very recent.
Hawk Harrelson is the long time TV commentator for the Chicago White Sox. Any redistributions or re-transmissions of this website are encouraged and just plain awesome.From Vampire Savior to Street Fighter IV, Team HORI’s sako has made a name for himself with his highly technical execution and specialized combos. In the two-part series “FIGHTING EDGE x sako,” the pro gamer demonstrates several character- and corner-specific combos with Ibuki and Cammy in Capcom’s Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition, including an Abel-specific combo for Ibuki and a Ryu-specific combo for Cammy. Together with HORI staff member “A”, sako explores each combo with brief explanations of execution and practical uses. The videos also include input display, basic combo notation, as well as camera shot of sako’s hands, allowing viewers to see how each combo is performed.
The videos not only show off sako’s amazing execution, but some of the unique functions of HORI’s Fighting Edge as well. Using the arcade stick’s hardware-side button assignment feature, sako assigns the function of the Back button to the LB face button on the stick. This allows for a special plinking the LP attack, something normally not possible with the standard face buttons.
Be sure to check out these “sako specials” and more in the videos below!
Sources: HORI, Famitsu, 4GamerAs horror fans – we all tend to have a favorite monster – a favorite creature of the night that scared the crap out of us as kids. For me? It was Bela Lugosi as Dracula. So you can imagine my glee as a young girl when I witnessed Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) kick his ass in Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein.
Save the UFC fights for someone else. There’s nothing greater than watching monsters go at it.
So let me ask you this. If Frankenstein’s Monster, The Wolfman, The Mummy, and Dracula were pitted against each other – who would you root for?
Well, Jesse T. Cook may just give you a chance to answer that question.
Monster Brawl is slated to come out this year – and is quite possibly every horror-nerds dream.
“Set in the tradition of a Pay-Per-View main event, comes a grotesque and hilarious fight to the death featuring a cast of eight classic combatants in all. Along with their colorful managers, these Monsters compete in visceral bloody combat in the ring to determine the most powerful monster of all time.“
Badass, right? And it doesn’t hurt that it includes actors and cameos by people like Dave Foley, Kevin Nash, and Lance Henriksen.
Stay tuned for more information on this bound to be EPIC flick – and check out the trailer and some sneak peeks below.
Trailer:
Sneak Peeks:
Similar Posts:Can America survive the Cassandra Syndrome as to population growth?
By Frosty Wooldridge
America added 115 million people from 1965 to 2012. Demographic experts showed 315 million people living in America in January 2012. They expect an added 85 million by 2035 to reach 400 million. The consequences grow irreversible and unsolvable.
As population rises, carrying capacity drops. What is “carrying capacity?” For a quick rendition, it means, “The amount resources on a given piece of land to allow long term sustainable human, plant and animal life.”
If animals or humans exceed ‘carrying capacity’ of any given land mass, they crash in numbers by various means, i.e., famine, war and disease. Garrett Hardin, noted biologist called it, “The Tragedy of the Commons.” (Source: www.GarrettHardinSociety.org)
For the 7.1 billion humans in the 21 st century and headed for 10.2 billion in 40 years, oil resources will define that capacity quotient. Noted Geologist Walter Youngquist said, “This is going to be an interesting decade, for the perfect storm is brewing—energy, immigration and oil imports. China grows in direct confrontation for remaining oil. I think the USA is on a big, slippery downhill slope. Will the thin veneer of civilization survive?” To see how fast we grow, visit www.populationmedia.com
“Cassandra Syndrome”: The Cassandra Syndrome is a term applied to predictions of doom about the future that are not believed, but upon later reflection turn out to be correct. This denotes a psychological tendency among people to disbelieve inescapably bad news, often through denial. The person making the prediction is caught in the dilemma of knowing what is going to happen but not being able to resolve the problem. The origin of the name is derived from Cassandra, who, using her prescience, foresaw the demise of Troy. No one believed her.
Youngquist continued, “Beyond oil, population is the number one problem of the 21 st century, for when oil is gone as we know and use it today—and it WILL be gone—population will still be here.”
The world uses 84 million barrels daily. That’s 42 gallons to a drum. By mid century, China, now placing 27,000 new cars on its highways every seven days, expects to burn 98 million barrels of oil daily—all by itself! Oil will run out because of limited reserves in the ground. (Source: The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunsteler)
Dr. Albert Bartlett of the University of Colorado said, “Present population growth rate is putting our children at risk. They will experience holes in the ozone causing serious biological effects on plants and humans. World ocean fisheries are collapsing from endless plundering. Two thirds of the world’s people will suffer from water shortages by 2025. It is not possible to sustain population growth or growth in rates of consumption of resources.”
Where is the worst overpopulation problem on the planet according to Dr. Bartlett? “It’s right here in the United States!”
Dr. Bartlett said, “Can you think of any problem, on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way, aided, assisted, or advanced, by having continued population growth—at the local level, the state level, the national level, or globally?”
How many people in the United States are enough? How far down the gopher hole do we want to dig ourselves? At what point is enough—too much? If we shut down the borders today with zero immigration, while enjoying our sustainable 2.03 fertility level of American women on average, we would still grow via “population momentum” by an added 40 million.
In other words, we’re painting ourselves into a perilous corner. Once the numbers manifest, our society will suffer irreversible consequences with unsolvable problems. One visit to Los Angeles will show you they suffer toxic air, dwindling safe drinking water, gridlock to the point of insanity, water shortages, endless highways and housing development. Consider San Francisco, Atlanta, Chicago, New York, Detroit, Denver and all other large cities grow beyond the bounds of reason!
Sustainable growth, slow growth, managed growth, smart growth and all other kinds of growth are oxymoronic. There is no such thing as sustainable growth. Why? All growth exceeds carrying capacity at some point. In other words, the bubble bursts, the dam breaks, the glass spills, the balloon pops and the red-lined engine blows up.
“Population growth is given as a cause of the problems identified, but eliminating the cause is not mentioned as a solution,” Bartlett said. “We are prescribing aspirin for cancer.”
At the current rate of growth driven by immigration, America will double its population just past mid century—from 300,000,000 to 600,000,000. As long as the underlying cause of a problem is not dealt with, we, and our leaders, as a nation, perpetuate a falsehood which Mark Twain called ‘silent-assertion’: “Almost all lies are acts,” he said. “I am speaking of the lie of ‘silent-assertion’. It would not be possible for a humane and intelligent person to invent a rational excuse for slavery; yet you will remember that in the early days of emancipation in the North, agitators got small help from anyone. They could not break the universal stillness that reigned from the pulpit and press all the way down to the bottom of society–the clammy stillness created and maintained by the lie of silent-assertion that there wasn’t anything going on in which intelligent people were interested.
“The conspiracy of the silent-assertion lie is hard at work always and everywhere, and always in the interest of a stupidity (unlimited growth) or sham (unlimited immigration), never in the interest of the respectable (average citizens). It is the most timid and shabby of all lies. The silent-assertion is that nothing is going on which fair and intelligent men and women are aware of and are engaged by their duty to try to stop.”
Silent-assertion worked until it brought China, India and Bangladesh to their knees with sheer misery of numbers. How do I know? I’ve spent a lot of time in Asia and other overpopulated regions. China, even with enforced one child per family, grows by 8 million annually. India, with 1.2 billion, adds 12 million yearly. Bangladesh suffers 157 million people in a landmass the size of Iowa. Do you see anyone racing to immigrate to those havens of human overload?
What I ask is, do we as a nation, want millions upon millions of added people from countries already exceeding their carrying capacity? Legal immigration proves as dangerous as illegal. To think otherwise will allow that silent-assertion to create another China or India in America. Just imagine Iowa with 157 million people and all the rest of the United States with THAT kind of population density!
Albert Einstein said, “The problems in the world today are so enormous they cannot be solved with the level of thinking that created them.”
We are no longer living in the 20 th century America with only 75 million people riding horses or trains. We’re in the 21 st century with cars and jets and 315 million people added to the 7.1 billion on the planet–creating horrific environmental consequences. Again, we had to change our ‘silent-assertion’ about slavery and we MUST change our ‘silent-assertion’ about population growth and economic growth. If we continue steaming full speed ahead like the captain of the Titanic, our children will be on board when we hit the peak oil, global warming, ozone holes, collapsing species, air pollution and other commensurate problems related to the overpopulation “iceberg.” Most died on the Titanic because there weren’t enough life boats.
Maybe some of us choose to maintain our ‘silent-assertion’ in the face of growing consequences, but how can any parent or grandparent be that callous to their children?
##A couple weeks after a banner that said “Racism is as American as baseball” was unfurled at a Red Sox-A’s game at Fenway Park, protestors in St. Louis held a banner that said “Stop killing us, “#RacismLivesHere” and “#ExpectUs” at a Cardinals-Brewers game at Busch Stadium.
Protests have been happening in St. Louis after, “a judge’s ruling clearing (white) former St. Louis Metropolitan police officer Jason Stockley of first-degree murder in the 2011 shooting of (black) 24-year-old Anthony Lamar Smith” on Sept. 15, according to USA TODAY. And in the case, “According to the statement, Stockley is heard on police cruiser camera saying he was ‘going to kill this [expletive], don’t you know it.'”
One of the protestors recorded a Facebook Live video of the group of them chanting as they held the banner and then walked out of the stadium with security. In the video, you can see other fans approaching them and shouting at them to leave. Per the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “there were no reports of violence or arrests.”
Throughout the video, you can hear chants of “No justice, no baseball,” “You can’t stop the revolution,” “Black Lives Matter” and “You thought it was a game, you thought it was a joke.”
Warning: NSFW language in videos
The same person also shared video of protests outside the stadium.
Read more about the St. Louis protests at USA TODAY.This article is about the GameCube version. For the Game Boy Advance game called Mario Power Tennis in Europe, see Mario Tennis: Power Tour
Mario Power Tennis[a], is a sports game developed by Camelot Software Planning and published by Nintendo. The game is the sequel to the Nintendo 64 title Mario Tennis, and is the fourth game in the Mario Tennis series. Power Tennis was released for the GameCube in Japan and North America in late 2004, and in PAL regions in early 2005. The game was ported for the Wii in 2009 as part of the New Play Control! collection, and was also released as part of the Nintendo Selects collection in 2012.
Power Tennis incorporates multiple characters, themes, and locations from the Mario series. The game includes standard tennis matches, but contains variants that feature different scoring formats and objectives. Other variants include "Gimmick" courts, thematic areas with components and properties that directly affect gameplay. The game has 18 playable characters, each categorised by their style of play and each with a pair of unique moves known as "Power Shots". Power Tennis was developed simultaneously with Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour, and the pair shared similar technology and concepts with each other during production. Such similarities include an emphasis on the Mario theme in characters and settings as well as alternative game modes such as "Ring Shot".
The GameCube version was positively received in general, attaining an aggregate score of 81 percent from GameRankings and 80 out of 100 from Metacritic. Critics praised the game's depth and variety, but criticised the Power Shot animations, which could not be skipped. In 2010, it was included as one of the games in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die.[1]
Gameplay [ edit ]
Mario Power Tennis includes variations of tennis matches consisting of characters, courts, and scenarios based on the Mario series. The range of courts includes the standard three types of tennis court, but consists predominantly of those themed upon games in the Mario series, known as "Gimmick" courts. As well as adopting the style aesthetically, these feature thematic elements that influence how the match will be played on that surface, such as the ghosts in the Luigi's Mansion court, which hinder movement when the character comes into physical contact with them.[2] Although standard tennis is available, variants of the sport can be played which adopt different rules and methods of victory. "Ring Shot" involves the player earning points by hitting the ball through rings of varying sizes, with the number of points dependent on the difficulty of the shot.[3] The player acquires the points whenever a winning shot is made adhering to standard rules; the match is won once the predetermined number of points is equaled or surpassed. A similar mode, "Item Battle", involves the characters using items based on the Mario universe to interfere with each other's game and gain an advantage.[4] The central mode of the game is "Tournament Mode", which comprises a set of events with accumulating difficulty. These set of events must be finished successfully to unlock playable characters. This mode can be completed either in "doubles" or "singles", and is divided into Gimmick courts and standard courts.[5] An alternative to these are "Special Games", which involve the player trying to meet a tennis-related objective on a Gimmick court. These Special Games come in multiple forms, incorporating themes from past Nintendo games, such as "Tic-Tac-Glow", which requires the player to hit balls of water to liberate Shine Sprites trapped in dirt,[6] a reference to Super Mario Sunshine. Power Tennis supports the option for four-player multiplayer, which can be accessed during "Exhibition Mode",[5] the standard mode of play where the player can choose his or her opponents and the conditions of the match. Such options include the difficulty of the opponent, the court used, and the number of games and sets required to win the match.
Power Tennis features 18 playable characters, all of whom derive from the Mario franchise. Many characters, such as Wario, had already appeared in the game's predecessor and several other Mario spin-offs, while this was the first appearance for Wiggler as a playable character. All of the characters are categorised into six groups that reflect their playing style: all-around, technical, power, speed, defensive, and tricky.[7] Inherent in each character is a set of two unique moves known as "Power Shots".[2] These powerful moves, which are accompanied with an animation each time they are triggered, incorporate the character's specific qualities. They can only be triggered occasionally in the match, but will usually result in defending or scoring a point, depending on the type of shot chosen. Generic tennis moves, such as slices, dropshots, and lobs, can be applied at any time in the match.[2]
Development [ edit ]
Power Tennis was developed by Camelot Software Planning, with a team of approximately 30 people, headed by brothers Hiroyuki and Shugo Takahashi.[8] The game was first unveiled in a 2002 issue of the Japanese magazine Famitsu,[9] and was later presented at the E3 conference of 2004. Before release, the brothers discussed multiple developmental processes in an interview with Famitsu. Camelot had been working on a previous GameCube version of Mario Tennis, but discontinued the project and began again using ideas and technology from Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour, which was being developed simultaneously with the game.[8] Shugo noted that the original would have been more serious and contained deeper gameplay, but with fewer "Mario-esque" gimmicks. There was also a willingness not to update the graphics only without exploring advancements to concepts and gameplay, which Hiroyuki stated would be "unacceptable for a Mario game". Due to the success of its predecessor, the brothers felt pressure to make a game that was original and would not appear too similar to its predecessor on first sight.[10]
Following release, IGN interviewed Hiroyuki regarding the development of the game. He revealed that Camelot had received co-operation from Nintendo in relation to voice acting and animation, which Takahashi stated as "contributing quite a bit to the improvement of the game's graphics". Takahashi proceeded to explain why the role-playing game elements that were present in Mario Tennis were excluded from Power Tennis, stating that he felt they were more suitable for the "deep single-player experience" present in portable consoles. Regarding the themed courts in the game, he explained that the concepts were conceived during long brainstorming sessions, with courts selected that would both remind gamers of older Mario games and introduce new gamers to Mario games they may not have played. When questioned regarding difficulties in developing the game, Takahashi noted the effort used in making the opening sequences, developing the Special Games, and animations, which caused problems with meeting the schedule. Although there was speculation about online capabilities before release,[11] Takahashi refrained from making the game online-compatible due to fear of lagging problems, stating "I don't think you can play a tennis game online under the current Internet environment and feel satisfied".[8]
Nintendo collaborated with the Lawn Tennis Association in 2005 to promote Power Tennis in the United Kingdom. The promotion featured on-site sampling and official Nintendo branding at various tennis events such as Wimbledon. The LTA's ACE Magazine advertised Power Tennis and featured competitions offering the game as a prize.[12] Nintendo also released an online questionnaire regarding players' habits and preferences in relation to tennis as a part of their Who Are You? campaign.[13] Nintendo announced in 2008 that they would be re-releasing the title as part of their New Play Control! selection, which feature added Wii controls.[14] The game can be controlled using the Wii Remote and optional Nunchuk attachment, allowing the player to trigger actions such as forehands and backhands by swinging the Remote like a tennis racket. It was released on January 15, 2009 in Japan and on March 2009 in other countries. It was later re-released in North America on June 10, 2012 along with Pikmin 2 as Nintendo Selects titles.
Reception [ edit ]
The GameCube version of Mario Power Tennis enjoyed a generally positive reception, with reviewers complimenting the variety of play and multiple minigames available.[2][26] GameSpy's Raymond Padilla lauded the game's use of characters and the player categories, stating "When you put it all together, you have a broad cast of characters, each of whom offers a different feel."[26] Despite this, the Gimmick courts were labeled by Matt Casamassina as a "distraction" and "annoyance", although he acknowledged that some courts were better than others.[27] Additionally, Nintendo World Report's Michael Cole thought that most players would revert to standard courts "after being 'unfairly defeated' by ghosts, paint, or some other trap."[35] Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell welcomed Power Tennis's style, which he said emphasised gameplay over simulation and realism.[5] When comparing the game to its predecessor, reviewers praised Power Tennis for its incorporation of the Mario franchise in the different scenarios and courts.[35][36]
The gameplay features introduced to the game received a mixed response. IGN noted that the Special Games varied in quality between different games, with Casamassina commenting that "they certainly don't make or break the experience."[27] The game's "Power Shots" was also met with an ambivalent reaction—the shot themselves were praised for adding strategy and character, although GameSpot's Ryan Davis commented that "it would have been nice if you could just skip past the animations and keep the wild moves."[2] In general, the game's multiplayer modes were more popular than single-player, with the "predictable and basic" artificial intelligence contributing to a low difficulty level at times.[5] GameSpy noted how the number of options and variables enhanced the multiplayer experience, and commented that "The game is very good on its own, but it excels when you bring friends into the mix."[26] The mechanics of the tennis gameplay were also popular, with reviewers lauding the game's accessibility as well as its depth relating to the variety of shots available and how the position of the character affects the contact with the ball.[2][27][37]
Most critics praised Power Tennis's presentation, with reviewers noting the game's opening sequence especially.[27][35] Nintendo World Report complimented the level of detail given to the themed locations and character animations, stating that it "[puts] even the Mario Kart series to shame."[35] IGN generally shared this view, although they criticised the background animations, commenting that "The crowds in particular are a repeating blob of the same sprites over and over".[27] On the other hand, the audio received a mediocre response, despite the comical voice acting.[2][38] Power Tennis sold 139,000 copies during its first week of release in Japan, and sold 377,000 copies altogether in the country from release to December 31, 2006.[39] Power Tennis had sold 296,893 units in North America by January 31, 2005.[40] The game was at fifth position in the Australian GameCube sales charts from October 16 to October 29, 2005.[41][42]
In spite of the mostly positive reception the GameCube version held, the reception for the Wii remake was mixed. It holds an average score of 65/100 and 68.19% at Metacritic and GameRankings respectively.[32][34] While it has been praised for the original game's graphics holding up to current Wii games, many editors have found fault in the controls. IGN editor Mark Bozon criticized its motion controls, describing them as imprecise, for ruining a "great game".[28] X-Play editor Dana Vinson similarly disliked the controls, also describing the act of releasing GameCube titles for the Wii with motion controls as being lazy.[43] GamePro editor Dave Rudden criticized the game for adding multiple moves into Wii Remote motions, commenting that it would have to be "twice as responsive" for it to work.[23] Eurogamer editor Oli Welsh criticized both the inaccurate controls and limited improvements, stating that Wii Sports is a superior alternative.[18] While GameDaily editor Robert Workman criticized the motion controls, he stated that everything else works. He also describes it as being mildly enjoyable with three other friends.[44]
In spite of the negative reception, the Wii version has had some positive reception. While Official Nintendo Magazine UK editor Tom East similarly bemoaned the motion controls, he felt that the multiplayer still held up, as it becomes balanced since the other players would have the same problems with the controls.[45] 1UP.com editor Justin Haywald agreed, stating that while it made single player modes difficult, the game was meant to be played with friends.[46] Game Informer editor Matt Helgeson, however, found the motion controls to be good, commenting that other developers should learn from Nintendo. In spite of this, fellow Game Informer editor Matthew Kato described the controls as being only so-so.[21] GameShark editor Danielle Riendeau, however, described the controls as excellent, though adding that it occasionally misreads her shots.[47] In the first four days of the Wii version's release in Japan, Mario Power Tennis sold 56,000 copies.[48] By January 3, 2010, it had sold 205,070 copies in Japan.[49]
Notes [ edit ]
^ known in Japan as Mario Tennis GC ( マリオテニスGC, Mario Tenisu Jī Shī)We work in an "agile" manner and thus do not deliver to timescales. As a rough estimate which cannot be taken as a commitment, I'd suggest that the timescale for the UI is "a couple of months" and SPV multiwallets "6 months." I may be mistaken though.
The better answer: we are aware that mass-adoption of an exchange technology requires low friction, thus removing the need to download at least two blockchains before trading. So SPV is at the top of our list of enhancements.
Work has already begun on the UI.
The Blocknet is the only project in our awareness that decentralises the four core functions of an exchange - capital deposits, order broadcast, order matching, and coin exchange.
all coins stay in wallets
orders are broadcast over an inter-chain DHT network overlay
order books are compiled by local applications, not a central or distributed entity
coin exchange is atomic and trustless, utilising OP_CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY and not requiring the control of any third party.
As for interoperability in general and the emerging token ecosystem, the Blocknet is deliberately designed to function as infrastructure. No central chain is required, enabling services to be built on any chain and monetised and delivered over xbridgep2p, our "blockchain router," to nodes on any other chain and to dapps harnessing blockchain services.
Regarding waves, it's a coloured coin approach. As such, as a trader, you'd have to deposit your coins for some underlying token in order to trade. This does not decentralise deposits, even if the underlying architecture is distributed. Additionally it requires you to trust some manner of intermediary to redeem your coloured coins for a real coin when you want to withdraw.
My opinion on this is that if you're building a decentralised exchange, the main objective is to provide an alternative to having to trust some intermediary with your coin deposits.
Coloured coins cannot achieve that, and so I cannot consider any exchange of this type a decentralised one in the true sense of the word.
As for Cosmos, (a) its consensus algorithm is DPOS and (b) it relies on anchors/validators and so is vulnerable to collusion attacks.
These two points amount to Cosmos being a distributed system, but not one in which control is decentralised (that's what "decentralised" means btw - it's about control).
Thirdly - and correct me if I'm mistaken - Cosmos' approach is architecturally ill-fated to run afoul of the emerging "token ecosystem" by requiring inter-chain services to run on its chain only.
This is another way of saying that it is "inter-chain centralised," may be fine for sidechains, but is not suitable for an inter-chain era where it becomes the norm for dapps to become inter-chain orchestrations of on-chain microservices.
monetised API consumption
digital service delivery
The Blocknet is designed as infrastructure for the emerging token ecosystem. Any service or orchestrated sequence of microservices provided by dapps may be delivered over the Blocknet's infrastructure.
Using decentralised exchange, these services are intrinsically monetisable, removing the friction and high costs of traditional payment networks - friction which has prevented the monetisation of the bulk of the API ecosystem.
Due to the decentralised exchange, consumers of a service may pay in their native token even if the service consumes a different token.
Currently the only things on the Blocknet are its core infrastructural services:
blockchain router
coin exchange protocol
trade fee collection nodes ("service nodes")
in-wallet order book and order-creation/acceptance controls
p2p end-to-end-encrypted data transport
If you're looking for concrete examples, the scenario is the same as current apps with a microservices architecture: you can build any of them with a monolithic architecture, but they'll struggle to scale, bugfixing is harder, a bug anywhere can break the entire thing, and they're not composable (i.e. they cannot be broken down into sub-services which may be used and monetised in other ways).
So... take all the dapps in existence. We're making the case that it's best to build many of them as inter-chain dapps.
There are two types of node: a "service node" and a trader node.
Service nodes do not handle or control any trader's coins. Their function is to collect and distribute trade fees. Typically a service node operator will run multiple full node wallets of whichever coins (s)he wants to support, in order to garner as many trade fees as possible.
Trader nodes enable one to trade on the decentralised exchange.
Yes, there are fees, though they are significantly lower that centralised exchanges (with a minimum fee that's just above the dust threshold).
The fee structure is as follows:
transactions over the networks of each of your currency pairs will remain subject to their normal network fees for P2SH transactions
a tiny trade fee is charged in BLOCK and the software takes care of securing some BLOCK to pay the fee.
current implementation: trading is from the Blocknet wallet and you can buy BLOCK using it or on any other exchange. This is then used for fees.
future implementation: trading will be from any trading dapp built by anyone. The protocol is likely to involve a second trade for the BLOCK trade fee, without requiring your dapp to have the Blocknet's blockchain
Just saw the devs have answered a load of questions on the reddit AMA:Summary: (dev answers in red)What is the timescale for the UI and SPV? Just roughly. Are we talking a couple of months, 6 months, end of year, next year? Cheers.How is Blocknet different from projects like WAVES, COSMOS, SWARM CITY and so on. In general, how is Blocknet's approach to build a decentralized exchange and an interoperability protocol different from its competitors?What are the possible applications of the xBridge other than a decentralized exchange?Do any of these dapps exist already or will they have to be built?Anymore concrete dapp examples would be great - helps me spread the word and keeps it simple.This is potentially very exciting because if a service is in demand and people are buying Block to use the service then it makes the price go up.What are the benefits of running a node? And how many blocks do I need to run one?Will there be fees for buying/trading on Blocknet like there is with Coinbase/GDAX?Click the reddit link for more answers.Welcome
RIT Tech Crew is a technical production department on campus that provides sound reinforcement, lighting design, power distribution, staging and rigging. Tech Crew works closely with local production and rental companies in order to provide a multitude of services to our clients.
Tech Crew’s parent department is the Center for Campus Life. Its primary mission is to support on-campus student activities and events. These events include, but are not limited to, dance parties, lectures, concerts and Commencement.
Tech Crew is comprised entirely of student employees and managed by two RIT staff members. We employ around 60 students regularly and hire about 10 – 20 students at the start of every academic year.
If you are looking for information about contracting Tech Crew's services or about registering an event on campus, please contact Event Registration behind the Info Desk in the Campus Center (CPC). Our Business Office is located in the basement of the Student Alumni Union (SAU), room 04-A426.
If you have any questions or inquiries about Tech Crew services, feel free to contact us by phone at (585) 475-2257 or by email at tecccl@rit.edu. Business Office Hours vary from semester to semester depending on student coordinator schedule and will be posted each semester on the office door.Ángel di María is set to become a Manchester United player after the club agreed a British record transfer fee of £59.7m to buy him from Real Madrid, with the 20-times champions hoping to announce his transfer officially on Tuesday morning.
The deal will take the club’s summer spend to £130.7m, with United still intent on adding further signings before 1 September. Juventus’s Arturo Vidal, Milan’s Nigel de Jong and Ajax’s Daley Blind are all prospective targets as clubs enter the final week of the summer window.
Louis van Gaal wants to add at least one central midfielder plus another central defender, with Vidal considered his priority. With the manager having harboured doubts about the Chilean midfielder’s knee injury that caused him to play at Brazil 2014 in a half-fit condition, plus the club’s awareness that Juventus are minded to sell, the strategy will be to try to force Vidal’s sale through for an acceptable price before 1 September.
The capture of Di María, who was the man of the match when Real won the Champions League in May, represents a coup for United considering the club are not in this season’s premier competition and need to strengthen their squad after the team have let five points slip from the first two matches.
Van Gaal said he needs more creativity in the team after Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie were starved of chances during the 1-1 draw at Sunderland on Sunday. Di María should help solve this problem. Last season in La Liga he provided 17 assists, four more than any other player, while at the World Cup, before he became injured, the forward made 32 attempts to cross from open play, three more than Marcos Rojo, his international and prospective new club team-mate.
Negotiations moved fast on Monday with the haggling over his price – Real were reported to want around £75m – and discussions over Di María’s personal terms running smoothly enough for the player to change plans and fly into Manchester late on Monday evening before being driven to United’s Carrington training base.
Unlike Juan Mata’s £37.1m transfer from Chelsea in January, this time United dealt directly with Real, allowing the two clubs to come to an agreement, with Di María’s medical and personal terms considered a formality. For the Mata deal, third parties were deployed by United, including the No10’s father and a Madrid-based agent who previously acted for Real, as when Steve McManaman moved from Liverpool to the Spanish club.
The rapid nature of the Di María deal, if completed as expected, should mean he can be registered before the Friday lunchtime deadline so |
the incident.Film culture has long had an obsession with the architecture of John Lautner, a protégé of Frank Lloyd Wright.
One should not move to Los Angeles ambivalent about living in a near-perpetual state of revision. I’ve lived in the city for eight years, enough time to love it deeply, and in adopting the Angeleno constitution I’ve come to embrace an abiding concern with appearances. I don’t mean this in a derogatory way, that the city is superficial. But Los Angeles—with its sylvan, scruffy hills of shrubs and chaparral, its flexibly employed subcultures, the mishmash of mini-cities and architectural styles resting comfortably above fault lines—is both a city to watch and a city that watches you back as you traverse it. The mountains and valleys draw you in, the topographic secrets and security gates keep you hunting—especially if you have a taste for architecture (and you will build one here if you don’t). Soon enough you find yourself methodically exploring the sprawl in search of what’s deemed architecturally significant, making a personal study of each home’s provenance along the way: So-and-so owns this one; Movie A was made there; a Manson-family murder happened around the corner; this space-age thing could house the Jetsons.
When I first moved to Los Angeles, I found myself energized by the city’s aesthetic extremes and, upon watching Brian de Palma’s Body Double, quickly sought out John Lautner’s Chemosphere house, arguably the film’s most pivotal character: an octagonal pod-like home with a 360° view, thrust above the hills on a single pole plunged deep into a steep, sloping lot. The film cannot happen without the presence of this house: Once sensationally referred to as an “Earthbound UFO” in the defunct Los Angeles Times Valley News, the home is accessed via funicular, and serves as a unique vantage from which to witness a murder staged against the rustic canyon landscape of the Hollywood Hills—an ideal setting for a primitive act despite what seems like peaceful, bucolic surroundings.
Lautner, the son of an academic and an artist, was born in 1911, and grew up inspired by the outdoors of his native Michigan. After fellowships at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin East and West—institutes devoted to apprenticing, to Wright’s learn-by-doing method—he worked on a couple of Wright projects before moving to Los Angeles in 1938. It was a city with enough money and devotion to innovation that he hoped to fund some of his own work, though he found much of the city loathsome, ugly. Still, it was here that he produced most of his—and L.A.’s—iconic architecture, breaking from the formal modernism of his teacher in highly creative ways that expressed a reverence for nature. Wright called Lautner “the world’s second-best architect,” the highest praise possible from a notoriousy self-involved personality. Perhaps today’s best-known architect, Frank Gehry, who has studied Lautner’s work closely, once called him “a god.”
For a New Yorker who grew up in apartments embedded in flat land and, later, in a suburban split-level, the Chemosphere was the most dramatic move an architect could make. I stalked its exterior frequently, puzzled over how it was built, how it stayed there, having survived earthquakes and mudslides that had taken out houses nearby. When friends would visit, I’d drive them up the treacherous turns of Mullholland Drive that literally provide a border between the San Fernando Valley to the north and the city to the south. I’d turn onto a dead-end side street near a scenic outlook that shows off the Valley and the NBCUniversal Tower in front of the Burbank foothills. Then I’d turn around and drive past the house, coming at it from the north, to give them the best view. The image of living in the neon-mirroring Los Angeles night sky was intoxicating. What would I see from inside? I didn’t know the home’s resident or owner, had not yet seen all the movies and tv shows that made use of it, but I was hooked, and would seek them out the same way Angelenos sit through mediocre flicks just to catch a glimpse of an industry friend doing his or her thing.
Meanwhile, I’d taken up residence on the east side of the city, which, as any architecture fetishist knows, is a hotbed of mid-century design innovation, in a neighborhood called Los Feliz, just below a Frank Lloyd Wright house (the Ennis, used most famously in Blade Runner) and just a few minutes’ jog from Richard Neutra’s Lovell Health House (the home of L.A. Confidential’s villain pornographer). I immediately sought out other Neutra homes, as well as Lautner’s Silvertop House in the bordering neighborhood, Silver Lake, which could only be viewed from across a reservoir. I found it astounding that all I needed was a car to see these structures. I bought a good camera, went on solo photography expeditions, pored over coffee-table books that displayed photos by mid-century architecture’s best visual chronicler, Julius Shulman, who took the first pictures of the Chemosphere house and had worked for Neutra. I felt a pervasive sense of pioneering, though I was just seeking design, as opposed to embarking on death-defying physical adventures set in the wild. Here the land itself staged art, influenced it—an outdoor, living museum. I’d become an architecture fan through Los Angeles’s great modern houses. Movies had sparked the divertissement.
Lautner homes—fluid, organic playgrounds for space and light, set in the elements—have been used in over a dozen movies, often as the homes of solitary men, most of them ne’er-do-wells. The list of homes as film stars includes but is not limited to: the Elrod House in Palm Springs (fight scene, Diamonds Are Forever, Sean Connery vs. scantily clad Bond Girls in a roundtop room with a view of the Coachella Valley desert); the Garcia House, which literally looks like a glass eye built into the Hollywood Hills (and whose replica was dragged off a cliff by Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon 2); the Jacobsen House, a hexagonal, steel-framed backdrop for a shootout between Paul Newman and James Garner in the 1998 crime mystery Twilight. Other Lautner homes have framed less sinister characters, certainly less violent scenes, but still offer asylum to the eremitic: the elegant, glass-and-redwood Schaffer House, a clean refuge among live oaks for a despondent professor in Tom Ford’s A Single Man; andSilvertop, a curvilinear glass-and-conrete-forward space used as the home for a lost college graduate facing a dehumanizing adulthood in the adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s Less Than Zero. Of them all, the Chemosphere has made the most appearances in films and television—including Charlie’s Angels and even The Simpsons. Perhaps fittingly, it is owned by Benedikt Taschen, the German publisher of oversized art, erotica, architecture, and photography monographs, a man who has popularized design for the mainstream, turned what was once the coffee-table book into a collectible artifact itself.
Whether it’s the sculptural concrete, the walls of glass, or the surprising angles of steel and wood, the elements of Lautner’s homes appeal immediately to the human spirit. Lautner created spaces that invite us to be (or at least think) primal inside them, and therefore, in some sense, to act free, even play. His homes represent an independent, less systematic approach to modernism—honoring modernism more intrinsically than the homes of his forebears by following the contours of the earth as opposed to the linear blueprints of the more strict International Style. Lautner’s homes are not attempts at luxury. They are, at the core, art projects, and they were produced for remarkably humble sums (about $2,000 in 1960 to design and oversee the construction of the Chemosphere; about $4,000 in 1968 for the Elrod House). Despite their use in film, they evoke nothing nefarious; if anything, they project an exuberance for life, a dialogue with nature. Quite simply, they encourage imagination. (That Lautner was a jazz enthusiast makes sense: Many of his houses sculpt concrete as well as air, the way Miles Davis, say, used sound as well as silence.) Early in his career, Lautner had faced harsh criticism from the East Coast architectural establishment for his commercial work—restaurants and gas stations, for example, that used large, geometric (or “atomic”) shapes for signage. He resented, too, that the Chemosphere was often referred to as a “flying saucer.” For Lautner, its form was function, built with specific needs of the client in mind (in this case, an aerospace engineer and his family), and the architect was flexible about how his structures could be used, customized, or improved. Only later, through the press and film, did the Chemosphere become associated with mystery, the pernicious, sci-fi. In many ways, it is the most generous structure in Los Angeles, offering an unadulterated view of the world.
It’s difficult to see a Lautner house, and more so, one from its interior. Some, like the Sheats–Goldstein, are hidden; most are occupied or managed by owners or their staff. In 2011, a few high-priced tours were given to celebrate Lautner’s hundredth birthday, and there are occasional chances to step inside one of these spaces, but they are rare. And yet Lautner’s popularity only seems to have intensified in recent years—through architecture-fan blogs and real-estate websites such as Curbed LA; museum exhibitions; the opening of the Hotel Lautner in Desert Hot Springs, California; a documentary that explores his greatest work, called Infinite Space; and, among other coffee-table books, a lush compendium published by Taschen himself.
For its part, the Sheats–Goldstein House, concealed just beyond one of the winding roads of Benedict Canyon, appears from the street to be just a number on a curb between two actual houses. Its driveway descends crookedly, as if to throw off any visitors toward the neighbor’s house. But once you find your way down to the motel-sized carpark, it’s clear you’ve landed upon one of L.A.’s residential gems, built into the side of a cliff overlooking the city and its vaporous sky.
I’d gotten lucky, with permission to tour the home through an architect’s connection to the owner. I arrived early to meet with Rick Heinrichs, the production designer of the belovedly entropic Coen Brothers film The Big Lebowski, which used Sheats–Goldstein to stage a comic bad-guy scene that was itself a send-up of bad-guy scenes. In Lebowski, The Dude, a perpetually relaxed do-nothing victim of mistaken identity, played by Jeff Bridges, is thrown into a crime-noir mix-up, captured by goons, and delivered to the home—this home—of a slick pornographer named Jackie Treehorn. (The scene ends when Treehorn drugs The Dude, such that he falls, face-first, onto a coffee table before drifting into a Busby Berkeley–style dream sequence).
In the carpark, I ran into an ebullient blond woman of about fifty, who emerged from a sharp Mercedes coupe. She introduced herself as the owner’s assistant, then invited me into the home of her employer: Jim Goldstein, a flamboyant Los Angeles social fixture and generous multimillionaire known for his devotion to modern architecture, to Lautner specifically, and to being an NBA superfan. (Lautner homeowners are, in fact, a subculture of their own, including, among Goldstein, a DreamWorks executive and an esteemed screenwriter.) Walking into the foyer, I stepped across glass slabs that seemed to float like the koi in the pond below, then into a vaulted, concrete-ceilinged living room that oozes past frameless glass windows toward an uncovered pool-centered patio that juts a triangular corner, sans protective fencing, out toward the skyline of Century City.
In real life, this house—built in the 1960s, replete with drinking glasses punched into the roof to shoot beams of Los Angeles–branded light into the space, what Lautner called the “perforated light in a primeval forest”—was commissioned of the architect for a family with children (the Sheatses). Goldstein bought the home in 1972, and enlisted Lautner to help him transform it into the strikingly groovy pad it is today, including a swimming pool renovation that moved the water level up to the edge of the terrace, a precursor to the contemporary infinity pool. Come dusk, the pool mirrors the tent-shaped roof and the stars above.
Heinrichs arrived trailing a group of German tourists, young men dressed in tight, color-saturated, neo-preppy clothes and fedoras. They spoke quickly to each other, with utter delight on their faces, and sported heavy, expensive cameras with massive zoom lenses—perhaps the optimistic spawn of Lebowski’s gang of criminal nihilists?
Walking through the living room, Heinrichs, a man with graying hair and observant blue eyes, seemed quite taken with the details and view. “It’s a playfully serious place,” he said, “and it was perfect for our scene. We hardly had to do anything to it.” He was deferential to the Coens, and to Ken Adam, the veteran production designer who’d used Lautner’s Elrod house for Diamonds Are Forever. This was the first time he’d been back to the site since the Lebowski shoot. He pointed out toward the sky at the edge of the terrace. “In the movie, this is supposed to be Malibu,” he said. “But ours was a night shoot.” We talked about how Los Angeles is for so many people anything they want it to be.
I asked him if knowing that the space was real as opposed to a set on a soundstage influenced the performances, and he grinned. I was beginning to sound geeky.
“Have you been to a Lebowski fest?” he asked. “They’re fun—funny, as you might expect. But that’s what this house says to me. It’s the quintessential Los Angeles house because it’s fun. Things—fun and funny, or odd, can happen here. Well, we like to think they can.”
As we spoke, the Germans trounced about the place—popping up from behind staircases, laughing excitedly as they posed near the credenza that served as the bar in Lebowski. “How did they get in here?” he asked, then shrugged and walked around the low-slung, built-in couches. The pool began to gurgle, belch, and Heinrichs and I shared a laugh.
Walking through the Sheats–Goldstein, I didn’t feel a discernible impulse to turn to porn, poisoning, or homicide, the métiers of so many of the loner-villains who dwell in these spaces in film. But I did feel relaxed, unusually safe for someone standing on a ledge hundreds of feet above a city. Perhaps more dramatically than most other Lautner spaces, save the Chemosphere, the Sheats–Goldstein house is precariously placed in nature, almost appearing to be carved into it. “Organic modernism is one good way to describe it,” said Heinrichs. “It doesn’t exactly communicate evil to me. But it does seem aligned with wealth now, and I guess evil isn’t too far away from lots of money.”
At that moment the Germans appeared by the pool and asked me to take their picture. Heinrichs smiled and waited. “This place is a magical wonderland!” said one of the Germans, who soon thereafter began to shoot pictures of pictures of the house that hung on a wall, opposite what looked to be Michael Jackson’s jacket from the “Beat It” video. Another German ran around the side of the pool to find the Jacuzzi. “It’s like a dream here!” he said.
The idea of manipulating people through imagery is what drives De Palma’s narrative for Body Double, in which the Chemosphere functions as an inhabitable lens, the most interesting way to use a Lautner home in film. The bad guy is the home’s “house sitter,” and to make good criminal use of the place he presents to a voyeuristic patsy, via telescope, the staged murder of his wife in another house located across a canyon. The film’s a pulpy cocktail of Rear Window and Vertigo references—the unwitting protagonist is a claustrophobic actor who has trouble playing a B-movie vampire confined to a coffin—but there’s a powerful visual vocabulary at work here; the use of the home is a comment on film, the most modern of popular art forms that requires frames through which to see narratives unfold.
De Palma uses a set to stand in for the Chemosphere’s interior—a playboy’s lounge with rotating bed and garish excess, nothing like the actual home. But the movie stays true to Lautner’s vision for the design, exploiting how the house functions from within. “Lautner’s works were not designed as objects or buildings to be viewed from the outside,” Frank Escher, a well-known Los Angeles architect and Lautner expert who restored the Chemosphere house for Taschen, told me in his Silver Lake home, just a few days after I saw the Sheats–Goldstein. Escher, a Swiss-born man who wears sturdy black glasses, wrote a 1998 book about Lautner (John Lautner, Architect) and co-curated a recent UCLA Hammer Museum Lautner exhibition. “The homes were always designed as spaces or platforms from which you can look out at a landscape, which is fundamentally different from what many architects do even to this day.”
In Tom Ford’s A Single Man, Lautner’s Schaffer house, a much more proletarian home than his later projects, serves as a sanctuary in nature for a suicidal academic, played by Colin Firth, who shuts himself off from others as he grieves the loss of his male partner, at a time when it felt terribly isolating to be gay. But in his unpretentious redwood house, with glass that lets him be one with the surrounding flora, he possesses a complete, private part of the world just for him. “He probably would have loved the way this house was used in that film,” said Escher. Lautner built the home on the very site where the commissioning family would take picnics, keeping nearly every shading tree in place. There is a human, touching parallel here, in the way Ford’s film provides a nook in nature for his protagonist.
Lautner had a reputation for being a difficult personality. Escher says that he was simply misunderstood. “Like any artist he had ideas of what he appreciated. But he was very generous about people coming to ask him about his work, and certainly to people who came to him about commissioning a project. Almost naïvely. If he felt that people didn’t understand him or made things up, however, he would get annoyed.” When critics condescended to Lautner’s early commercial work, they called it “Googie” architecture, referring to Googie’s coffee shop (1949), a fairly simple space with a skyrocketing ceiling and long, glass wall that inspired an easily mocked style of futurism. But a diner that Lautner designed on Sunset Boulevard and Crescent Heights—razed and replaced long ago—included a roof that Escher described as “lifted off and folded over the building so that customers could sit far back in the space and look up at the Hollywood Hills—a beautiful idea.”
Few people know how humble Lautner was, that he lived in a workaday Hollywood apartment, never made much money. He was first committed to building middle-class homes, and didn’t build the projects that would win him so much attention until later in his career, after he took on a business manager in his small Century City office to help him figure out how to pay his employees. “It’s unfortunate that he didn’t get the acclaim he deserved while he was alive,” Goldstein told me shortly after I’d visited his house. “It’s a little bit sad. But that’s also due in part to Lautner’s personality. He was not ego-driven. He was totally devoted to his work. That’s what he knew how to do. His strength was in architecture, not self-promotion.”
Lautner disliked labels. “He actually thought that was the mark of laziness,” Escher said. “People who don’t think for themselves use labels. If any label used to describe his work might not have bothered him it was ‘organic.’ But he did come up with one term for his work: ‘Real Architecture.’ It was an attempt to distinguish himself from others who worked in distinct styles with a set of rules.”
Architects constrained by style manifestos are no different than composers who only write in twelve-tone rows. But the world doesn’t work that way, and neither do Lautner homes, which sometimes even introduce nature into living space, whether it’s rocks, leaves, dirt, sand, air. Lautner’s work is humbling, the way the whole of nature makes you feel small. It contextualizes the sublime, and like powerful Pacific waves or Coachella Valley desert rocks reminds you how minuscule you are—like every other animal. That filmmakers used them to stage the homes of wrongdoers or sociopaths who exercise the animalistic part of themselves is just one expression of the honesty that these homes beg us to acknowledge, and as much as people might believe Lautner’s work is misunderstood by filmmakers, it is not. These characters are often set alone in these spaces—alone to consider their tiny places in the universe—and that they often crave control could be the filmmaker’s last laugh, a sign that they comprehend the big ideas posited by Lautner’s architecture. The movie character may think that he’s living large, but in fact he’s a microbe in the larger sphere (perhaps more comfortable among the stars and trees than other among humans), and that’s one of the things that a Lautner space is about: inviting man to consider scale.
Lautner once told the writer of a 1986 UCLA oral history that of all the major cities’ populations, Angelenos are the least interested in architecture. “[The city’s] just built on advertising,” he said. “And it has been affected by the movie industry: the stage set. And they’re used to the facade, and it’s perfectly all right. And, the climate permits it and so on, so there’s nothing real, nothing solid, and nobody cares.” It would be eye-opening to see his reaction to many of Los Angeles’s new architecture fanatics as they queue up for modern home tours in southern California, talking about film sets and the directors who made these homes notable to them.
In films, these homes’ characters may seem malignant, or to live on the edge of what we consider normal, but that’s why the homes are ideal sets for literal contrivance. They are micro worlds, open to space, with simultaneous access to the wild and shelter from it. And that many of his most famous homes used in film are located in or near Los Angeles speaks to our rightly equating the city with the perpetual stretching of the American imagination. Just as we want to venture into this city of possibility, frolic about its canyons, there’s an urge to climb into these movies, visit the houses used in them. Lautner’s nature-infused houses let these films do more than tell us stories. They allow us to play inside the narratives—to redesign them, write, if only in our minds.This is the eighth in a series looking at potential dream and nightmare scenarios for all Pac-12 teams.
Understand: These are not predictions. They are extreme scenarios and pieces of fiction. You can read last year's versions here.
We're going in reverse order of my post-spring power rankings (which might not be identical to my preseason power rankings).
Up next: Washington
Best case
Steve Sarkisian erupts from his slumber, waking his wife.
"The voice again?" she asks.
"Yes," Sarkisian says. "It says, 'If you build it, he will come.' I feel like I've heard that somewhere before. It's probably from some obscure movie."
"But you've already built it," she says. "Renovated Husky Stadium is going to be the best venue in the Pac-12."
Sarkisian leaps from his bed. "That's it!" he says. "I'm going over the Husky Stadium."
When Sarkisian is gone, his wife shakes here head with a perturbed look, "Freaking Pac-12 blog," she rasps.
Sarkisian walks into the shiny new stadium. He looks around with pride. It's 11:59 p.m. A small kitten crosses his path. He looks up. About 50 yards away, at midfield a backlit man stands, shirtless.
"If you build it... he will come...," Sarkisian says as he recognizes the man approaching. "He has come back!"
Bruce Lee steps into the light.
"Man, please tell me you're going to make another movie," Sarkisian says. "That fight with Chuck Norris! And Kareem! Will you say, 'Boards don't hit back!' for me?"
Lee says nothing. He just stares at Sarkisian.
"Don't think, Sark. Feel," Lee says. "I am but a finger pointing to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory. Or should I say, Husky glory. Come, we have much to discuss."
Tight end Austin Seferian-Jenkins, whose pinkie miraculously healed before the end of preseason camp, doesn't play in Washington's 31-17 win over Boise State to open the season. Keith Price completes 21 of 30 for 235 yards and two touchdowns, and the Huskies defense holds the Broncos to 295 total yards.
"Austin is going to sit for three games," Sarkisian says to reporters after the game. "We really labored over this because I absolutely believe his DUI was an anomaly. It doesn't speak to his character or how he conducts himself. But we have high standards at the University of Washington and with our football team. The message is don't drink and drive, period. If news about our suspending him prevents one person from getting behind the wheel while intoxicated, we've served our community."
During the Huskies off week, Sarkisian appears on College GameDay. Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit gush about Sarkisian's discipline, Husky Stadium and how he's rebuilt the program. He's also asked about the Huskies new up-tempo offense, which nonetheless incorporates many of the pro-style concepts that are his longtime schematic staples.
"Our offense favors formlessness so that it can assume all forms and since our offense has no style, it can fit in with all styles," Sarkisian says.
ESPN, impressed with Sarkisian's profundity, uses the clip in a new commercial for the network. It goes viral.
Washington blisters Illinois 41-10, buries Idaho State then outlasts Arizona 38-35. But No. 4 Stanford gets a critical fourth-quarter pick-6 from safety Ed Reynolds -- Price's first interception of the season -- that keys a 24-20 win over the Huskies.
Sarkisian finds Lee in his office early Sunday morning.
"Empty your mind," says Lee. "Become formless and shapeless like water. When water is poured into a cup, it becomes the cup. When water is poured into a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Be water, my friend.
"Now what is missing from your team?"
Says Sarkisian, "We don't play as well on the road. We sometimes lack a killer instinct. We are close but not there yet."
Says Lee, "And Big Boss Man Oregon is next, coming to your house, intent on humiliating the Huskies again. What is it -- nine consecutive wins by at least 17 points?
"Again, what is missing from your team?"
Sarkisian gets a far-away look. "The... the... spirit of Don James?"
Lee and Sarkisian reappear in downtown Fremont.
"Norm's?" says Sarkisian. "I love this place. But why are we here?"
Lee leads Sarkisian into the pub. He trades a fist bump and meaningful look with owner Steve Habecker. Lee then walks into the back of the building. He takes out a large, old-fashioned key and opens a door. He turns on the light. There is a chest, not unlike a pirate's treasure chest. Lee opens it. He reaches inside. He takes out a scroll.
"Read this," Lee says.
Sarkisian unspools the parchment. He reads, “I think we could play against anybody who has ever played in college football.”
"Don James," Lee says.
No. 2 Oregon leads Washington 28-24 with 1:47 remaining. The Huskies take over at their 20 and drive to the Ducks 5-yard line with 10 seconds left. Sarkisian calls a timeout.
"Keith, this is your moment -- enjoy it," Sarkisian tells his quarterback. "You're about to become a Husky legend."
Price walks back onto the field. Instead of joining the huddle, he approaches the Ducks defenders.
"You have offended my Husky family and you have offended Husky Stadium," Price says before returning to the Washington huddle.
Says Oregon cornerback Ifo Ekpre-Olomu,"Oh no. He's made us into Mr. Han! We need Michael Clay. He'd know how to defeat this bad juju with his spirit animal."
Price brings the Huskies to the line of scrimmage. He takes the shotgun snap and runs right up the middle for the winning touchdown. He goes in untouched due to a brutal surge from his offensive line.
For the first time since 2002, the Huskies are ranked in the top-10. But then they go down 28-24 at Arizona State.
Sarkisian finds Lee in his office early Sunday morning.
"Leading a great football program, it’s not how much your players have learned, but how much they have absorbed from what they have learned," Lee says. "It is not how much fixed knowledge they can accumulate, but what they can apply livingly that counts."
The Huskies pound California and Colorado, but they make a bigger statement by beating No. 12 UCLA and No. 15 Oregon State on the road. Meaningful road wins have been few-and-far-between for the Huskies under Sarkisian.
It's also meaningful that Stanford loses to rival California. The Pac-12 North title is still in play. After the Huskies pound Washington State 35-10 in the Apple Cup, they gather around the giant screen TV in the players' lounge to watch Oregon-Oregon State. The Huskies need the Ducks to lose in order to win the division.
The Ducks lead 24-20, and the Beavers are forced to call their final timeout with Oregon facing a second and 5 on the 50-yard line.
Announcer: "It looks like the Ducks will be able to run the clock out if they can get one more first down. Mariota hands off to... no the ball is loose. It's picked up by Oregon State defensive tackle Brandon Bennett-Jackson who takes off the other way... he's, he's lost a shoe... and the other... but he's still going to score! A shoeless Bennett-Jackson gives Oregon State the lead!"
The Beavers hold on. The Huskies win the North Division, as their divisional record is better than both Stanford and Oregon.
Washington beats Arizona State 28-24 to earn its first birth in the Rose Bowl since the 2000 season. The Huskies then slip No. 6 Ohio State 21-17 to finish 12-2 and ranked fourth.
Meanwhile, Sarkisian's ESPN video gets one billion hits and spawns a cottage industry of imitators. Psy releases a "Sarkisiani Style!" and football teams across the country do the "Sarkisian Shake."
A T-shirt with split image of Sarkisian and Bruce Lee becomes all the rage, most notably among elite high school football recruits. At the Under Armour All-Star game, just about every player wears one.
Perhaps not coincidentally, the Huskies sign the nation's No. 1 recruiting class.
A sinkhole swallows Autzen Stadium.
Worst case
With tight end Austin Seferian-Jenkins in the starting lineup -- and with a heavily taped pinkie finger -- Washington opens remodeled Husky Stadium with thud, as Boise State scores 21 unanswered points in the fourth quarter to win 28-24.
"This game won't define our season," coach Steve Sarkisian says.
A reporter asks Sarkisian why he didn't suspend Seferian-Jenkins.
"He was punished internally," Sarkisian replies. "And we took a team vote, and Austin's teammates voted not to suspended him. I was therefore powerless to punish him that way."
For the rest of the season, every time the Huskies lose, news stories contain this phrase: "... Sarkisian, who didn't suspend tight end Austin Seferian-Jenkins despite his spring DUI conviction..."
Washington comes back to beat Illinois 10-7, despite three turnovers from quarterback Keith Price, and blasts Idaho State 30-10. But the schedule quickly gets tougher, and Washington is nipped in overtime by Arizona and drubbed by Stanford 24-6.
"We've got a young team that is still learning to win," Sarkisian said. "But we can turn things around against Oregon."
The Ducks pound the Huskies 40-10, Oregon's 10th consecutive win over their most bitter rival by at least 17 points.
Price is more his 2012 self than the tantalizing talent he was in 2011. The offensive line, though experienced, continues to get pushed around. And the secondary really misses cornerback Desmond Trufant, though a bigger problem is that the extraordinary number of times certain Huskies fans blathered about the Pac-12 blog losing "all credibility!" because Trufant didn't make last season's top-25 players list has unleashed a karmic whirlwind that makes all bounces go against the defense.
Kevin Gemmell: I feel like we properly warned them about the potential for a karmic whirlwind.
Ted Miller: Hey, it's always been a part of the process. But it's out of our hands. I told Justin Wilcox that even we don't fully understand the supernatural powers of the Pac-12 blog and how it handles trolls who are unredeemed because they lack perspective and a sense of humor.
Washington loses at Arizona State but beats California and Colorado, meaning it needs to win two of its final three games to become bowl eligible.
"Our first goal every year is to become bowl eligible," Sarkisian says.
The Huskies lose 27-17 at UCLA.
"We're beat up and we're young," Sarkisian says. "But we can still become bowl eligible."
The Huskies lose 24-10 at Oregon State.
"We have to put this behind us," Sarkisian says. "We have plenty to play for in the Apple Cup. I know these guys remember what happened last year, how we folded in the fourth quarter and surrendered an 18-point lead in the fourth quarter."
The Huskies and Cougars are tied 20-20 at halftime, but Washington State rolls to a 47-20 victory, as fans slip out of shiny new remodeled Husky Stadium midway through the fourth quarter. The last play of the game features Cougars safety Deone Bucannon returning Price's third interception 70 yards for a TD.
Oregon beats Alabama for the national title. Washington State beats Texas in the Holiday Bowl.
Sarkisian is hired by the Dallas Cowboys.
"Huskies fans deserve a second chance at greatness," athletic director Scott Woodward says. "And this man deserves a second chance to get us there... Ladies and gentlemen, Tyrone Willingham has agreed to return to coach the Huskies.
"Isn't that just so great!"
Previous "Best case-worst case" posts
California
Washington State
Colorado
Utah
Arizona
USC
Oregon State"They will be well cared for as we deal with their parents," Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said Monday. | AP Photo Kelly confirms he's considering program to separate migrant children and parents
Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly confirmed Monday that the Trump administration is considering separating migrant parents from their children who cross the U.S.-Mexico border together illegally.
Speaking to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer late Monday afternoon, Kelly confirmed the gist of a recent Reuters report, saying that he is “considering exactly that” as a way to deter people from Central America from traveling up through Mexico with the goal of entering the U.S.
Story Continued Below
“If you get some young kids who manage to sneak into the United States with their parents, are Department of Homeland Security personnel going to separate the children from their moms and dads?” Blitzer asked.
“We have tremendous experience in dealing with unaccompanied minors,” Kelly responded. “We turn them over to HHS, and they do a very, very good job of either putting them in kind of foster care or linking them up with parents or family members in the United States.”
He continued: “Yes, I am considering, in order to deter more movement along this terribly dangerous network, I am considering exactly that. They will be well cared for as we deal with their parents.”
President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to take a hard line on illegal immigration. But Kelly’s statement is likely to prompt a rebuke from Democrats and immigrant rights advocates. Responding to Reuters’ initial report on the plan, Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat, released a strongly worded statement.
“Bottom line: separating mothers and children is wrong,” Cuellar said, according to Reuters. “That type of thing is where we depart from border security and get into violating human rights.”President Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, did not sign an ethics pledge required of all administration appointees, The Daily Beast reported Wednesday.
The vow bars all federal appointees from lobbying their former colleagues for five years after leaving the administration and bans lobbying for a foreign government for life.
“Gen. Flynn never had the opportunity to sign Trump’s ethics pledge, but he plans to abide by its terms,” spokesman Price Floyd said of the retired Army |
3DS that allows your sysNAND (instead of an emuNAND or redNAND) to have Custom Firmware access, even if it is updated. This method is called Arm9LoaderHax, commonly abbreviated to A9LH. With this method, people first back up their 9.2 sysNAND. Then, they create an emuNAND or redNAND if they haven't already. From there, in order to dump the console unique OTP, you need to downgrade the system temporarily to 2.1, as since 3.0, the OTP has been locked in the bootrom, but before 3.0, it was stored in userland (essentially what the homebrew launcher has access to). Since this system version is very old (the 3rd ever update created for the 3DS), none of the Custom Firmware programs support running an emu/redNAND on 2.1. So, we downgrade our emuNAND or redNAND to 2.1, but since no Custom Firmware supports running a 2.1 emuNAND or redNAND, our emu/redNAND will appear "bricked" by the downgrade. However, if we make a backup of this 2.1 downgraded emu/redNAND and flash it (copy over) to our sysNAND, our sysNAND will be able to run 2.1 just fine. From there, we use a browser exploit to gain userland control and dump the OTP file itself. We can then use the same program we used to dump the OTP to restore our 9.2 sysNAND backup.
From here, all that is necessary is to install the exploit itself. This is done through running an application in the Homebrew Launcher on a 9.2 sysNAND where the OTP dump is required as input. This exploit essentially writes unique (due to the OTP being required) "junk" data to our sysNAND so that as a result, it will always jump to a payload that can run Custom Firmware or even applications that require full control, such as the system and emu/redNAND backup program or decryption programs milliseconds into the boot processs while not having full control firmware (a.k.a. 9.2). Once the exploit is installed, you can use a Custom Firmware to run and patch your sysNAND instead of your emu/redNAND like in the Menuhax method. One of these essential patches blocks updates to the NATIVE_FIRM partition of your sysNAND. You know what this partition stores? All of the exploit patches, from the 11.0 minimum title list to the 10.6 browserhax/menuhax patches. This partition is also where the Arm9LoaderHax exploit is installed. So essentially, with this partition being blocked from updates, I can update my sysNAND running on Custom Firmware while still keeping full control of my system on current firmware (11.0).
Essentially, I think the best comparison to make if this is hard to understand is that 3DS homebrew is like a stock fund. Let's say that the stock fund represents full control hacks on the 3DS. There are "shareholders" that have already invested in this fund by downgrading their sysNAND to 9.2 at some point in the past to either run the Menuhax method or the A9LH (Arm9LoaderHax) method of homebrew. Those people will always have the ability to keep their share of the fund (keep full control hacks) if they wish. However, there is a couple more groups involved in this comparison, and one is the people on 4.X-8.X and 9.3-10.7 that could be a part of this fund but have not because they have not up/downgraded to 9.2 yet. These people can be a part of the "full 3DS control" fund if they choose to down/upgrade to 9.2. Then there is the last group in this comparison, the people on 11.0 (without using Arm9LoaderHax, obviously) who cannot join the fund (downgrade to 9.2) without getting a hardmod. And since the majority of 3DS users (I would say) are not willing to get a hardmod for their 3DS, for the most part, this stock fund of "full control on the 3DS" is closed for most of these new would-be investors.
In short, the people who have a 9.2 sysNAND with an updated emuNAND or redNAND (the Menuhax method) or the people who got to 9.2 at some point in the past and installed Arm9LoaderHax instead will always have the ability to keep Custom Firmware with full online access (with Menuhax, the emu/redNAND has full online access and update capability, the 9.2 sysNAND does not). But as getting to 9.2 at some point is required to install Custom Firmware in any situation, if Nintendo can block that initial downgrade to 9.2 for new users (as they did with 11.0 already), they can plateau the number of people with permanent full control Custom Firmware to the people who did it in the past, essentially closing full control *hax to new users. While some users on 11.0 will have access to the Homebrew Launcher through Freakyhax or the other games that have been taken down from the eShop, it doesn't matter anyway on 11.0 because downgrading through the Homebrew Launcher is only possible on 10.4 NATIVE_FIRM or lower (e.g. 4.X-10.7), so without a hardmod to downgrade NATIVE_FIRM from 11.0 to the one used on 10.4-10.7, 11.0 users cannot downgrade at all.
The new 11.0 exploits are truly only for Homebrew Launcher access. If 11.1 came out or something that patched all the 11.0 exploits people without Custom Firmware would have to stay offline (not update) to keep Homebrew Launcher access. I even did this for a period of time when I stayed on 10.5 for a while because 10.6 patched Menuhax and I was too cheap to buy Ocarina of Time 3D, which worked on 10.6 (As soon as the 10.4-10.7 downgrade exploit came out though, I downgraded to 9.2 and installed Arm9LoaderHax, so now my sysNAND is 11.0 but I still have full control and Custom Firmware like a 9.2 system does). However, this behavior of keeping a system offline does not happen when we're talking about anybody with Custom Firmware, because with Custom Firmware, any exploit that was patched can be patched back in by the Custom Firmware program itself. So, with 11.0, you know how Cubic Ninja was patched out? Well, due to the fact that my Custom Firmware reverted this patch, I can still use Cubic Ninja on 11.0 using my Custom Firmware sysNAND, even though other non hacked people on 11.0 could not do so.Top Turkish, Russian soldiers to meet in Ankara
ANKARA
Turkish Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar will host his Russian counterpart Gen. Valery Gerasimov at the country’s military headquarters, the agency said, without giving details.
The meeting between the two top soldiers comes as part of the normalization in ties between Ankara and Moscow, which also agreed recently to increase cooperation in Syria. A mechanism composed of diplomats, soldiers and intelligence to coordinate the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) as well as the political transition process in Syria has been set by the two countries.
Gerasimov’s visit comes shortly after the Free Syrian Army (FSA) seized control of Jarablus from ISIL with the support of the Turkish army. The operation was believed to continue until the Turkish-Syrian border is fully cleared of ISIL elements. Russia did not oppose the operation but expressed its concern over growing tension on the border.
The chiefs of general staff of Turkey and Russia will meet in Ankara on Aug. 26, two days after the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) launched a cross-border operation into northern Syria along with Syrian moderate groups, the Anadolu Agency reported on Aug 25.Finally ready for what many assume is the biggest challenges on the entire West Coast, we drive a short distance on some extremely nasty and washed-out dirt roads until the mighty Congo River comes into view. I see the ferry chugging away just as I drive down the hill, so there is plenty of time to wait.
Digging around the abandoned buildings I find the official price board, and my Jeep counts as “Vehicle Leger” at 16,500 Congo Frans. That’s about $14USD for the Jeep and I to cross the river. Later, when the ferry man sells me a ticket he writes out an official receipt, and has no problem giving change. He is happy to accept either USD or Congo Frans, as is everyone in the DRC.
From a distance the river looks extremely beautiful and clean, almost like a lake. Up close it is actually flowing quite fast and smells like a sewer. I watch fishermen time and again pull up nothing but plastic in their nets. I can’t help but roll the Jeep down until the tires touch the water for photos. I feel like this river is a huge milestone on the journey, and signals the change I know is about to come. The sun is scorching hot and I soon retreat to the shade of the trees, where all the locals on foot are sensibly waiting.
The ferry apparently waits until it is full on the other side, so we doze in the shade for almost two hours before we see it crossing back. I am happy to see it has a large truck on board, making me feel a little more confident about it holding our combined weight.
From the second the truck drives off there is a mad scramble, with my friends driving on first and then me behind. We have just enough length, and I am relieved we both were able to get on the same ferry. The instant our two vehicles are on board the ferry begins to move, with foot passengers and motorbikes scrambling every which way to get on. The ferry is really just two pontoons that have been stuck together with some scrap steel, and a big diesel engine slapped aboard. While it all seems flimsy and ad-hoc, I realize these guys do this every single day of their lives, and everything will probably be fine.
The big diesel engine screams loudly, and I soon find myself chatting to the foot passengers, ferry crew, and even the captain who is more than happy for me to climb up into the bridge. As we make the twenty minute crossing huge storm clouds develop on the horizon, and I even see the occasional bolt of lightning touch down. The wind hitting us alternates from stinking hot to extremely cool, the signal of the approaching storm.
Rolling off the ferry is painless, and we soon find ourselves in a severely dilapidated shanty-town on the Southern side of The Congo River. Hoards of children run to the road and enthusiastically hold out their hands, screaming at the top of their lungs “GIVE ME MONEY!”. (in English)
All are clearly furious when we do not.
After a few hundred yards the town ends and we find ourselves once again plodding on a severely pot-holed and muddy track – the only track leading out of this town.
After many more hours we thankfully find a tiny spur off the side, and find the perfect high ground to make camp and watch the thunder and lightning roll by to the East of us. Soon after setting up a very withered old man comes by to shake our hands, and is delighted to explain the women with him are his wife and daughters. All are carrying huge loads of firewood and green leaves, and all are smiling from ear to ear, though the women seem hesitant to actually approach us.
The DRC is intense!
-DanCLEARWATER — Police have been directed to ignore any requests from the Church of Scientology asking officers respond to peaceful protesters "exercising their First Amendment rights" on public sidewalks near the church's downtown Flag Building.
The advisory, sent in a department email recently by Assistant City Attorney Rob Surette, was prompted by multiple calls dispatchers have fielded from church members about Alex Hageli, who has picketed in front of the building several times this year.
Hageli, 40, a lawyer who lives in Illinois and owns a home in Belleair, said in a recent interview that he has never been a member of Scientology but has made it his mission every time he visits to stand outside the church's headquarters and urge members to seek help in escaping the religion.
Surette said Scientology officials have told police Hageli should be prohibited from protesting because he is considered part of a 2001 injunction that banned nine individuals and their associates from trespassing on church property.
Surette, in his email, said only one of the individuals named in the injunction, Mark Bunker, currently lives in Clearwater, and there is no evidence Hageli is collaborating with him.
"Clearwater police officers will not respond to reports of any other persons who are exercising their First Amendment rights on publicly owned sidewalks near Church of Scientology property unless there is an allegation that a crime is being committed or the person is specifically named in the injunction," according to Surette's email.
Scientology officials, however, maintain Hageli is associated with Bunker and should be subject to the injunction, according to a church statement emailed to the Times.
"It is vital to the safety of our staff and parishioners that a watchful eye be maintained on anyone obsessed with the church," according the statement. "Mr. Hageli, a resident of Chicago with no rational reason, has frequently traveled to Clearwater with the sole purpose of harassing Church members. Our staff and parishioners seek to ignore him, but security maintains a watchful eye."
Hageli, who began researching Scientology about 16 years ago when he first visited his grandmother in Clearwater, said he primarily tries to reach Sea Org members who live and work in church buildings.
He typically holds up books written by defectors and gently talks to members as they walk by "to let them know there's people that will help them out," he said.
Hageli said he has been picketing since 2013, during the handful of visits he makes to Clearwater each year. But on March 8, he was arrested on a trespassing charge, an arrest later deemed unlawful in a Clearwater Police Department internal investigation.
"Good afternoon, Sea Org," he told members that day as they stepped off church buses on S Fort Harrison Avenue and walked into the Flag Building.
While recording video on his cellphone, Hageli said: "Did you happen to catch Jenna Miscavige's book? The secret's out. The abuses have to stop. David Miscavige is not your friend. He hurts people. Read Jenna's book to find out."
David Miscavige is the leader of Scientology and uncle of Jenna Miscavige Hill, who published a book in 2013 detailing her upbringing in the religion and her escape at age 21.
According to the CPD investigation report, two church members stood nearby shooting video of Hageli's actions, and one man followed Hageli with a portable radio playing loud music.
"Initially, one security member in a suit intentionally stood within a foot of Hageli, but Hageli did not react," the report states.
Officer Raniel Heredia responded to a call from the church and detained Hageli after finding he had trespass warnings from 2014.
After handcuffing Hageli, Heredia met with Sarah Heller, head of Scientology's legal department, and reviewed the diagrams included in the 2001 injunction, according to the internal investigation.
Because Heredia mistakenly thought the sidewalk was church property, he arrested Hageli for "trespass after warning," according to the investigation report.
Hageli said the charge was dropped the next day and that he is satisfied with Surette's email to the department clarifying his right to protest.
Heredia also was given a written reprimand and remedial training.
On Sept. 25, Hageli filed a motion in Pinellas County court asking a judge to dissolve the 2001 injunction. He said the injunction makes it difficult for members of the public to protest the church because church officials can use the diagrams to confuse police about who is prohibited from picketing.
For example, when Heredia was reviewing the injunction with Heller before Hageli's arrest, she never corrected the officer when he assumed the public sidewalk was church property, according to the internal investigation report.
On Oct. 22, Circuit Judge Thomas Minkoff denied the motion.
"I just don't want to get arrested again," Hageli said. "I would just want to get rid of the injunction so they can't do their games of confusing officers."
In their statement, church officials said with the roughly 12,000 Scientologists who visit annually from over 60 countries, their priority is to promote safety.
"When we feel that our staff, parishioners or visitors are threatened or harassed by Mr. Hageli, we will exercise our rights as law-abiding, productive citizens of Clearwater and will not hesitate to call upon law enforcement for assistance in maintaining peace," the statement said.
Contact Tracey McManus at [email protected] or (727) 445-4151. Follow @TroMcManus.The Blue Jays are in the playoffs for the second consecutive season, falling two wins shy of the World Series in 2015. (Photo: Bob DeChiara, USA TODAY Sports)
BOSTON - It may have been David Ortiz Day at Fenway Park Sunday, but it was the Toronto Blue Jays who were set to really celebrate Sunday as they snagged the final American League playoff berth on the last day of the season.
The Blue Jays will play the Baltimore Orioles in Tuesday's wild card game, a result ensured when the Detroit Tigers lost 1-0 to the Atlanta Braves at Turner Field.
Just minutes after the Tigers lost, the Blue Jays made sure they'll face the Orioles at Rogers Centre. Troy Tulowitzki's RBI single in the eighth inning gave Toronto a 2-1 victory and tied Baltimore with an 89-73 record.
Blue Jays starter Aaron Sanchez stole the show initially at Fenway Park, flirting with a no-hitter for seven innings.
The Division Series also are set:
The Cleveland Indians will host the Red Sox in Game 1 of an AL Division Series on Thursday, with the Texas Rangers playing host to the Orioles-Blue Jays winner. In the National League, the Washington Nationals will host the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday and te Chicago Cubs play the Giants-Mets wild card winner at Wrigley Field.
GALLERY: MLB teams celebrate postseason berthsA key moment in the prehistory of the Enlightenment
By Tom Carter
9 August 2014
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, Stephen Greenblatt, W.W. Norton, 2011 (US$16.95)
In his autobiography, Trotsky compares the Protestant Reformation in Europe to the work of men who have broken out of an insane asylum. “To a certain extent, it really was,” he remarks. “European humanity broken out of the medieval monastery.”
The Swerve
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, a recent bestselling non-fiction book by Harvard academic Stephen Greenblatt, tells the story of how the first cracks began to appear in the medieval monastery walls. It chronicles a little-appreciated but nevertheless significant event in the history of human ideas: the rediscovery of Lucretius’s poem De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) in the winter of 1417 by former papal secretary and book hunter Poggio Bracciolini. Key philosophical conceptions drawn from this rediscovered poem, Greenblatt argues, formed the foundations for many subsequent developments in modern thought.
Greenblatt’s controversial book won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, and it has also come under attack as an “anti-religious diatribe.” The book has merit and, as a celebration of the very early stages of the intellectual trajectory that would become the Enlightenment, deserves to defended.
The Swerve paints a truly dark picture of the Middle Ages in Europe. At the dawn of the fifteenth century, society is subordinated to the whims and caprices of a cruel aristocracy of landowners, warlords, and priests. Ignorance and superstition reign, and lists are maintained of banned and heretical books. War, hunger, and disease regularly carry off entire populations. The ruins of ancient Rome are pilfered for bricks and scrap metal, and the literary treasures of antiquity are forgotten. The Catholic Church treats every original thought as a potential threat to its hegemony, and it aggressively tortures dissenters and burns them at the stake. There is not a drop of romance in Greenblatt’s grim account of this period in history.
Even 200 years after the events that are the main focus of the book, at the height of the Renaissance, the Catholic Church continued to use the most barbaric methods against those who would challenge its worldview. Greenblatt gives the following description of the death of the colorful and brilliant philosopher Giordano Bruno, who was murdered by the Inquisition on February 17, 1600:
“He [Bruno] had steadfastly refused to repent during the innumerable hours in which he had been harangued by teams of friars, and he refused to repent or simply to fall silent now at the end. His words are unrecorded, but they must have unnerved the authorities, since they ordered that his tongue be bridled. They meant it literally: according to one account, a pin was driven into his cheek, through his tongue, and out the other side; another pin sealed his lips, forming a cross. When a crucifix was held up to his face, he turned his head away. The fire was lit and did its work.”
The executions of religious reformers Jan Hus and Jerome of Prague—also by burning at the stake—likely had a particular impact on the protagonist of the story, the early humanist Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459). Poggio witnessed the execution of Jerome, who, according to a contemporary chronicler, “lived much longer in the fire than Hus and shrieked terribly, for he was a stouter, stronger man, with a broad, thick, black beard.”
Poggio, in a letter to a friend, praised the eloquence with which Jerome had made his case before his persecutors, even with his own life in the balance. His friend replied, “I must advise you henceforth to write upon such subjects in a more guarded manner.” The terror of the Inquisition was everywhere.
Under these conditions, the work of the early humanists was driven semi-underground. Their work took the form of searching for and appreciating the works of the classical writers of Greek and Roman antiquity.
To give a sense of how much had been lost, Greenblatt quotes Roman rhetorician Quintilian’s praise for the works of Macer, Lucretius, Varro of Atax, Cornelius Severus, Saleius Bassus, Gaius Rabirius, Albinovanus Pedo, Marcus Furius Bibaculus, Lucius Accius, Marcus Pacuvius, and others. With the exception of Lucretius, Greenblatt writes, all of the works of all of these authors have been lost.
The poem of Lucretius, which Poggio rediscovers in 1417, has significant philosophical implications. Little is known about the life of Lucretius (99 BCE–c. 55 BCE), who was a follower of Epicurus. In his masterpiece De Rerum Natura, he sought to combine beauty of aesthetic presentation (poetry) with the highest achievements of science and philosophy.
Partway through the book, Greenblatt makes a list of some of the key ideas in Lucretius’s poem: everything is made of invisible particles; these elementary particles are eternal; all particles are in motion in an infinite void; the universe has no creator or designer; nature ceaselessly experiments; human society began not in a Golden Age of tranquility and plenty but in a primitive battle for survival; there is no afterlife; all organized religions are superstitious delusions; religions are invariably cruel; there are no angels, demons, or ghosts; understanding the nature of things generates deep wonder; the highest goal of human life is the enhancement of pleasure and the reduction of pain; and the greatest obstacle to pleasure is not pain but delusion.
According to Lucretius, all phenomena come into being as a result of the unpredictable “swerve” of elementary particles, and this conception is the source of the title of Greenblatt’s book. There is a curious quasi-materialism in Lucretius that no doubt fascinated his early modern readers: “Sight did not exist before the birth of the eyes, nor speech before the creation of the tongue.”
In addition to its radical philosophical content, Lucretius’s poem is rich in passages of arresting beauty, even now after the passage of so many centuries. Lucretius portrays the world as ever-changing and yet still possessing continuity. Life has meaning, even if an individual’s life does not continue after death, as part of something greater. “Thus the sum of things is ever being renewed, and mortals live dependent one upon another. Some nations increase, others diminish, and in a short space the generations of living creatures are changed and like runners pass on the torch of life.”
The Swerve traces the fascinating impact of the poem and its Epicurean ideas across the subsequent centuries. Botticelli paints scenes from the poem; Shakespeare refers to it in his plays; Montaigne cites it in his essays; and it animates Thomas More’s Utopia. Asked to describe his philosophy of life, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “I am an Epicurean.”
Greenblatt does not mention it in The Swerve, but Epicurean philosophy had a certain influence on another important figure in modern thought: the very young Karl Marx, who filled seven notebooks with a study of Epicurean philosophy and even wrote his doctoral dissertation on “The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature.”
Some of the value of Greenblatt’s book is reflected in the ferocity of the attacks against it. Hostility to the Enlightenment and all of its accomplishments predominates in ruling circles in America and throughout the world. The epoch of imperialism, Lenin wrote, is “reaction all down the line.” It is no coincidence that, in a country where the Supreme Court recently affirmed the “religious right” of corporations to deny health care to women, a book celebrating secular humanism and the Enlightenment would encounter a chilly reception in certain quarters.
The Los Angeles Review of Books published one such attack, entitled “Why Stephen Greenblatt is Wrong—and Why It Matters.” The author of the attack, Jim Hinch, a religion correspondent for California’s Orange County Register, takes furious exception to Greenblatt’s narrative “of how modern western secular culture liberated itself from the deadening hand of centuries of medieval religious dogmatism.”
“Greenblatt’s caricatured Middle Ages might have passed muster with Enlightenment-era historians,” Hinch writes (using the word “Enlightenment” as an epithet). The Swerve, he continues, is “filled with factual inaccuracies and founded upon a view of history not shared by serious scholars of the periods Greenblatt studies.”
These “factual inaccuracies” are never specified. Meanwhile, it appears that “serious scholars” (whom Hinch does not name) have lately determined that the Dark Ages were not that dark, that there is no such thing as the Renaissance, and that life under the Inquisition was not really that bad!
Replying to a hostile review in a different journal, Greenblatt wrote, “I plead guilty.… That is, I am of the devil’s party that believes that something significant happened in the Renaissance. And I plead guilty as well to the conviction…that atomism—whose principal vehicle was Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura—was crucially important in the intellectual trajectory that led to Jefferson, Marx, Darwin, and Einstein.”
It is a testament to the power of the poem—more than two millennia after it was composed, and nearly 600 years after its rediscovery by Poggio —that it still evokes such hostility. Indirectly, in a way, the response of people like Hinch confirms Greenblatt’s thesis.
Finally, the description of The Swerve as an “anti-religious diatribe” is one of those slanders that depends on the audience not having read the book in question. Greenblatt’s sympathies are clearly with reason, secularism, and the Enlightenment, but the book is not actually concerned with making a case for or against religion.
Greenblatt, in fact, rather objectively relates how the protagonist of the story, Poggio, made his career within the complex institutions of the Catholic Church. Greenblatt also describes medieval religious monasteries as places where books were carefully copied, preserved, and revered (if not always fully appreciated). There is a glimpse here and there, across six centuries, of how life really was, with some of its movement and contradiction.
Greenblatt’s book deserves to be defended against right-wing obscurantism, but in the opinion of this reviewer it has other limitations. In an effort to make the book as simple and approachable as possible, the reader sometimes feels that Greenblatt has “dumbed down” the material too much, almost to the point of being condescending. One wants to ask the author to kindly dispense with the “popular” style, and instead to tell us what he knows. Meanwhile, the author returns again and again to certain key philosophical themes for emphasis, but the result is sometimes simply repetitive.
Greenblatt’s suggestion that the rediscovery of Lucretius’s poem actually “caused” the world to “swerve” in a new direction is more than poetic license. It is an outright exaggeration. De Rerum Natura is fascinating, and certainly it had broad influence over a long period. But the Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment cannot all be understood as contingent on the rediscovery of this poem.
Material conditions for a major change in consciousness in Europe were in the process of ripening at the time of Poggio’s rediscovery of De Rerum Natura. Medieval Church doctrine had served as the dominant ideology throughout a long historical period characterized by feudal relations of production, namely the exploitation of peasants tied to estates owned by the feudal aristocracy. The growth of towns, which featured early capitalist relations and which were increasingly controlled by what would develop into the modern bourgeois class, heralded a shift in ideas.
The old forms of consciousness were being undermined by changing material conditions, and the rediscovery of the poem under such circumstances was a fortuity. In other words, if Lucretius’s poem had not been rediscovered, and instead had been lost forever, then the form of the historical processes that led to the Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment might have been affected, but not the eventual trajectory.
But as a history of how it actually did happen, and as an introduction to a masterpiece of world literature that deserves to be rediscovered again, Greenblatt’s book is worthwhile reading.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.A reader recently e-mailed me to ask which personal finance guru I’d recommend. I thought about it for a little while and had to tell her that there wasn’t one guru I prized above the others. Instead, I sketched out which personal finance gurus I liked best for particular areas. (I added some blogs as well, but I won’t here, perhaps later.)
I’m going to go into a little more detail here, though there’s still much more that could be said.
Dave Ramsey for Major Debt
If you have major debt and want help and inspiration for getting out of it, the PF guru I’d probably recommend (depending on your temperament) is Dave Ramsey. I found a number of concepts in his Total Money Makeover very helpful. He doesn’t claim to be revolutionary, so they’re possibly things you’ve heard online.
What Ramsey provides is inspiration, even fantacism. His books can make you feel completely devoted to getting out of debt as fast as you can. If you’ve been having trouble motivating yourself and want to get into it, they’re quite helpful. I’d take it with a few grains of salt, but his advice is generally sound if that’s the direction you want your debt-repayment to take.
I wouldn’t recommend this book if your only debt is your mortgage or perhaps your mortgage and your cars as long as you can afford the monthly payments. Ramsey is also an unapologetic Evangelical Christian, and even though I don’t entirely subscribe to his take on it I still find his work useable. Some people find it more difficult, especially knowing that he requires all counsellors to be evangelical Christians, even if they’re not supposed to evangelize.
Despite these, if you’re mired in credit card debt or student loans then he’s probably the person for you. If you’re worried about being evangelized, stick with the books, you can take or leave the stuff there.
Jean Chatzky for Money Management
I’d recommend Jean Chatzky to people who aren’t really in debt but want to be in control and happy about their finances and particularly to women who have decided to take control of their money.
I became a fan after reading her book You Don’t Have to Be Rich. The book focuses on two themes: first, finding balance in your life so that you can be happy even if you’re not rich; second, managing your money so that even if you don’t have a huge income, you can build wealth.
She’s practical, of course, and understand that you do need a certain amount of money to live comfortably and a certain salary to be able to invest. The book is a good cross between self-improvement and money management advice.
She also has an excellent book directed specifically at women, called Make Money, Not Excuses. It works as a good outline for anyone learning to manage their money, but it’s specifically directed at women and the reasons that women don’t pay more attention to their money.
I think you can skip her book Pay It Down! From Debt to Wealth on $10 a Day. There’s nothing wrong with it, per-se, but it’s essentially a latte factor book. The overall premise is that if you find an extra $10/day ($300/month) whether by spending less or earning more, and use it to pay down any debt or build wealth (depending where you are in the cycle). Not bad, but her other books are much better.
Suze Orman for Personal Finance Education
I’m not as fond of Suze Orman as I am of Jean Chatzky. I’m not entirely sure why, something about her doesn’t appeal to me as much.
I do admire her motto: “People first, then money, then things.” From what I’ve read, she seems relationship-oriented. She emphasizes that money isn’t everything. And on her show she addresses a lot of relationship/money questions.
What I recommend most: The Road to Wealth (revised edition). Wow. It’s a comprehensive book of information, an “everything you wanted to know” about personal finance. It’s insanely thorough if not very inspiring.
For example, in the “managing debt” section, for instance, she answers questions such as “How do I know if I’m in trouble with debt?” “Why do so many people get into ‘bad’ debt?” or “what exactly is a debit card?”. Short answers of several paragraphs. Good for people who want to learn more about personal finance or buy a reference guide.
She’s not as strong on getting out of all debt as Dave Ramsey. She accepts a mortgage, for example, as normal. She’s certainly concerned about paying off debt and spending less than you earn, she’s just not as passionate as Ramsey.
Suze has also written a book on women and money which is quite similar to Jean’s. Again, I prefer Jean. But if you don’t like the former, try this one.
She has been criticized for recommending a riskier investing strategy than she herself uses. However, I think it’s understandable because when you have as high a net-worth as she does, you don’t need to take on as much risk.
Robert Kiyosaki for….?
I have a hard time recommending Kiyosaki. Not all of his stuff is bad, but you have a limited amount of time. Why spend it sorting out the good points when you can find them or other good points from other writers?
Things which bother me about Kiyosaki:
He very strongly emphasizes real estate and entrepreneurship (and seems to criticize other options). I think that both of those are great ways to make money, but I also think that they’re better for some “types” than others. I don’t want to manage real estate. I find the thought stressful. And I don’t think I’d be happy running my own business in the long run. Yes, I run a blog and a consulting business, but that’s enough for me. Besides, I absolutely love working at libraries. Why give up my passion? He has bashed mutual funds and the like as “risky” (I believe that was the word he used, if not, it was the implication). Of course there is risk involved, but there’s plenty of risk in real estate and entrepreneurship as well. I don’t think that sensible investing strategies are riskier. And there appears to be question as to whether Kiyosaki actually made any money with these techniques or just by being a guru. He’s also admitted that “Rich Dad” is a metaphor. So, if he didn’t make money this way and “Rich Dad” doesn’t exist, then there’s also no proof the system works. At least not from his end.
You can still find inspiration and good stuff in his books. I just don’t recommend them because you can find that inspiration in plenty of other books without the bothersome elements. I think that Lazy Man did a good job of extracting three good points from Kiyosaki’s most famous book.
Other Gurus
Those are the 4 main PF gurus whose books I’ve read. I’ve glanced at other books, but other than John Bogle’s Little Book of Common Sense Investing for people learning about index funds, I can’t recommend any other books or gurus from personal experience (I’ve read some more, but didn’t find them terribly moving).
Perhaps it’s rare that as a PF blogger I haven’t read more, but I read a lot of book reviews, especially on The Simple Dollar and a lot of blogs, so I get the main point of many books and just don’t have the time.
Which gurus do you prefer?ATLANTA Jimmy |
mix of real images and high-tech special effects includes contributions from Matrix and Spider-Man 2 cinematographer Bill Pope, Star Trek series producer Brannon Braga and The Avengers composer Alan Silvestri.
"The best teachers I had in school were the ones who found creative ways to present the material and communicate their own enthusiasm in inventive ways," MacFarlane says, praising Tyson's communication skills and Druyan's narrative style. "It's a show that's supposed to be exciting. When the original Cosmos came out, Carl Sagan said (he wanted) it to be entertaining and flashy, that people who have no interest in science (would) watch just for the spectacle. One of the things that requires is a flashy production style."
Cosmos does not shy from topics that have become politically controversial in some circles, such as climate change and evolution. In the premiere, Tyson notes how forests that grew 300 million years ago became the coal that we burn "to power and imperil our civilization."
He asks: "Is it political if I tell you that if we burn coal, you're going to warm the atmosphere? Or is that a statement of fact that you've made political? It's a scientific statement. The fact that there are elements of society that have made it political, that's a whole other thing," Tyson says. "We're telling you what science tells us about the world and what you do with that information, that's what you do. But I worry that people are making decisions about the world under-informed about what science has to say about the world."
Sunday's premiere opens with Sagan's recorded voice from the original series, which will be woven into episodes along the way, Druyan says. "It's one more way for me to affirm my profound love and respect for him and to continue what he was trying to do, to (share) the knowledge he treasured with everyone."
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Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1ilKO87Apple didn't kill the 3.5mm headphone jack on its new lineup of MacBook Pros, but new design changes to Apple's revamped notebook lineup will undoubtedly irk many customers.
Sure, the new Touch Bar looks amazing, and sure, the specs on the new MacBook Pro models certainly warrant getting excited about, but the port situation on the MacBook Pro is a mixed bag.
As Phil Schiller explained during today's event, Apple's new MacBook Pros feature four Thunderbolt 3 USB Type-C ports, and conveniently, each of these can be used to charge the machine. Now, USB-C is incredibly versatile, and Apple will use the advanced port for power charging, HDMI and much more.
However, with USB-C the only game in town, you might reasonably be wondering: How in the world do I connect my iPhone to my sleek new MacBook Pro?
The frustrating answer is that you won't be able to do so out of the box. Instead, you'll have to buy a dongle. This is especially frustrating because many people use their notebooks for a) charging purposes when an outlet isn't necessarily handy and b) for transferring photos and other data.
Now, you might reasonably state that you can just rely upon the cloud for items like data transfer, but there's no getting around the fact that Apple's efforts in the cloud still leave much to be desired.
How much will it cost to connect your iPhone to your brand new MacBook Pro? Well, Apple sells a USB-C to Lightning cable on its website for $25.
While this is undoubtedly frustrating, we can't say that it's entirely unexpected given Apple gave us a preview of its preference for USB-C when it released its 12-in. MacBook last year. Still, it's a funky design choice for a decidedly Pro-oriented device where the last thing a prospective consumer would want to do is spend some extra cash for a dongle after spending upwards of $2,399.
Lastly, while we're on the topic of ports, it's worth noting that the new MacBook Pros also do away with the beloved MagSafe connector.Shares of Apple (AAPL) stock were down 25% in November after hitting an all-time high of $705.07 in late September. Sentiment appeared to be improving in late November, but then the stock’s course turned south once again and hit a 10-month low this past Friday. Monday saw Apple shares dip into the $400-range for the first time since February during the pre-market session, and there’s no end in sight for the consumer electronics giant’s current slide. What brought on this most recent wave of soured views? From the look of things, two big cuts from Citi and Canaccord have sent investors headed for the hills.
Citi analysts on Monday issued a note to clients cutting their price target on Apple shares to $575 as industry watchers and investors wonder when we might see Apple’s “next big thing” unveiled, whatever it may be. More importantly, they cut their rating from Buy to Neutral on the belief that heavy iPhone demand cannot continue to carry the stock as it has been. The bank still expects a big holiday quarter but sees Apple’s trimmed orders with suppliers as a troubling sign moving into 2013.
Meanwhile, Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley lowered his price target on Apple shares to $750 from $800 Monday morning, pointing to softer than expected iPhone and iPad sales in fiscal 2013 and fiscal 2014 as his reasoning for the cut.
“While our November channel checks indicated very strong sales of the iPhone 5, we are slightly lowering our F2013 and F2014 iPhone and iPad estimates due to softer sales expectations in international markets, primarily in Europe,” Walkley wrote in a note to investors on Monday morning. “While order reductions to iPhone suppliers are not unusual this time of year, we believe reduced iPhone 5 orders for the March quarter could also indicate an earlier launch of new iPhone products in the June quarter. Despite our slightly lowered estimates, we believe Apple’s industry-leading software ecosystem and integrated hardware experience will result in a strong multi-year product cycle.”
Walkley maintained his Buy rating on Apple stock despite the price cut. Shares of Apple dropped as low as $499.00 during Monday’s pre-market session but have since recovered, down 0.50% at $507.09.I write a great deal about DSP portables, SDRs, and modern ham radio transceivers, but truth be known, my passion is for older rigs–ahem, much older–the antique “boat anchors” of the radio world.
Tuesday afternoon, I had a rather involved soldering project to do on behalf of my organization, Ears To Our World. While I worked, I decided to fire up my Signal Corps BC-348-Q to hear what was on the air. I promptly discovered Radio Exterior de España on 17,850 kHz–starting with their interval signal; REE, care of my BC-348-Q, kept me company while I soldered almost three hundred connections.
I listen to my BC-348-Q nearly every week. Usually, she’s tuned to 9,580 kHz for my morning dose of Radio Australia. In the winter, the ‘348’s tubes keep my little radio room a little warmer than the rest of my house. In the summer–well, I just sweat a little more.
I love this radio, and my other “boat anchors,” because when I listen to these rigs I can’t help but hear the past. I wonder about the others who have listened to the same radio, and what was happening in their lives as they listened…
The BC-348 series, for example, is well-known for its use in WWII allied bombers–these rigs were mounted in the likes of the B-17, B-24, B25, and others of the era. Indeed, mine still has the original clips on the base that anchored it to the radio operator’s onboard work table. The ‘348 was used as a long-distance liaison receiver during WWII.
The BC-348 series was built with simplicity, functionality, and serviceability in mind. It was built to withstand life on a B-17 bomber–the extreme vibration on start up, the extremely low temps in the upper atmosphere; it could be serviced by the radio operator in flight, if necessary. Its controls are simple, bare-bones, even. The tuning knob and analog dial are beautifully engineered and precise.
The ‘348 has a power switch, volume control (switchable from auto to manual gain), crystal filter, CW switch, beat frequency control, tuning knob, and a band switch (located just below the dial). The antenna and ground terminals are mounted on the front of the radio for easy accessibility. All controls are spaced so that the radio operator could use the ‘348 even while wearing thick cold-weather gloves.
You can’t do any medium wave DXing on the ‘348, however: this receiver was intentionally designed with the medium wave band omitted. Evidently, Uncle Sam wanted radio ops to be focused on communications instead of entertainment (but that’s okay; the government also made morale radios for the latter).
When I go to the Dayton Hamvention–or any hamfest, for that matter–it’s radios like the BC-348-Q I seek. Tube/valve radios sometimes lack the sensitivity and (digital) accuracy of modern tabletop shortwave receivers, but they make up for this in audio fidelity. As long as you have a properly-matched speaker, the sound can be…nothing short of amazing. Even though the ‘348 was never designed for robust audio, it still sounds richer and fuller than most modern tabletop radios. The sound is so warm it literally glows. Moreover, I’d be willing to wager that there are few modern receivers that can stand the test of time like these rigs.
If you buy one of these old beauties, you must be ready to service them; inevitably, a capacitor or tube will fail in time. But they just…keep…going.
I’m very much in debt to my good friend and radio elmer, Charlie (W4MEC) who kindly teaches me everything I need to know about these great rigs. He’s exceedingly patient, and that counts for much, as I’m not by nature technically inclined. But I do enjoy learning about these radios and how to service them; the romance of their history draws me in, and I simply can’t get enough.
Note: It’s important to work with a knowledgeable elmer/mentor or a professional repair technician when servicing these boat anchors, because, unlike with our modern radios, their high voltages can severely injure (or even kill) you if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing inside the chassis. This is repair work for the professional.
My BC-348-Q turns 71 this year–and I’m sure it has at least that many more years to go. I know that I’ll give it as much TLC as it can take. We must keep these still functioning pieces of history on the air.
If you, too, have boat anchors or antique radios alongside your modern rigs, please comment! I’d love to learn about your favorites. In other words, what heavy metal is in your shack?
Resources:
RelatedA couple of days ago, there were rumors that Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon 820 chipset has overheating issues just like its predecessor SD810, and Samsung - which is manufacturing the SoC - is working to fix to the problem.
Now, Qualcomm has responded to the aforementioned rumors, clarifying that there are no such issues with the chipset. The company also said that the SoC currently meets its design specifications, and will continue to be enhanced. FYI, Qualcomm's response on the matter came in the form of a Weibo post.
The said rumor came over a month after Qualcomm revealed details about the chipset at an event where Snapdragon 617 and Snapdragon 430 SoCs were also announced. For those who aren't already aware, Samsung is reportedly busy testing the SD820 for integration inside its next Galaxy S7 flagship.
Via30 Tips in 30 Days Designed to Help You Take Control of Your Health This article is included in Dr. Mercola's All-Time Top 30 Health Tips series. Every day during the month of January, a new tip will be added that will help you take control of your health. Want to see the full list? Click here.
Sleep is one of the great mysteries of life. For a long time, it was widely thought that sleep was little more than a waste of time. Modern research, however, has shed much-needed light on the matter, showing sleep is a crucial component of a healthy lifestyle, and that lack of sleep can have far-reaching consequences, affecting everything from mood, creativity and brain detoxification1,2,3,4,5 to DNA expression, chronic disease risk — including dementia6,7,8 — and longevity.
One of the most radical and recent discoveries revealing the importance of sleep for health is that each and every organ, indeed each cell, has its own biological clock. The 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was actually awarded for the discovery of these cellular clocks, all of which work in tandem to control and maintain biological homeostasis, regulating everything from metabolism to psychological functioning.
In your brain is a "master clock" that synchronizes these clocks and your bodily functions to match the 24-hour light and dark cycle.
When you upset your circadian rhythm by not getting enough sleep, the results cascade through your system, raising blood pressure, dysregulating hunger hormones and blood sugar, increasing the expression of genes associated with inflammation, immune excitability, diabetes, cancer risk and stress9 and much more.
Sleep deprivation also slows your reaction time, increasing your risk of accidents. Getting less than six hours of sleep leaves you cognitively impaired. In 2013, drowsy drivers caused 72,000 car accidents in which 800 Americans were killed and 44,000 were injured.10 This is more than died from those texting and drunk drivers combined. Even a single night of sleeping only four to six hours can impact your ability to think clearly the next day.
Ideal Sleep Duration for Optimal Health
According to a scientific review of more than 300 studies published between 2004 and 2014 to ascertain how many hours of sleep most people need to maintain their health, a panel of experts came up with the following recommendations.
Age Group Hours of sleep needed for health Newborns (0 to 3 months) 14 to 17 hours Infants (4 to 11 months) 12 to 15 hours Toddlers (1 to 2 years) 11 to 14 hours Preschoolers (3 to 5) 10 to 13 hours School-age children (6 to 13) 9 to 11 hours Teenagers (14 to 17) 8 to 10 hours Adults (18 to 64) 7 to 9 hours Seniors (65 and older) 7 to 8 hours
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Sleep Deprivation Takes a Toll on Your Health
In truth, few (if any) facets of your biology are unaffected when you skimp on sleep, as the list of health effects linked to poor sleep or lack of sleep keeps growing with each passing year. For example, poor or insufficient sleep have been linked to:
Impaired memory and reduced ability to learn new things11 — Due to your hippocampus shutting down, you will experience a 40 percent deficit in your brain with respect to its ability to make new memories when you're sleep deprived. Reduced ability to perform tasks, resulting in reduced productivity at work and poor grades in school. Reduced athletic performance. Reduced creativity at work or in other activities. Slowed reaction time, increasing your risk of accidents on the road and at work — Getting less than six hours of sleep leaves you cognitively impaired. In 2013, drowsy drivers caused 72,000 car accidents in which 800 Americans were killed and 44,000 were injured.12 This is more than died from those texting and drunk drivers combined. Even a single night of sleeping only four to six hours can impact your ability to think clearly the next day. Increased risk of neurological problems, ranging from depression to dementia and Alzheimer's disease13 — Your blood-brain barrier becomes more permeable with age, allowing more toxins to enter.14 This, in conjunction with reduced efficiency of the glymphatic system due to lack of sleep, allows for more rapid damage to occur in your brain and this deterioration is thought to play a significant role in the development of Alzheimer's. Increased risk of Type 2 diabetes — In one study,15 "excessive daytime sleepiness" increased the risk of Type 2 diabetes by 56 percent. Weakened immune function — Research16 suggests deep sleep strengthens immunological memories of previously encountered pathogens. In this way, your immune system is able to mount a much faster and more effective response when an antigen is encountered a second time. Increased risk of obesity — By causing a prediabetic state, lack of sleep increases feelings of hunger, even if you've already eaten, which can wreak havoc on your weight. Increased risk of cancer — Tumors grow two to three times faster in laboratory animals with severe sleep dysfunctions. The primary mechanism thought to be responsible for this effect is disrupted melatonin production, a hormone with both antioxidant and anticancer activity. Melatonin both inhibits the proliferation of cancer cells and triggers cancer cell apoptosis (self-destruction). It also interferes with the new blood supply tumors require for their rapid growth (angiogenesis). Increased risk of high blood pressure, heart attacks and cardiovascular disease — As noted by professor Matthew Walker, Ph.D., founder and director of the University of California Berkeley's Center for Human Sleep Science and author of the book "Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams:" "In the spring when we lose one hour of sleep, we see a subsequent 24 percent increase in heart attacks. In the fall, when we gain one hour of sleep, we see a 21 percent decrease in heart attacks. That is how fragile your body is with even the smallest perturbations of sleep …" In his book, Walker also cites Japanese research showing male workers who average six hours of sleep per night or less are 400 to 500 percent more likely to suffer one or more cardiac arrests than those getting more than six hours of sleep each night. Other research has demonstrated that women who get less than four hours of shut-eye per night double their risk of dying from heart disease.17 In another study,18 adults who slept less than five hours a night had 50 percent more coronary calcium, a sign of oncoming heart disease, than those who regularly got seven hours. Increased risk of osteoporosis. Increased risk of pain and pain-related conditions such as fibromyalgia — In one study, poor or insufficient sleep was the strongest predictor for pain in adults over 50.19 Increased susceptibility to stomach ulcers. Impaired sexual function.20 Impaired regulation of emotions and emotional perception — Your amygdala, one of your brain's centerpiece regions for generating strong emotional reactions, including negative ones, becomes about 60 percent more reactive than usual when you've slept poorly or insufficiently, resulting in increased emotional intensity and volatility. Increased risk of depression and anxiety (including post-traumatic stress disorder), schizophrenia and suicide — In fact, sleep problems are defining factors in diagnosing psychiatric disorders, and are one of the diagnostic criteria listed in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.21 Premature aging by interfering with growth hormone production, normally released by your pituitary gland during deep sleep. Increased risk of dying from any cause22 — Sleep deprivation prematurely ages you by interfering with your growth hormone production, normally released by your pituitary gland during deep sleep. Compared to people without insomnia, the adjusted hazard ratio for all-cause mortality among those with chronic insomnia was 300 percent higher.
How Cycles of Light and Darkness Affect Your Sleep (and Health)
Maintaining a natural rhythm of exposure to daylight, and darkness at night, is an essential component of sleeping well. As mentioned earlier, the reason light is so important is because it serves as the major synchronizer of the master clock in your brain — the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN).
Most people in Western societies spend the larger portion of each day indoors, which essentially puts you in a state of "light deficiency," as the light indoors is about two orders of magnitude lower, in terms of light intensity, than outdoor light.
To maintain healthy master clock timing, it's important to get bright light exposure during the day. Many indoor environments simply aren't intense enough to anchor your circadian rhythm. The first 30 to 60 minutes of outdoor light exposure during the morning or mid-day creates about 80 percent of the anchoring effect.
This means that just going outside for half an hour at lunch time can provide you with the majority of anchoring light you need to maintain a healthy circadian rhythm. Exposure to early morning sunlight can be another important anchor for circadian rhythm syncing.
On the opposite end, you need to avoid bright artificial lighting after sunset, as light will impair your melatonin production. Somewhere between 50-1,000 lux is the activation range within which light will begin to suppress melatonin production.
One 2011 study23 compared daily melatonin profiles in individuals living in room light (<200 lux) versus dim light (<3 lux). Results showed that, compared with dim light, exposure to room light before bedtime suppressed melatonin in 99 percent of individuals, and shortened the time period when the body has an elevated melatonin level by about 90 minutes.
Furthermore, exposure to room light during the usual hours of sleep suppressed melatonin by more than 50 percent. So, after sunset, dim the lights and use incandescent light bulbs, not LEDs or fluorescents. Red and amber wavelengths will interfere least with your melatonin production, while blue and green wavelengths interfere the most.
To learn more about how light influences your circadian rhythms, listen to my interview with Dan Pardi (above), a researcher who works with the Behavioral Sciences Department at Stanford University and the Departments of Neurology and Endocrinology at Leiden University in the Netherlands.
Sleep Debt Has Cumulative Effect
Lost sleep is lost forever, and persistent lack of sleep has a cumulative effect when it comes to disrupting your health. The good news is there are many natural techniques you can learn to restore your sleep health.
Whether you have difficulty falling asleep, waking up too often, or feeling inadequately rested when you wake up in the morning — or maybe you simply want to improve the quality of your sleep — you are bound to find some relief from my tips and tricks below.
**If you are interested in more information about sleep or any of the 33 items listed, I invite you to delve into the links that follow, which are grouped by subject.
7 Ways to Optimize Your Sleep Sanctuary
1. Sleep in complete darkness, or as close to it as possible — Even the tiniest bit of light in the room, such as that from a clock radio LCD screen, can disrupt your internal clock and your production of melatonin and serotonin, thereby interfering with your sleep (and raising your risk of cancer). So, close your bedroom door, get rid of night-lights, cover any LCD screens and your windows. I recommend using blackout shades or drapes. A far less expensive alternative is to use a well-fitting sleep mask. Instead of a lighted alarm clock, I use a talking alarm clock, designed for the visually impaired, that audibly tells me the time by pressing a large button. Also refrain from turning on any light at all during the night, even when getting up to go to the bathroom. If you absolutely have to have some sort of night light, use a red bulb. 2. Keep the temperature in your bedroom no higher than 70 degrees F — Studies show the optimal room temperature for sleep is between 60 to 68 degrees F. Keeping your room cooler or hotter can lead to restless sleep. When you sleep, your body's internal temperature drops to its lowest level, generally about four hours after you fall asleep. Scientists believe a cooler bedroom may therefore be most conducive to sleep, since it mimics your body's natural temperature drop. If you don't want to crank down the temperature on your air conditioning, sleeping naked may do the trick. One of the established benefits of sleeping in the buff is improved sleep quality, in part by preventing overheating. One study showed a surface skin temperature difference of as little as 0.08 degrees F (or 0.4 degrees C) led to sounder sleep.24,25,26 Studies have also found sleeping in the nude has several other health benefits, including improved metabolism and blood circulation. 3. Eliminate electric and electromagnetic fields (EMFs) in your bedroom — These can disrupt your pineal gland's production of melatonin and serotonin, and are a significant contributor to mitochondrial damage and dysfunction, which is at the heart of virtually all chronic disease. EMF exposure has also been linked to neuronal changes that affect memory and your ability to learn.27 EMFs harm your body's mitochondria by producing excessive oxidative damage, so sleeping in EMFs all night, every night, can cause or contribute to virtually any chronic ailment, including premature aging. Ideally, shut down the electricity to your bedroom by pulling your circuit breaker before bed. If you have neighbors on the other side of the wall, floor or ceiling, consider installing a Faraday cage (copper- and/or silver-threaded fabric) around your bed. If you live in a high-rise and have neighbors beneath you, place the Faraday fabric on the floor beneath your bed as well. This may significantly improve your sleep quality. Another really important step is to turn off your Wi-Fi at night. It would be best to hard wire your home so you have no Wi-Fi 24/7 in your home, but I realize many are unwilling or unable to take this step. It's important to realize that the Wi-Fi in your home is nearly always more of a danger to you than what's coming from outside your home. You can confirm this by measuring the microwave signals with a meter, and see what your exposure is. The fact is, you don't need Wi-Fi while sleeping, so this is a wholly unnecessary exposure that is easily remedied by turning it off. 4. Move alarm clocks and other electrical devices away from your bed, and avoid using loud alarm clocks — If these devices must be used, keep them as far away from your bed as possible, preferably at least 3 feet. Keep your cellphone as far away from your bedroom as possible if it must be on. If you keep it in your bedroom, either shut it down or put it in airplane mode. Also consider your chosen method of being awakened. It is very stressful on your body to be suddenly jolted awake. If you are regularly getting enough sleep, an alarm may actually be unnecessary, but gentler alternatives include a sun alarm clock, which wakes you up by gradually increasing the intensity of light, thereby simulating sunrise. Or even better use a battery powered alarm clock that talks so there is no electricity or light. 5. Adopt a neutral sleeping position — If you're a side- or stomach sleeper and find yourself frequently tossing and turning at night and/or waking up with aches and pains, your sleeping position may be a primary culprit. In the video below, chiropractor and exercise physiologist Dr. Peter Martone discusses the benefits of adopting a neutral sleeping position. The key to achieving this is to prop a pillow under your neck, not your head, as this allows you to maintain a proper spinal curve. For a demonstration on how to use your pillow to support your neck rather than simply elevating your head, please see the video. In Martone's experience, it takes an average of three to four months to convert from a side sleeper to a back sleeper, and even longer if you're used to sleeping on your stomach. 6. Reserve your bed for sleeping — If you are used to watching TV or doing work in bed, you may find it harder to relax and drift off to sleep, so avoid doing these activities in bed. 7. Consider separate bedrooms — Studies suggest that, for many people, sharing a bed with a partner can significantly impair sleep, especially if the partner is a restless sleeper or snores. If bedfellows are consistently interfering with your sleep, you may want to consider a separate bedroom. Pets may also need to be banished if their presence impair your sleep.
16 Tips on How to Prepare for Bed and Ease Into Sleep
8. Get to bed as early as possible, ideally between 9 and 10 p.m. — Your body (particularly your adrenal system) does a majority of its recharging between the hours of 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. In addition, your gallbladder dumps toxins during this same period. If you are awake, the toxins back up into your liver, which can further disrupt your health. Prior to the widespread use of electricity, people would go to bed shortly after sundown, as most animals do, and which nature intended for humans as well. 9. Maintain a consistent bedtime — Go to bed and wake up at the same times each day, even on the weekends. This will help your body to get into a sleep rhythm and make it easier to fall asleep and get up in the morning. 10. Establish a relaxing bedtime routine — This could include meditation, deep breathing, using aromatherapy or essential oils or indulging in a massage from your partner. The key is to find something that makes you feel relaxed, then repeat it each night to help you release the tensions of the day. 11. Avoid drinking fluids within two hours of going to bed — This will reduce the likelihood of needing to get up and go to the bathroom, or at least minimize the frequency. 12. Go to the bathroom right before bed — This will reduce the chances that you'll wake up to go in the middle of the night. 13. Avoid eating at least three hours before bedtime, particularly grains and sugars — These will raise your blood sugar, delay sleep and raise your risk of acid reflux. Later, when blood sugar drops too low (hypoglycemia), you may wake up and be unable to fall back to sleep. Aside from that, eating too close to bedtime can harm your health in other ways. If you consume more calories than your body can immediately use, there will be an excess of free electrons, which back up inside your mitochondria. These electrons are highly reactive and start to leak out of the electron transport chain in the mitochondria. These excess electrons wind up prematurely killing the mitochondria, and then wreak further havoc by damaging your cell membranes and contributing to DNA mutations. There's compelling evidence to suggest this type of mitochondrial dysfunction is one of the keys to accelerated aging. 14. Minimize use of electronics, both during the day and in the evening — Electronic screens are major sleep thieves, robbing you of the ability to fall asleep quickly. Research has shown that the more time you spend on electronic devices during the day, and especially at night, the longer it takes to fall asleep and the less sleep you get overall.28,29 Teenagers who used electronic devices such as MP3 players, video games, tablets, smartphones and/or computers for more than five hours a day were 3.5 times more likely to get fewer than five hours of sleep per night. They were also 49 percent more likely to need more than an hour to actually fall asleep. If you must use electronic screen devices late into the evening, install blue-blocking software. Iris is the absolute best one and I have used it for many years. 15. Do some controlled breathing exercises — Breathing is both an involuntary and a voluntary process. You can alter the speed and the depth of your breathing, and you can choose to breathe through your mouth or your nose. These choices lead to physical changes in your body. Slow, deep and steady breathing activates your parasympathetic response while rapid, shallow breathing activates your sympathetic response, involved in releasing cortisol and other stress hormones. The combination of controlled breathing with counting can be particularly effective when your mind refuses to shut down at night, as it gives your mind something to focus on. One breathing exercise involving counting that you could try is the 4-7-8 breathing technique taught by Dr. Andrew Weil. It's a potent remedy for anxiety, as it acts as a natural tranquilizer for your nervous system. 16. Take a hot bath or shower before bed — When your body temperature is raised in the late evening, it will fall at bedtime, facilitating slumber. The temperature drop from getting out of the bath signals your body it's time for bed. It will also help if you finish your shower with a cold rinse. Another alternative is to take a sauna followed by cold immersion in an unheated pool or shower, two to three hours before bed. This combination helps activate your parasympatethic nervous system to induce relaxation, allowing for sounder, deeper sleep. 17. Wear socks to bed — Feet often feel cold before the rest of the body because they have the poorest circulation. At least one study has shown that wearing socks to bed reduces night waking. As an alternative, you could place a hot water bottle near your feet at night. 18. Wear an eye mask to block out light — As discussed earlier, it is important to sleep in as close to complete darkness as possible. That said, it's not always easy to block out every stream of light using curtains, blinds or drapes, particularly if you live in an urban area (or if your spouse has a different schedule than you do). In these cases, an eye mask can be helpful. 19. Put your work away at least one hour before bed (preferably two hours or more) — This will give your mind a chance to unwind so you can go to sleep feeling calm, not hyped up or anxious about tomorrow's deadlines. 20. Avoid watching TV right before bed — Even better, get the TV out of the bedroom or even completely out of the house. It's too stimulating to the brain, preventing you from falling asleep quickly. TV disrupts your pineal gland function. If you do watch TV, be sure to use blue light-blocking glasses after sunset as this will help maximize melatonin production. 21. Listen to relaxation CDs — Some people find the sound of white noise or nature sounds, such as the ocean or forest, to be soothing for sleep. An excellent relaxation/meditation option to listen to before bed is the Insight audio CD. 22. Read something spiritual or uplifting — This may help you relax. Don't read anything stimulating, such as a mystery or suspense novel, which has the opposite effect. In addition, if you are really enjoying a suspenseful book, you might be tempted to go on reading for hours, instead of going to sleep. 23. Journaling — If you often lie in bed with your mind racing, it might be helpful to keep a journal and write down your thoughts before bed.
8 Lifestyle Suggestions That Enhance Sleep
24. Reduce or avoid as many drugs as possible — Many drugs, both prescription and over-the-counter, may adversely affect sleep. In most cases, the condition causing the drugs to be taken in the first place can be addressed by following guidelines elsewhere on my web site. 25. Avoid caffeine — At least one study has shown that, in some people, caffeine is not metabolized efficiently, leaving you feeling its effects long after consumption. So, an afternoon cup of coffee or tea will keep some people from falling asleep at night. Be aware that some medications also contain caffeine (for example, diet pills). 26. Avoid alcohol — Although alcohol will make you drowsy, the effect is short lived and you will often wake up several hours later, unable to fall back to sleep. Alcohol will also keep you from entering the deeper stages of sleep, where your body does most of its healing. 27. Exercise regularly, but not within three hours of bedtime — Exercising for at least 30 minutes per day can improve your sleep. However, don't exercise too close to bedtime or it may keep you awake. Studies show exercising in the morning is the best if you can manage it. 28. Lose excess weight — Being overweight can increase your risk of sleep apnea, which can seriously impair your sleep. Please refer to my nutrition plan for recommendations. 29. Avoid foods you may be sensitive to — This is particularly true for sugar, grains and pasteurized dairy. Sensitivity reactions can cause excess congestion, gastrointestinal upset, gas and other problems. 30. Have your adrenals checked by a good natural medicine clinician — Scientists have found that insomnia may be caused by adrenal stress. One of the best tests to assess adrenal function is the DUTCH test. 31. If you are menopausal or perimenopausal, get checked out by a good natural medicine physician — The hormonal changes at this time may cause sleep problems if not properly addressed.
Two Backup Strategies Should All Else FailA Jewish college in Michigan has illegally procured federal Pell Grants to subsidize the education of full-time Israeli residents under the pretense of a study-abroad program, the U.S. Department of Education recently accused, revoking the school's eligibility for the grants.
According to a letter sent by the DOJ to the Michigan Jewish Institute, a four-year college in West Bloomfield, almost 2,000 MJI students enrolled in Israeli institutions received the grants between 2006 and 2012 even though "Not a single one of them ever physically attended classes at MJI and none of them graduated from MJI."
"This evidence demonstrates that these students did not study briefly at an Israeli institution to enhance their educational experience after enrolling in MJI for purposes of obtaining a degree from MJI," the letter says, and goes on to accuse the college of "enrolling" the full-time Israeli residents so that the college could obtain and use Pell Grants, partly to subsidize the students' education in Israeli institutions and partly to fund its own activities.
According to the Detroit Jewish News, citing government figures, MJI received more than $50 million in Pell Grants between 2009 and 2015.
MJI denied the allegations and expressed its surprise with the DOJ's announcement, saying it has acted "precipitously, unfairly and unjustly."
The college contended that contrary to the DOJ claims, MJI doesn't provide a study abroad program. Students are either enrolled on an online-only basis, or in a "hybrid version" which includes both MJI courses and courses toward an MJI degree or certificate that are provided by foreign institutions which signed a partnership agreement with the Jewish college. According to MJI, this practice is in compliance with DOJ regulations.
"MJI disputes the Department’s contentions and will contest the action to the fullest extent possible," the statement concluded.
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Under the new Tanning Bed Act, it is now illegal for people under 19 years of age to use tanning beds.
"This is about protecting the health and well-being of young Nova Scotians," said Maureen MacDonald, Minister of Health and Wellness. "Nova Scotia has among the highest incidence rates |
debate of what to do about it. For example, Michael Gerson’s forthright column aimed at debunking the climate conspiracy theorists in his party nonetheless engages in subtle innuendo and false choices. In it, he poses a lot of “questions” about climate change that have been already answered and characterizes the necessarily hard-to-swallow medicine of science-based solutions to global warming as naïve or unrealistic.
“Some scientists have displayed an artificial certainty on some matters that seems to cross into advocacy. Others assume that the only way to deal with greenhouse gas emissions is a strict, global regulatory regime — an economic and political judgment that has nothing to do with their actual expertise."
Expert scientific advocacy for a worldwide solution, heaven forfend! Maybe it’s just me, but that seems like exactly the sort of idea we should be considering in the face of a global climate crisis. After all, following the wait-and-see, take-it-slow approach Gerson advocates is exactly what got us into this dire situation, and what the Post’s own editorial page forcefully rejects.
But thanks to this continued editorial indulgence, the Post op-ed page effectively cancels itself out time and again when it comes to addressing the ominous risks we’re facing from climate change. Now, I get the paper’s desire to provide a broad range of viewpoints from across the political spectrum. Both conservatives and liberals should, of course, always be free to write or say whatever they want in a free society. But this doesn’t mean that any one side or ideology should be free from the consequences of what they write in the marketplace, especially if they willfully distort scientific fact or traffic in lies.
Recently, other esteemed newspapers have begun to draw some individual limits around what they’re willing to publish regarding climate change, in order to protect the intellectual honesty of what goes out under their paper’s name. This is as it should be, as the press's role shouldn't be to unnecessarily provoke a debate based on false claims. It’s time for Fred Hiatt and the rest of his editorial page staff to critically reassess the depth of their commitment to telling the truth as well. If the Post really wants to make a difference in addressing our man-made climate change crisis, the best place to start might be in its own op-ed pages.
Contact me directly at reedfrichardson@gmail.com. I’m on Twitter here—@reedfrich.
Editor's note: To contact Eric Alterman, use this form.Advertisement
It is a story seemingly straight out of the pages of a fairytale, sprinkled with Disney magic: boy meets girl in a cafe, boy falls in love with girl, turns out girl is a real-life princess.
Today, Dennis Muhammad Abdullah - a former semi-professional footballer from Lisse, in the Netherlands - married Princess Tunku Tun Aminah Sultan Ibrahim: the only daughter of the Sultan of Johor, Malaysia.
Dennis, 28, met Princess Tunku Tun Aminah, 31, in a cafe when he worked as a marketing manager for a Singapore football team.
Some three years later, after converting to Islam and leaving his christian name Dennis Verbaas behind, the Dutchman married his princess in a lavish traditional ceremony.
A fairy tale: Johor Princess Tunku Tun Aminah Sultan Ibrahim and Dutch-born Dennis Muhammad Abdullah were pronounced husband and wife after their solemnization of marriage in Johor, Malaysoia
Princess Tunku Tun Aminah is the only daughter of one of Malaysia's most powerful sultans: Sultan Ibrahim Ibni Almarhum Sultan Iskandar.
The Dutchman and the princess wed according to Muslim Malay custom at the Serene Hill Palace, the royal family's residence in the southern city of Johor Bahru.
The private ceremony was attended by close family and friends.
The groom, who now works for a property development company in Johor, wore traditional white Malay wedding attire and the bride wore a white dress.
Dennis Muhammad placed the wedding ring on Tunku Aminah's finger in a special room in the palace, according to the royal press office.
Princess and the footballer: Dennis Muhammad, 28, met the 31-year-old Malaysian royal some three years ago
New life: The groom puts the wedding ring on the finger of his new royal bride after their marriage solemnization ceremony at the Serene Hill Palace in Johor Bahru, Malaysia
True love: The couple wed according to Muslim Malay custom at the Serene Hill Palace, the royal family's residence
In keeping with centuries-old wedding customs in the Muslim-majority southern state of Johor, he also gave her a dowry of 22.50 ringgit (about £4), and the couple kissed the hands of their parents, aunts and uncles as a mark of respect.
An evening ceremony replete with pomp and tradition capped the festivities in the southern state of Johor, with the couple sitting on an elaborately decorated dias as family members and dignitaries dropped petals into their hands and sprinkled them with scented water and yellow rice.
Afterwards, the newlyweds made their first public appearance as man and wife on the palace steps, smiling and waving to around 1,200 reception guests assembled in the garden.
Man and wife: When the couple first met, Dennis Muhammad Abdullah worked as a marketing manager for a football team
Ceremony: The young royal couple receive blessing from her father, Johor Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar, during their wedding ceremony at Istana Besar in Johor Bahru
Tradition: This was followed by blessings from her mother Permaisuri Raja Zarith Sofiah
Pure joy: Princess Tunku Tun Aminah Sultan Ibrahim smiles as she descends from the palace stairs during her wedding
Dennis Muhammad Abdullah, believed to be pictured with his mother, is from a small town near Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Richard Chong, a 30-year-old marketing executive from Singapore and friend of Dennis who was a wedding guest, said that he was going to wish the couple happiness.
'My message to the couple when I meet them is 'Marriage is about taking care of each other. They must respect and love each other',' he said.
There have been frenetic preparations in recent days, with the grounds of the main palace decorated with bunting and main streets adorned with flags.
'I am taking my wife and two young children to the city square tonight to witness the live broadcast of the evening celebrations,' Azim Mohamad Nurazim, a 34-year-old local salesman said
'It is a celebration for all Johoreans. My message to Tunku Aminah and her husband is long and healthy life, and may Allah bless the couple with lots of children.'
Stunning: The princess smiles in images from her wedding day posted by a royal fan on Instagram
Feast for the people: The wedding ceremony was projected on a giant screen for public viewing in the city of Johor Bahru
Small token: In keeping with Johor wedding customs, the Dutchman gave her a dowry of 22.50 ringgit (about £4)
A week before their wedding, the couple posed for their first official photos as married
Johor's royal family is rich and powerful and possesses its own private army - the only Malaysian state to have one.
The Sultan is an army officer, and studied at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Boston, Massachusetts, and has several business ventures, including in telecommunications.
'Let's be honest here, we are a constitutional monarch. I have to earn my living like everyone else. I cannot depend on my allowances. I must earn a living, like ordinary Malaysians,' he told the Straits Times.
Malaysia has a unique arrangement in which the throne of the Muslim-majority country changes hands every five years between the rulers of the nine states which are still headed by Islamic royalty.
The current king is Sultan Muhammad V, from the conservative Islamic northern state of Kelantan, who steps down in 2021.
But Dennis Muhammad is unlikely ever to assume the role since the rulers choose among themselves who the next king will be.As a conservative, I grew up in the threat of socialism: the nationalization of the tools of production. What no one warned me was that this could be accomplished by way of a unique form of nationalization: the nationalization of insolvency.
We have lived through this process in 2008. The process will continue for several more years.
Insolvency is being transferred from the banking sector to the government sector. How much insolvency? So far in 2008, the government and the Federal Reserve System are on the hook for as much as an additional $7.7 trillion.
Solvency is being retained by the bailed-out banks: the private sector. Insolvency is being transferred to those who depend on Social Security and Medicare, and also to future investors in U.S. government debt.
This is being done with full compliance of Congress, both Administrations, Wall Street, and most voters, who do not understand the nature of the transfer process.
One man does understand it. He shares a common bond with Treasury Secretaries Henry Paulson and Robert Rubin: he served as CEO of Goldman Sachs. His name is John Whitehead. He has watched the financial markets for six decades. On November 12, he offered his assessment. The United States faces a slump deeper than the Great Depression. Unlike the Great Depression, however, this will be accompanied by the downgrading of Treasury debt.
We’re talking about reducing the credit of the United States of America, which is the backbone of the economic system. I see nothing but large increases in the deficit, all of which are serving to decrease the credit standing of America.... The public is not prepared to increase taxes. Both parties were for reducing taxes, reducing income to government, and both parties favored a number of new programs — all very costly and all done by the government.
All this has taken place behind the scenes this year. It has taken place on five Sundays. Then, on five Mondays, the announcement of the transfer of insolvency to the U.S. government has been made by Treasury Secretary Paulson. The public cheers.
CITIGROUP
It happened again last weekend: another Sunday surprise. The government on Sunday guaranteed the survival of Citigroup, which was about to go bankrupt. Citigroup includes Citibank.
Citigroup in 2006 had a capitalized value of $274 billion. By Thursday afternoon, this was down to $26 billion.
This was not much of a surprise. The stock market had already anticipated it. The Dow rose by almost 500 points late on Friday in expectation of the bailout. It was up another 400 points on Monday.
American investors believe in bailouts. For them, salvation happens on Sunday.
As taxpayers, they shrug it off. “We’ll grow our way out of this.” They really mean, “Our children will grow their way out of this, and will pay us our Social Security and pensions as our government has promised on their behalf.” Think of this as the equivalent of the United Auto Workers’ faith in the pension guarantees made by the Big Three American automakers.
As investors, they cheer. “No more losses!” Think of this as the United Auto Workers’ view of competition in 1965.
To understand the enormous gullibility of investors, let me cite directly from a Citi document that I downloaded this week. Save it before senior management takes it down.
You’ll never be alone with the CitiMortgage Correspondent Team by your side. When it comes to running your business, confidence and support mean everything. We know how important it is to work with an investor who has your best interests at heart, with a proven track record for consistent stability in the industry. As a financial institution that’s been a trusted leader, innovator and model of consistency for over 200 years, you can feel confident working with CitiMortgage Correspondent. We take pride in our ability to instill confidence in both our people and our clients, which translates to stronger, long-term relationships. If you are interested in becoming a CitiMortgage Correspondent, please read below to learn more about the benefits CitiMortgage offers. The Power and Stability of Citi — As one of the leading investors in the industry, CitiMortgage offers the power and stability our clients need to grow their businesses.
It goes on like this for two pages. Inspirational!
Investors believe in government bailouts with the same confidence that readers are expected to believe this promotional piece by Citi.
Before I comment on the Citi bailout, let me review the history of recent Sunday deliverances. I call these Sunday surprises.
THE FIRST SURPRISE
The first Sunday surprise took place on March 16. The New York Times described it late that afternoon.
Bear Stearns, pushed to the brink of bankruptcy by what amounted to a run on the bank, agreed late Sunday to sell itself to JPMorgan Chase for a mere $2 a share, narrowly averting a collapse that threatened to cascade through the financial system. The price represents a startling 93 percent discount to Bear Stearns’ closing stock price on Friday on the New York Stock Exchange. Bankers and policy makers raced to complete the deal before financial markets in Asia opened on Monday, as fears grew that the financial panic could spread if Bear Stearns failed to find a buyer. The deal, done at the behest of the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department, punctuates the stunning downfall of one of Wall Street’s biggest and most storied firms.
Less than a week earlier, the CEO of Bear Stearns, Alan Schwartz, had assured the public that the company was solvent, that there was no problem. A Reuters story was typical of the press’s handling of the story.
Schwartz, in a televised interview on CNBC, also said he is comfortable with the range of analysts’ earnings estimates for the fiscal first quarter ended Feb. 29. Results for the quarter are due next week. “We don’t see any pressure on our liquidity, let alone a liquidity crisis,” he said. Bear finished fiscal 2007 with $17 billion of cash sitting at the parent company level as a “liquidity cushion,” he said. “That cushion has been virtually unchanged. We have $17 billion or so excess cash on the balance sheet,” he said. Schwartz denied speculation that other brokers were turning down Bear’s credit on trades for fear of counter-party risk.
According to an article published weeks later, this “speculation” was introduced by the CNBC interviewer, who cited an anonymous source that Goldman Sachs had turned down a Bear Stearns trade. Schwartz denied it.
“There’s been a lot of volatility in the market, a lot of disruption. That’s causing some administrative pressure, getting trades settled. We’re in constant dialogue with all the major dealers, and I have not been made aware of anybody not taking our credit,” he said.
The Reuters article went on to describe the state of the markets.
As one of the largest players in mortgage-backed bond markets, investors have assumed Bear’s exposure would lead to crippling losses. “None of that speculation is true,” Schwartz said. When speculation starts in a market, one that has a lot of emotion in it and people concerned with volatility, “they will sell first and ask questions later,” he said. “That creates its own momentum.”
The critic of this chain of events argues that there never was verifiable evidence that Goldman Sachs or any other firm had turned down Bear Stearns’ business.
The market did not care. This supposed solvency turned out to be irrelevant within hours. Bear Stearns’ stock price continued to fall on Thursday and Friday. By Monday morning, Bear Stearns was no more.
A rumor cannot create this outcome except when fears are rampant and leverage is high. Bear Stearns was the victim of high leverage and bad forecasts. It took a fire sale on Sunday, initiated by the New York Federal Reserve Bank, to keep Bear from going bankrupt on Monday, March 17: St. Patrick’s Day.
To sweeten the deal, the Federal Reserve absorbed the risk for $29 billion of Bear Stearns’ debt.
The public outcry and the threat of a shareholders’ lawsuit against the $2 per share price later led to Morgan upping the price to $10.
As for the $17 billion in liquidity, Morgan must have gotten it as part of the firm’s assets. We never heard any more about it.
Paraphrasing Bunker Hunt’s statement in 1980, as he was going bankrupt, when the FED had to lend him a billion dollars, “Seventeen billion just doesn’t go as far as it used to.”
THE SECOND SURPRISE
On Sunday, September 7, Treasury Secretary Paulson announced that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had been taken over by the U.S. government. He issued this press release.
Before I turn to Jim to discuss the action he is taking today, let me make clear that these two institutions are unique. They operate solely in the mortgage market and are therefore more exposed than other financial institutions to the housing correction. Their statutory capital requirements are thin and poorly defined as compared to other institutions. Nothing about our actions today in any way reflects a changed view of the housing correction or of the strength of other U.S. financial institutions.
Note these words: “Nothing about our actions today in any way reflects a changed view of the housing correction or of the strength of other U.S. financial institutions.” A week later, Paulson & Co. were at it again. They tried — and failed — to keep Lehman Brothers Holdings from going bankrupt.
Paulson’s press release then made a statement that will haunt the financial markets for the news two years — maybe three.
I have long said that the housing correction poses the biggest risk to our economy. It is a drag on our economic growth, and at the heart of the turmoil and stress for our financial markets and financial institutions. Our economy and our markets will not recover until the bulk of this housing correction is behind us.
I can think of no more accurate statement from Mr. Paulson during his term of office. The housing correction is in its early phase. As it accelerates, so will the “the turmoil and stress for our financial markets and financial institutions.” Count on it.
This was the nationalization of America’s mortgage industry. By September 2008, Fannie and Freddie were supplying 90% of all residential mortgages in the United States. But Paulson did not use the N-word. He picked another.
I support the Director’s decision as necessary and appropriate and had advised him that conservatorship was the only form in which I would commit taxpayer money to the GSEs.
“Conservatorship.” How reassuring. Nationalization would have seemed so crass, so anti-free market.
Then he admitted what is still true: the mortgage market is at the heart of the U.S. economy. The economy was heading for a cliff.
And let me make clear what today’s actions mean for Americans and their families. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are so large and so interwoven in our financial system that a failure of either of them would cause great turmoil in our financial markets here at home and around the globe. This turmoil would directly and negatively impact household wealth: from family budgets, to home values, to savings for college and retirement. A failure would affect the ability of Americans to get home loans, auto loans and other consumer credit and business finance. And a failure would be harmful to economic growth and job creation. That is why we have taken these actions today.
This is the issue of systemic risk, or, as the old spiritual put it, “the knee bone connected to the thigh bone. The thigh bone connected to the....” And so on. Paulson called for government intervention to keep the market from imposing its negative sanctions on bad decisions made by the leaders at Fannie and Freddie.
And policymakers must address the issue of systemic risk. I recognize that there are strong differences of opinion over the role of government in supporting housing, but under any course policymakers choose, there are ways to structure these entities in order to address market stability in the transition and limit systemic risk and conflict of purposes for the long-term. We will make a grave error if we don’t use this time out to permanently address the structural issues presented by the GSEs.
There was no mention of the taxpayers’ price tag on this “conservatorship.” Combined, the two outfits have guaranteed over $5 trillion in mortgages. To this was added the Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS) that had been sold — and borrowed against — to buy these mortgages. What of these investments?
Because the U.S. Government created these ambiguities, we have a responsibility to both avert and ultimately address the systemic risk now posed by the scale and breadth of the holdings of GSE debt and MBS.
The move was immediately praised by Ben Bernanke. Bond fund manager Bill Gross also praised it.
THE THIRD SURPRISE
A week after the nationalization of the mortgage market, there was another emergency meeting. This time, the survival of the huge investment-banking firm of Lehman Brothers Holdings was at stake. So little known was this 160-year-old institution that knowledgeable commentators still do not know how to pronounce Lehman: “Leeman” or “Layman.” (“Leeman.”)
Another institution facing bankruptcy was Merrill Lynch, the largest and most famous retail brokerage form in the United States.
The result of Sunday’s meeting: Lehman declared bankruptcy on Monday morning and Merrill was bought by Bank of America for $50 billion of BofA stock.
All of this was done behind closed doors over a weekend. That was how desperate the government and the Federal Reserve were to get the deals done by Monday morning. They failed with Lehman. No deal.
Lehman had over $100 billion in bonds outstanding. It reported its debts at $613 billion and its assets at $639 billion.
According to its former CEO, Richard Fuld, he took out $300 million in the eight years prior to the collapse of his company.
By the end of the week, September 21, two other investment banks, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, filed with the FED for bank holding company status. That was on a Saturday. This switch was immediately granted. This entitled them to the bailout money being offered by the Federal Reserve System and anything Congress might pass. Congress passed a $700 bailout plan, plus $150 billion in pork, by the end of September.
That was the last of the Big Five investment banks. The survivors are minor players that only specialists have heard of, such as Jeffries.
Goldman Sachs’ press release on September 21 is worth considering. It mentioned that it had been founded in 1869. It was a private banking firm open only to “high net worth individuals.” No longer.
“When Goldman Sachs was a private partnership, we made the decision to become a public company, recognizing the need for permanent capital to meet the demands of scale. While accelerated by market sentiment, our decision to be regulated by the Federal Reserve is based on the recognition that such regulation provides its members with full prudential supervision and access to permanent liquidity and funding,” said Lloyd C. Blankfein, Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs. “We believe that Goldman Sachs, under Federal Reserve supervision, will be regarded as an even more secure institution with an exceptionally clean balance sheet and a greater diversity of funding sources.”
That said it all. The rich no longer could survive on their own. From now on, they will need to be “under Federal Reserve supervision.”
We are at the end of an era that stretches back to early nineteenth-century America. The whole nation now looks to fiat money and government bailouts. The era of American entrepreneurship has ended in the financial markets.
THE FOURTH SURPRISE
On the weekend of September 27, FDIC officials met with officials of America’s fourth largest bank, Wachovia, and officials of America’s no-longer largest bank, Citigroup. They hammered out a merger. This was done with no public announcement. The announcement came in a press release on Monday morning, before the stock market opened.
Citigroup Inc. will acquire the banking operations of Wachovia Corporation; Charlotte, North Carolina, in a transaction facilitated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and concurred with by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve and the Secretary of the Treasury in consultation with the President. All depositors are fully protected and there is expected to be no cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund. Wachovia did not fail; rather, it is to be acquired by Citigroup Inc. on an open bank basis with assistance from the FDIC.
It was a sweet deal for Citigroup.
Citigroup Inc. will acquire the bulk of Wachovia’s assets and liabilities, including five depository institutions and assume senior and subordinated debt of Wachovia Corp. Wachovia Corporation will continue to own Wachovia Securities, AG Edwards and Evergreen. The FDIC has entered into a loss sharing arrangement on a pre-identified pool of loans. Under the agreement, Citigroup Inc. will absorb up to $42 billion of losses on a $312 billion pool of loans. The FDIC will absorb losses beyond that. Citigroup has granted the FDIC $12 billion in preferred stock and warrants to compensate the FDIC for bearing this risk.
It was too sweet a deal. Wells Fargo sued Citigroup. Citigroup was offering $2.2 billion for Wachovia. Wells Fargo was offering $15 billion. Wells Fargo eventually triumphed. That move gave Wells Fargo more branches than any other bank, plus deposits equaling Bank of America.
THE FIFTH SURPRISE
Citigroup was the institutional heir of the Rockefeller family, through William, the brother of John D. William’s son James Stillman Rockefeller, who became chairman in 1959.
The bank’s history goes back to the War of 1812. So large was this bank that it was the first contributor to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 1914.
On November 4, 2007, its CEO, Chuck Prince, resigned. The next day, I told my Website’s subscribers to get out of stocks and short the S&P 500.
According to a report on Bloomberg, in late 2006, the capitalized value of Citigroup was $274 billion. It was the largest bank in the United States in terms of market value, with Bank of America second. By September 21, 2008, its capitalized value was in the range of $26 billion.
The extent of the bank’s condition was published only after the Sunday bailout. At that point, the government and the Federal Reserve had to come clean. The disaster could no longer be concealed. What had been the largest bank in terms of market value had slipped to #6, and was about to go bust. This is why the government intervened.
The government (you and I) will shield the bank’s shareholders and creditors against most of the losses in its portfolio of toxic loans.
Terms of the asset guarantees mean Citigroup will cover the first $29 billion of pretax losses from the $306 billion pool, in addition to any reserves it already has set aside. After that, the government covers 90 percent of the losses, with Citigroup covering the rest from assets that include leveraged loans and so-called structured investment vehicles.
The government will pay $20 billion for $27 billion of preferred stock, which will pay 8%. (It will pay 8% only because the government will pay off the bad loans.)
The government has already provided $25 billion in the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which is part of the $700 billion bailout bill, passed in late September.
“This is a partial government takeover,” Christopher Whalen of Institutional Risk Analytics, a Torrance, California-based research firm, said in a Bloomberg Radio interview. “We have been telling people for a while that some of the top banks were going to end up controlled by the government next year. It looks like that’s happening sooner than even we expected.”
In a lengthy, detailed article published in the New York Times on November 22 — two years too late — the reporters trace the history of bad decisions made by senior managers at Citi. The article shows that there were red flags, but no one paid any attention. The article also indicates that there may be more bad news to come.
Call it “Citi bailout, phase I.”
CONCLUSION
America’s biggest banks are going bust or have gone bust. Little banks are toppling each week. There is no end in sight.
The government, which is running a trillion-dollar deficit this fiscal year, is adding ever more debt to save the favored banks. It is buying the banks’ insolvency in the name of future taxpayers.
The buyers of Treasury debt and the Federal Reserve System are funding all of this. They think future taxpayers will pay them back. I don’t. I think there will be a tax revolt: mass inflation.
Meanwhile, every dollar that flows into the Treasury does not flow into the private sector. The nationalization of insolvency continues. The authority to make decisions regarding who will get the shrinking supply of private savings that the banks have not already absorbed to keep their doors open has been transferred to a new generation of capitalists, people who live in fear of government regulators, not depositors.
The year 2008 has seen the end of free market financial capitalism. Forget about efficiency. Forget about stable economic growth. Forget about everything except solvency as defined in fiat money.
Moral hazard is alive and well in the West. Free capital markets are not.
It was nice while it lasted. But it could not last. State capitalism always demands bailouts. It always gets what it asks for.
Senior managers got the gold mine. Taxpayers got the shaft.
Gary North [send him mail] is the author of Mises on Money. Visit http://www.garynorth.com. He is also the author of a free 20-volume series, An Economic Commentary on the Bible.
Copyright © 2008 LewRockwell.comDeputy foreign ministers hopeful of agreement by 20 July but warn of opposition from anti-Rouhani hardliners and Israel
Spoilers and "dark forces" are attempting to wreck efforts to clinch a historic compromise between Iran and the west on the country's nuclear programme, senior members of Iran's negotiating team have told the Guardian.
Speaking before a new round of expert-level talks, due to begin on Tuesday in New York, Seyed Abbas Araqchi, the deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, said Iran remained hopeful that a comprehensive agreement could be reached by the 20 July deadline.
But Araqchi, part of Iran's three-man lead negotiating team, warned that many pitfalls remained, including a chronic lack of trust between the US and Iran, a host of inter-related technical issues, and outside attempts to derail the process.
"There are spoilers everywhere who don't want an agreement, there are dark forces who don't like this process … It is clear some people don't want to resolve this issue in a peaceful and logical way," Araqchi said during an exclusive interview at the foreign ministry in Tehran.
"I don't want to use the word 'warmongers'. But these people want continuing tension, a continuing crisis in our region. They don't want the sanctions on Iran to end. They don't want Iran to be a major player in this region, although in fact it already is."
Araqchi did not name any country but his remarks appeared aimed at the Israeli government, which believes Iran is intent on covertly developing nuclear weapons – a claim Tehran firmly denies. Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has been highly critical of the talks between Iran and the P5+1, the five permanent UN security council members plus Germany.
Araqchi noted that rightwing Republicans in the US Congress had opposed an interim agreement reached in Geneva last November that afforded Iran limited sanctions relief in return for slowing its nuclear programme. Congress must approve any final deal.
But he conceded that he and the other negotiators were under fire within Iran, where hardliners have condemned earlier concessions. "Obviously in Iran we have a pluralistic society. There are different ideas, different opinions, there are those who believe we should not negotiate at all.
"There are some people in the Majlis [parliament] who are very critical and we must answer to them. We should let all the voices be heard."
Araqchi said there was considerable pressure on the Iranian team to get an acceptable result. Although the atmosphere in the talks was friendly and constructive, carrying responsibility for the negotiations was "very stressful".
The two other team members are Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran's foreign minister, and Majid Takht-Ravanchi, the deputy foreign minister for European and American affairs.
"We feel supported by the majority of the society. The political structure of the country supports us as a whole. That does not mean there is not criticism."
Araqchi said the talks were going in the right direction. "Whether it gets to a conclusion is something else. Obviously we are hopeful. For our part, we are very serious and we have goodwill. If the other side reciprocates, hopefully we will come to an end. But anything can happen."
He said the next top-level round of talks, due to begin in Vienna on 13 May, would be the most difficult part so far, because the parties had agreed to start writing a draft of a final agreement.
The many outstanding, highly complex technical issues were all linked, he said. The P5+1 countries did not always have a united position. And it was understood that nothing was agreed until everything was agreed. "We could get 95% agreement and the last 5% could ruin everything."
Araqchi said Iran's centrist president, Hassan Rouhani, was keen for a deal in order to end sanctions but the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, a religious conservative, was "not optimistic" agreement could be reached.
"Rouhani has invested a lot in this, he has raised expectations … But I think people understand the complexities of the situation. I don't think it would be a big blow to Rouhani if there is no agreement. People understand he has done his best."
Iranian insiders say that while Araqchi has the ear of the supreme leader and Zarif is Rouhani's right-hand man, Takht-Ravanchi, the third member of the team, is the brains behind the Iranian operation.
Speaking to the Guardian in his office in Tehran, Takht-Ravanchi said: "I am not pessimistic regarding a deal. We are doing our best to finish the job before 20 July." Extending the deadline was not ruled out, he said.
The Iranian government had to reassure domestic critics that a deal was in the nation's interests. For its part the Obama administration must ensure any agreement was fully implemented, including obtaining congressional approval.
"All the sanctions must be lifted if we are to have an agreement," he said. "It is up to them [the Americans and Europeans] to do their homework."
Ravanchi said apparent US attempts to introduce what Iran regards as irrelevant issues into the negotiations, such as human rights and Iran's long-range missile capabilities, could not be allowed and would not be discussed.
Asked whether the Ukraine crisis had strengthened Iran's hand by highlighting Europe's need for non-Russian oil and gas supplies, as some in Tehran believe, Ravanchi said the negotiators were focused solely on the nuclear issue.
"We have nothing else in mind. Naturally Iran and Europe could have much better cooperation on the economy, trade, energy. We believe there is much room for improvement."
Enmity between the US and Iran dating back to the 1979 revolution constantly overshadowed the talks and was hard to escape, Araqchi said. "We have tried to rebuild confidence but we have not been very successful … What we need now is wisdom and luck."If you're on the hunt for a new position that will let you shine, practice demonstrating these top seven traits that CEOs look for in star employees.
Your resume can get you the interview. But these traits can get you hired:
1. Happiness
No one wants to work with an unhappy person. Negativity, unnecessary drama, and melancholy attitudes can bring the entire company down, so although your own personal happiness may not seem important when applying for a job, it most certainly is. Happiness also reflects your ability to tackle challenges without becoming discouraged. If you show the hiring CEO that you're a positive, mentally healthy person, your chances of becoming the company's next star employee will vastly improve.
Signs of happiness:
2. Creativity
Even if job duties don't require much creative thinking, CEOs still want to hire creative people. Innovation goes a long way in maximizing an employee's potential. You may enter the position and find new, better ways to perform old tasks. Creative employees may also come up with entirely new ideas for guiding the company toward success.
3. Hustle
As the old adage goes, time is money. CEOs want the job done, and they want it done yesterday. But it's not just about speed; it's about your drive to be efficient. Are you going to squeeze all the hours you can out of a single project, or will you get it done as quickly as possible? If I'm your CEO, I don't want you to sacrifice quality. I just don't want you to waste my time or money. Every second you're on the clock but not producing, my company is losing. Hustle in your job duties, and I'll be sure to recognize you as a star employee. How could I ignore that drive?
4. Honesty
Nothing can turn off a CEO faster than dishonesty. As an employee, you'll be entrusted with inside information and the company's best interests. So basically, if I'm spending money on you, I want to know you're actually going to deliver the work I'm paying for without risking my company's reputation and overall health.
Don't lie on your resume. Don't lie in your interview. Don't lie after I hire you. CEOs can't run companies without honest, dedicated support.
5. Flexibility
If I hire you as a full-time employee, I want you to do what it takes to help my company--end of story. Of course, that doesn't mean you should be expected to work insane hours or risk your own well-being, but you should be flexible in your position. Yes, you may work a desk job, and no, helping out in the warehouse is not in your job description. Assuming you genuinely care about the company you work for, however, the CEO should still be able to expect a certain amount of flexibility from you.
6. Passion
CEOs want to know their employees actually enjoy their jobs and are constantly striving to improve professionally. Even if the position you're applying for isn't your dream job, you should demonstrate a general passion for the industry, the company and your chosen career path. Otherwise, as CEO, I risk hiring someone who doesn't really care. The CEO needs employees who care. The company depends on it. Employees who are passionate about their jobs are more fun to work with anyway!
And if it seems that money is your only big motivator, forget about the job. CEOs understand the need to pay bills and your drive to progress financially, but your desire to increase your salary doesn't impress me whatsoever.
7. Confidence
Do you shy away from challenges, or do you take them on knowing you at least have a decent |
Year!
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The web has become a pretty impersonal place, but it doesn’t have to be! By humanizing your insights and experience you will rise above your competition and see more revenue hit your bank account each month.We’ve reached a magical time in the great story unfolding before us, the time when everybody knows that Trump is guilty, but the verdict is not yet in. I remember exactly how it happened in the Watergate story, when everybody knew Nixon was guilty of ordering the break-in at the DNC headquarters at the Watergate hotel and office complex and supervised the cover-up, but evidence sufficient to prove his guilt wasn’t yet available. Guilty men lie, and lie repeatedly. Their early lies beget later lies; their little lies beget bigger lies; their implausible lies beget extraordinary lies; they tell more and more outrageous lies as their day of reckoning closes in. It was true of Nixon and now it’s true of Trump. The lies multiply, they become ever more far-fetched, and finally the day arrives when lying doesn’t work anymore. We’re there with Trump. He lies practically every time he takes a breath, but his lies aren’t working anymore. He’s choking from lack of oxygen. He’s a dead man lying.
There are amazing similarities in the way the two scandals unfolded. Watergate began with the break-in and wiretapping of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in an attempt to gather intelligence on the McGovern campaign for president. Russiagate began with the hacking of the Democratic National Committee server in an attempt to gather intelligence on the Clinton campaign for president. The object of the break-ins, both physical and cyber, was to disrupt the Democratic Party and gain advantage for the Republican candidate in the election campaign. Both scandals began to unravel fairly quickly. The second time the Nixon plumbers broke into the Watergate they were discovered and the administration’s crimes began to be uncovered. The Russian hacking of the DNC was discovered when Wikileaks published Clinton’s emails and the Trump campaign began using the product of this crime to their advantage.
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Then came the step-by-step uncovering of the facts behind the break-ins. In the Watergate case, it involved people on the Nixon re-election committee planning and executing the break-in and cover-up. In the Trump-Russia case, it involves Trump’s people using the ill-gotten information hacked by Russians against his opponent, Hillary Clinton. It took months and then years to reveal the crimes and the cover-up of Watergate. One Nixon campaign worker after another was turned and subsequently cooperated with the Watergate investigation. John Mitchell, the former attorney general turned Nixon campaign chairman, was implicated. Evidence was revealed of campaign money being laundered and used to pay the Watergate burglars to carry out the wiretapping of the Democrats, and of more money used to buy their silence. Then the investigation reached into the Nixon administration and the Nixon White House itself, and people working directly for Nixon were implicated in the crime and cover-up. In order to continue the cover-up, Nixon had to begin firing his own people. He fired John Dean. He fired John Erlichman and H.R. Haldeman. He fired Chuck Colson. Eventually, the man under investigation fired the man investigating him. He fired special prosecutor Archibald Cox in a bald-faced attempt to bring an end to the Watergate investigation.
In the Russiagate case, one Trump campaign worker after another has been revealed to have had contacts with the Russians running the attacks on the Democratic party. There was Roger Stone. There was Carter Page. There was Paul Manafort. As their Russia contacts were revealed, each of them was fired — Stone, Page, Manafort. Then the investigation reached into the Trump White House. First, National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was found to have had multiple contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Then it was revealed that he had discussed relaxing the Obama administration’s Russian sanctions with Kislyak. Flynn was fired. Then Sally Yates, the acting Attorney General who discovered Flynn’s conversations with Kislyak, thought wrongly that the White House didn’t know about them and warned the White House counsel about Flynn being compromised by the Russians. Yates was fired.
On Jan. 27, the day after Yates first warned the White House about Flynn, Trump summoned FBI Director James Comey to the White House for dinner and tried to get him to shut down the investigation of Trump’s Russia connections by asking him to pledge “loyalty” to the president. Three weeks later to the day, Comey went before the House Intelligence Committee and announced that Trump, his campaign and transition team had been under criminal and counterintelligence investigation for more than nine months. Trump began complaining in tweets and interviews that the “Russia thing” was a “hoax” and “fake news.” When his transparent attempt to quash the investigation with public bullying didn’t work, Trump began complaining to aides about Comey and asking what could be done about him. This week, the man under investigation once again fired the man investigating him. Trump generated an entirely false story and used it to justify firing Comey. Tump lied about why he fired Comey, and almost immediately admitted firing him because he wanted the Russiagate investigation shut down, and Comey wouldn’t do it.
At the same point in the Watergate scandal everyone knew an impeachable offense had been committed. Everyone knew that the man under investigation firing the man investigating him is prima facie obstruction of justice. But even in the face of his outrageous flouting of the law and the Constitution, the political will to impeach Nixon wasn’t there. What was needed was evidence of the underlying crimes in Watergate. Who ordered the break-in? Who orchestrated the cover-up? That investigation became available when it was revealed that Nixon had taped every conversation he had had in the Oval Office. Nixon fought to keep the tapes from becoming evidence all the way to the Supreme Court. When he lost, the tapes were turned over and conversations establishing Nixon’s guilt were found, and articles of impeachment were drawn up by the House of Representatives.
The most serious of those articles was obstruction of justice, because obstruction of justice isn’t merely a crime in the U.S. Code, it is a crime against the Constitution itself. Article II recommended by the congress read in part that Nixon had “repeatedly engaged in conduct violating the constitutional rights of citizens, impairing the due and proper administration of justice and the conduct of lawful inquiries, or contravening the laws governing agencies of the executive branch and the purposes of these agencies.” The articles of impeachment were voted by the Judiciary Committee onto the House floor. Before a vote to impeach could be taken by the House of Representatives, Senators Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott and Representative John Rhodes went to the White House and informed Nixon he would be impeached by the House and convicted by trial in the Senate, and Nixon agreed to resign in lieu of impeachment in return for a promise that he would be pardoned for his crimes. Nixon was gone and Watergate was over.
Now we are at the same point in the Trump-Russia investigation. Everyone knows that Trump is guilty. Everyone knows he tried to get Comey to shut down his investigation, and when he failed, he enlisted the vice president, the attorney general and the deputy attorney general in firing the FBI director, and then Trump and his aides began lying about the motivation for the dismissal.
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Everyone knows why Trump fired Comey. Everyone knows they all lied about it. Everyone knows that this is obstruction of justice. Everyone knows that this is an impeachable offense. And yet, just as it was after Nixon fired Archibald Cox, the political will isn’t yet there to impeach the president. Once again what is needed to reach that point is evidence of the underlying crimes. This is the very evidence Trump has been attempting to suppress by declaring the whole “Russia thing” a “hoax” and “fake news.” The underlying evidence is what Trump tried to suppress when he fired FBI Director Comey. The FBI reportedly now has more than 100 agents in at least three field offices working on the Trump-Russia investigation. There were reports this week that the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the Treasury Department has been enlisted in the investigation and is looking into Trump’s business affairs and Russian money paid to members of Trump’s campaign.
There were reports this week that subpoenas have been issued by grand juries sitting in Northern Virginia and the Eastern District of New York. There were also reports that sealed indictments are being held by a Federal Judge in Northern Virginia. Evidence of the underlying crimes is out there, and it’s not that far away. There is a noose around Trump’s neck and it is tightening and he knows it and he’s panicking and he’s trying to do the thing that has worked for him all of his life: he’s trying to lie his way out of it. But this time, Donald Trump is a dead man lying.Professional hockey in Colorado has seen better days. The 2016-17 NHL season marked the worst season in the history of the Colorado Avalanche. We have had to turn to the ECHL for any semblance of success in this great sport. We are forced to hope and pray that our prospects don’t become busts and wait for them to enter the league. We have seen better days. But, alas, that’s just the way she goes sometimes. The Avs will get better, just as the Blackhawks and Penguins before them who saw perpetual disappointment eventually replaced by sustained success. Time is a flat circle and improvement is inevitable. While we’re waiting though, why not revisit another time and a team you may not have heard of… this is the history of the Denver Spurs.
The WHL Years
The Denver Spurs came onto the scene as an expansion team in the, now defunct, Western Hockey League (no relation to the major junior hockey league). The league was of the minor pro variety and teams annually fought for the Lester Patrick Cup.
As you can see by their year-by-year record, the Spurs’ WHL years were marked by mediocrity except for one season – 1971-72. That season would prove to be a monumental one for the Spurs and for Colorado sports in general. The 1971 WHL season brought to the Centennial State its first pro sports championship as the Spurs prevailed over the Portland Buckaroos. Before continuing, let’s take a moment to appreciate each team’s glorious threads.
Anyhow, the Spurs swept their first round matchup that year against the San Diego Gulls and beat the Buckaroos four games to one. Saskatchewan native, Fran Huck, was our leading scorer that year in both the regular season and playoffs. Huck was also proficient at growing a luscious lip sweater.
The CHL Years
The WHL folded at the conclusion of its 1974 season so the Spurs shifted to another now defunct league, the Central Hockey League (again, no relation to the umbrella organization of major junior leagues). Denver achieved satisfactory results in their maiden season in the CHL. They had the third best record out of eight teams (36-29-13) and made it to the playoffs, losing in the first round. It should be noted that before the CHL season started, the owner of the Spurs, Ivan Mullenix, reached a conditional agreement to be part of the NHL’s 1976-77 expansion
The WHA Years
Things get interesting in 1975 as the NHL called off the proposed expansion. This caused Mullenix to make a deal with the World Hockey Association (WHA; a league on par with the NHL, talent-wise) to be part of their expansion into the Colorado market. Fielding a team made up of players from the recently folded Chicago Cougars (which the Spurs were essentially replacing) and their CHL team, the Denver Spurs entered the WHA for the 1975-76 season. As it would seem, this year’s Colorado Avalanche took inspiration from the 1975-76 Spurs – who finished last in the league with a difference of 24 points between their point total and the second-last team’s (the difference between this year’s Avs and the Canucks was 21 points so at least we’ve made some progress). The team also performed horribly with regard to attendance, drawing the lowest number of fans (roughly 3,000 per game) in the league to games at brand new McNichols Arena (which seats 16,800). This proved disastrous to the franchise’s future in Colorado. In December of 1975, midway through the season, the team was sold and moved to Ottawa, becoming the Ottawa Civics.
While the life of the Spurs franchise was undoubtedly bleak, they did leave an impression on Colorado. While the Spurs only gave a taste of this great sport to the state, they were still pioneers and exposed a population to the thrills of sport on ice. Coloradans didn’t have to wait long for this taste to be satiated as the NHL’s Colorado Rockies came onto the scene in 1976 (before leaving for New Jersey in 1982).Doc Rivers has caught heat for his upper-management moves since becoming Clippers Vice President of basketball operations during June of 2013. The criticism has gotten even harsher after taking over as president last summer. His comments in a USA TODAY article from Monday morning won’t help that.
Here is what Rivers told the paper in this revealing piece from Sam Amick:
I want to fix it. I want to win. That’s why I came here. I knew when I came here that roster-wise it was going to be very difficult. The first thing I did before I took this job, I looked at the roster and we laughed. I was like, ‘What the (expletive) can we do with this?’ It was more the contracts. But we have to try to do it somehow. I don’t know how yet, but something will work out.
That sounds fine and dandy. Come to a team with bad contracts, and you’re going to struggle to make impact moves until you unload those deals. But there’s one fallacy in Rivers’ statement, and it’s a pretty darn important one: The Clippers weren’t actually loaded with bad contracts when Doc came over from Boston during the summer of 2013. Actually, Rivers, himself, has created a habit of turning useful salaries into undesirable ones, as if he’s backwardly spinning gold wire into straw.
Now, he’s also spinning his own version of the truth.
Upon his initial arrival, the Clippers had two max players on the roster: Blake Griffin and Chris Paul. DeAndre Jordan, who will command a max contract this offseason, had two years and about $22 million remaining on a valuable deal. Caron Butler had an expiring $8 million contract, a legitimate asset inside an organization which was trying to trade Eric Bledsoe. Butler could help grease any salaries the Clippers would want to bring back in a potential deal (which is exactly what ended up happening when they dealt Bledsoe, Butler and a couple of picks for Jared Dudley and J.J. Redick). Jamal Crawford had three years left on a deal he signed for the full mid-level exception, but the final two years of it were only partially guaranteed. The rest of the roster was made up with rookie and minimum contracts.
Rivers wasn’t done making against-the-grain comments to Amick, later commenting on how to upgrade the roster during the coming offseason.
You’ve got to give (Paul) just some more support, you know? I think bringing (his son) Austin (Rivers) here (in mid-January) helped us. We’ve got a 22-year-old (in Austin), and now to me we’ve got to get another guard who’s in the middle age group. So now you’re growing with Austin and CJ (Wilcox), and we need another defensive guy too.
All year, we’ve heard fans, writers and analysts alike refer to Doc, the Coach and Doc, the GM as if they were two different people. But at times, like when he makes comments like these, it almost appears as if Doc Rivers and Doc Rivers are actually two different people who just so happen to have the same name and face.
He talks about moving forward with Wilcox, but Rivers, the Coach played the rookie a mere 101 minutes the entire season after drafting him 28th this past summer. It’s just another inconsistency we’ve seen from Rivers, a running theme during his two-year stay in L.A.
That’s how the acceptable contracts turn into bad ones. When the Clips acquired Jared Dudley two years ago, no one batted an eye at his $4 million a year contract. Actually, many considered it to be a bargain for a wing who could drain threes and play smart defense. Yet, after one down year in blue, red and white (after which Dudley admitted to Grantland’s Zach Lowe he was playing while seriously injured, something Rivers knew about), the small forward became part of a contract dump.
From super to superfluous.
Unloading Dudley was a link in a chain of events—one uninspired, anxious move followed by another, each one an attempt to cover up for a previous mistake.
Rivers admits his errors, too, whether he knows it or not. The release of Jordan Farmar says so. So does Spencer Hawes’ dwindling playing time throughout the season. And if those transactions erred on the side of disastrous, then the adjacent moves they were forced to make to acquire those players (like the Dudley trade, which included unloading a first-round pick just to give away a wing who would shoot 39 percent from three while playing capable D at the 3 and 4 for a playoff team) were beyond reproach.
Rivers implying he took over an organization hampered with bad contracts was a subtle—and somewhat unnecessary—dig at former Clippers and current Trail Blazers GM Neil Olshey, as well as one at Gary Sacks, who ran the Clippers front office the season before Rivers got there and actually finished second in Executive of the Year voting that season. He is currently the Clippers’ assistant GM. Anyone will tell you Olshey is the best general manager in the history of the organization, though there isn’t exactly much competing against him. He compiled assets to make the Chris Paul trade. He’s the man who put together the 2010-11, 22-and-under lineup of Bledsoe, Eric Gordon, Al-Farouq Aminu, Griffin and Jordan which had every Clippers fan gushing about the future. Now, though, the future is here, and still, it doesn’t seem good enough.
The Clippers lost to the Rockets in seven games for a variety of reasons, much of which was predicated on their lack of depth. The team was so obviously tired late in the series that maybe the speculated mental collapse and the admitted tightness didn’t matter as much as everyone says. Maybe if the Haweses and Hedo Turkoglus of the world were more playable, then L.A. would’ve been able to get into the Western Conference Finals, regardless.
That’s not on the contracts of yesteryear. It’s not on the moves of Olshey or Sacks. It’s on the unfortunate decisions of this current Clippers front office, one which includes general manager Dave Wohl and Vice President of Basketball Operations Kevin Eastman, though Rivers has final say in personnel decisions.
Failure isn’t always the worst possible result. People can learn from it. But obliviousness stunts progression, and now we’re left wondering if L.A. can improve at all if it’s unable to acknowledge its past faults.BURTON, MI -- Burton police arrested a 36-year-old Sterling Heights man known as Bee Sting - a member of the Michigan Protectors group - on felonious assault and possession of body armor while committing a violent felony charges for a Thursday morning incident at Twin Meadows Mobile Home Park.
Lt. Michael Odette said Bee Sting is part of the Protectors group, which label themselves online as "a group of costumed activists," but owner Bruce Stein denies giving the group permission to act as security at the park off Fenton Road.
Around 12:07 a.m. Thursday, a 38-year-old man was riding into the park with his girlfriend when the pair were approached by Bee Sting because of the volume of the motorcycle.
"Bee Sting approaches the man about how he was driving his motorcycle too loud," said Odette.
The costumed man was equipped with a tactical belt, pepper spray, scissors and handcuffs, and wearing a bullet-proof vest, black leather jacket with a bee logo, shin guards, knee pads, black leather gloves and carrying a shotgun.
A verbal confrontation ensued between the men, Odette said, when "It escalates and the suspect, Mr. Bee Sting, according to our victim points a gun at him."
The victim was able to grab the barrel of the shotgun and point it in an opposite direction, Odette said. One shot was fired and struck a nearby vacant trailer, and police arrived as the men were fighting.
Odette said the department had first heard about the Michigan Protectors group during a rash of arson fires taking place at the park.
"We discouraged him from having these modern-day, self-proclaimed superheroes in the park because of what may happen," he said, stating the department advised Stein to hire a "professional, reputable security company."
Stein said he'd been talking with one person regarding security who may be a part of the group, which was not the man inside the park during the incident.
"Right after they caught the second arsonist, there was just a lot of tension in the park, and I wanted him to see what was going on and what was happening," said Stein. "I did not give permission to the Michigan Protectors to come into the park and do what they were doing last night."
According to the Protectors website, Bee Sting is a combat veteran who after recovering from injuries sustained in Iraq returned home to help others.
The suspect's name has not been released pending his arraignment in Genesee District Court expected tomorrow.Google
When it came time to redesign the colorful bikes scattered about Google's massive Mountain View, Calif., campus, the company knew exactly who to turn to for next generation of its GBikes: Googlers themselves.
Last fall, the company launched a competition among employees to replace the 2-year-old fleet of bikes available to workers at the Googleplex to pedal from one building to another. The idea was to come up with a user-friendly, low-maintenance bike.
"We've got an entrepreneurial and innovative culture," said Brendon Harrington, Google's transportation operations manager. "We said, 'You tell us what you think is a cool design.'"
The company listed four design criteria. The bike had to be easy to produce. It needed to be affordable. The bike had to be both comfortable and secure. And, in a nod to its culture, the bike had to be Googley, using novel components, structure, and appearance.
The company got about three dozen designs, every thing from a BMX-style bike to a modern take on the old Penny-farthing high-wheel bike from the 19th century. It chose a far more conservative model -- something of a beach cruiser with coaster brakes and hand brakes. The steel bike comes with a basket and bell. And it features fenders to keep spray off cyclists' backs in the rain, and a case covering the chain to protect their clothes from grease.
"Our design motto was 'Build a user-friendly, safe and reliable, low-maintenance new GBike,'" said David Fork, a renewable energy technologist at the company, who was on the four-person team that won the competition.
Fork said he's fond of the current GBike, a cute and colorful bike that Googlers have been riding for two years. But the bikes aren't universally loved. The 20-inch wheels, which enhance the aesthetic, make them uncomfortable for taller riders.
"We love the GBikes -- especially the Googley colors -- but have also heard from many Googlers about things they wish were different," Fork said.
In their free time, the group tinkered with different component combinations.They built a couple of prototypes, all with 24-inch wheels. They tested different braking and gearing systems. They even tried airless tires, which would have eliminated flats. But the ride quality wasn't particularly good.
"We're all engineers so we've designed lots of mechanical things before," Fork said.
Google debuted its first fleet of GBikes in 2008. That model was a beach cruiser, all blue, and an entirely functional way to pedal around campus. Google introduced the current GBike with 20-inch wheels in 2010.
For their efforts, Fork's team won a $500 gift certificate to a local bike shop.
"We're still trying to figure out how to spend it," said Fork, who commutes to Google on his own bike from his Mountain View home.
Google intends to order enough of the new bikes so the more than 10,000 employees at its Mountain View campus can always find one to ride.
"We shoot for about a thousand," Harrington said. "When people want a bike, we want them to have a bike."Story highlights Airline spokeswoman says episode is not a breach
Spokeswoman: "United utilizes a number of measures to keep our flight decks secure beyond door access information"
(CNN) United Airlines announced that its cockpit door access information may have been made public, but said it has other procedures in place to secure flight decks.
In a statement obtained by CNN affiliate KCAL/KCBS, airline spokeswoman Maddie King said it's not a breach.
"The safety of our customers and crew is our top priority and United utilizes a number of measures to keep our flight decks secure beyond door access information," King said. "In the interim, this protocol ensures our cockpits remain secure."
She declined to provide additional details, saying the airline does not discuss security procedures.
CNN obtained a bulletin sent to the airline's pilots warning them that "flight deck access procedures may have been compromised." It said a corrective plan is being established.
Read MoreFormer Stars GM Joe Nieuwendyk has kept a low profile since his dismissal last spring.
Wonder what he has been up to? Well, he’s still in Dallas.
"I’m just laying low, you know?," the Hockey Hall of Famer told ESPN.com Friday on the phone from Dallas.
"I’m helping out with my son’s hockey team, keeping a close eye on what’s going on in hockey, but I’m just settling in here right now. The break has been nice."
Nieuwendyk never really did take time for himself, jumping right into the Florida Panthers front office following his All-Star playing career. His firing as Stars GM is behind him now.
"I don’t really have any regrets. I enjoyed the job," Nieuwendyk said. "I was involved with pro hockey for 27 years and now I’m taking a little time off, which is not entirely bad. I’m re-connecting with my kids and that part has really been fun."
The Nieuwendyk clan counts a 12-year-old girl, an 11-year-old boy and an 8-year-old girl.
"These are important years," Nieuwendyk said of his young family.
Would he go back to an NHL job?
"Under the right circumstances, certainly I’d look at it for sure," Nieuwendyk said.
But his family will obviously be an important factor in whatever he decides to do.Sweat-free puppeteering These temporary tattoos double as sweet hand puppets! Say goodbye to shoving your hand up an animal's butt and getting all sweaty in the process. Just stick 'em on, flap your fingers, and watch the fun begin. Monsters and animals sets available.
One of the things that always sucked about doing a puppet show was that your hands got all nasty and sweaty from being shoved up the backside of a stuffed creature for so long. Blech. And if you were anything like us (aka, crafty and somewhat devious, possibly deranged), you may have even "puppetized" some of your non-puppet stuffed animals using a pair of stolen scissors that you ran with back to your room. Those were the days, full of sweat and shears.
But this is a new era, an era of non-sweaty puppeteering for you and your wee geek! These temporary hand tattoos apply safely and easily using just water. Center the eyeball at the side of your index knuckle and line the top and bottom lips with your index finger and thumb. Once the tattoo is applied, it will move with you! Just flap your fingers and start yapping away. For the more down-to-earth geeklings, we have the animal set, which contains the bird, shark, zebra, giraffe, cow, alligator, tiger and bumblebee. If your geekling is more whimsical (or maniacal), the monster set contains crazy creatures of all stripes and spots, waiting to to the bidding of their new master or mistress. Best of all, no sweaty hands! It's the perfect toy that your children can take with them wherever they go. Namely, outside!“With limited resources and near-unlimited time, Kerrick used parts from one beast to build another.” – flavor text, Phyrexian Broodlings
Mirrodin Besieged has been gradually spoiled over the past couple of weeks (it will likely be completely spoiled as of the publication of this article), and one of the most polarizing cards has been, or as I like to call him, “One-Shot the Robot.”
For those of you who haven't seen the card (or its inspiration), I'll reproduce them here.
Wow. Those are some big, metal guys. At first glance, the new guy seems exciting. Huge, splashy cards can be a lot of fun, especially flavorful ones, and references to old cards can serve as a knowing wink to the player that “yes, we know you weren't born yesterday.” References are an especially potent tool when a block is revisiting an old location (Mirrodin in this case).
Slam dunk, right? Wrong. Reaction to the new Colossus has been mixed. People haven't all vocalized it the same way, but the general feeling amongst its detractors is that it's “too much,” like an ill-advised breast enhancement surgery that crosses the line into unseemliness and comedy.
Is a hack design, or just good ol' fun? Well, let's talk about it. Here are my thoughts on the BSC.
1. The card name has some problems and adds to the feeling that it's a hack design job.
“Phyrexia wastes nothing. Its food chain is a spiraling cycle.” – flavor text,
The name “ ” isn't exactly a Magellan-level departure from the original. I actually feel sorry for the creative team that worked on this because Darksteel cards are jammed into the “Compact Only” spaces in the naming parking lot—they all typically have the prefix “Darksteel” and then a suffix. Thus, spinning off a Darksteel name is really difficult. The name they came up with (and I was one of the people working on this) was, and it's functional. That's about it.
The name seems to suggest that infected Darksteel is known as steel, an idea thus far absent from other spoiled cards. That seems a little cute for Phyrexians. It doesn't help that infect is all over the place thematically in terms of what it does, on occasion seeming to be a disease, other times a poison, other times a drought or general dilapidation (or “blight”).
The need to keep the “Darksteel” reference intact (to flavor link to indestructibility) ended up ruining the name, as it's not easily understood whether this is an infected or a new Phyrexian creation, made from scratch out of “ steel.” It turns out the former is the case (according to Mark Rosewater's Twitter, unless I'm misunderstanding him), and in that case the name should've been “Blighted Colossus” or something similar. ( would've been the perfect name, but unfortunately that one was already taken.)
Compleated Colossus? I don't know. It's a real challenge. Considering how obvious a reference the card is, I think perhaps the name could have taken a few more chances and departed from the original. The art and text box would have brought it home, and perhaps the card would have seemed a little more “clever” and less of a flavor sledgehammer.
The name was one minor change too many on a card filled with minor changes. It's a one-syllable name change on a card with a one-word rules text change and a one-increment casting-cost change.
I'll believe you if you say you weren't being lazy, guys, but I don't think you can blame people for thinking so. (If anyone has alternative naming suggestions for this card, feel free to chime in on the forums.)
2. The infect ability doesn't make any sense on an 11/11.
“Phyrexia strives to simulate natural life, but it can't resist improving on the design.” –flavor text,
For the sake of the reference, the designers of this card have held on to the 11/11 stats of the original. This is understandable for flavor reasons, but as a result, the infect ability is a departure from the way it works on other cards and as such feels rather “tacked on.”
Infect has an incremental feel to it in terms of how it plays out in games. Infect creatures have never been known for their sturdiness and often take the forms of diminutive creatures like insects or Myr (who are not exactly known for their stature). In the case of every infect creature, you can take a look at the card and understand how infect works, flavor-wise.
A couple of examples:
– It has infectious cysts all over its body.
– As the name suggests, it's contagious and carries an airborne or bloodborne Phyrexian taint.
Lol, Phyrexian taint.
, where was I?
Oh yeah.
The point is that while infect's flavor link has always been a little loose in terms of exactly what is going on, typically the creatures have had the feeling of insects, parasites, or apocalyptic “bite you and you're infected” zombies.
An 11/11 doesn't fit anywhere into this picture. What does he do? Inject your whole country? With his fist? Do you get the plague from cysts on his knuckle that burst as you're being squashed into a Leonin pancake? Getting hit by this guy is like getting hit by a high-speed train filled with hazardous, medical waste. Sure, a dirty syringe might end up lodged in your elbow. Who cares? You just got hit by a train!
The end result of this is that the infect keyword seems like a vestigial tail, which in turn makes the card seem (you guessed it) lazy.
3. The original card was iconic but not a staple effect—making a “play” on it just ends up replacing it.
“The Phyrexians don't want to conquer Dominaria. They want to remake it.” –flavor text,
Nobody cares if you Phyrexianize a, no matter how ham-fisted it is. Think back to the spoiling of or Groundbreaker—I don't think there were many complaints about designer laziness. People were mostly just excited to play old effects in new colors.
Adding a set mechanic to a staple effect is a design method that boasts a long and profitable history. Cards like ( with threshold), (Wrath with Convoke), ( with “5 or greater” clause), and (“Edict” with Tribal) are good examples. People are used to this, since there are a finite amount of things that each color can do, and set mechanics let colors add new methods of doing those things to their respective toolboxes, while simultaneously allowing cards within a set or block to have a common theme (and play well together in Standard and Limited).
Flip the coin over to the other side, and things get ugly. The addition of a set mechanic to a card with unique (rather than staple) characteristics doesn't really accomplish much of anything, outside of devaluing the original. The original Colossus got well-deserved “ooohs” and “ahhhs” when it was spoiled, a response that the designers of BSC were probably shooting for with this new iteration. Instead, the masses are exuding more of a jaded “I see what you did there” vibe.
Using spells (rather than creatures) as an example, imagine:
and Nail.
Ultimatum.
of the Stars.
Nicol Blightas.
Add one to each of the casting costs, put an infect spin on all of their abilities, and ask yourself how happy you are with the resulting cards. Probably not too happy. The original cards are all game-enders anyway and are cards without peers that closely approximated their effects.
It's funny. Indestructible cards can't normally be destroyed. All it took to destroy was the printing of steel Colossus. People liked, and what BSC did was essentially to obsolete that card. It was almost like printing nothing at all—rather than adding a new card to Magic, this was overwriting a card.
Replacing it, so to speak, with Phyrexian efficiency.
Throwing out all that made it good and innocent and turning it into a sinister copy of itself, as it were.
Hmmm…
Uncanny that we're now lamenting the loss of a beloved, formerly iconic weapon, just as the Mirrans are. I can just see the looks of disappointment and disgust on the faces of the Auriok at the sight of a fondly remembered Colossus laid low by a pitiless, remorseless collective without human emotion.
Because was a unique, iconic card rather than a staple effect, it was a poor candidate for the “set mechanic spin-off” treatment. It should have been left alone.
4. The card will prompt a lot of concessions but won't generally get to do anything. For all the interaction it's going to have, it's barely a creature at all.
“Result: death. Prepare specimen 212.” –flavor text,
One-Shot the Robot will almost always kill an opponent in one hit. Nobody is going to cast him fairly, which means he will usually be fetched by a Forgemaster,,,,, or other unfair spell. Constructed formats contain notoriously little blocking, and as a result, BSC is going to suffer from Emrakul disease, in that it will either be dealt with or prompt a concession, without ever attacking.
In that way, BCS is not really a |
on % of missing health increased to.3/.5/.7/.9/1.1 from.2/.4/.6/.8/1
Kindred
Attack damage growth reverted to 1.7 from 2.5
to 1.7 from 2.5 Attack Speed per level reverted 2.5 from 3
Kled
Skaarl, the Cowardly Lizard (Passive) dismounted basic attack damage to minions/monsters increased to 100% from 80%
dismounted basic attack damage to minions/monsters to 100% from 80% [ NOTE : Reduced AA damage while dismounted to champions still 80%] Chaaaaaaaaaarge!!! (R) Range lowered to 3500/4000/4500 from 5000
Kog'Maw
[CONTEXT.]
Caustic Spittle (Q) :
: [ new effect ] Passive added - "Kog'Maw gains 15/20/25/30/35% bonus attack speed." Bio-Arcane Barrage (W) :
: Cooldown increased to 17 from 13/11.5/10/8.5/7
[ NOTE : Cooldown now starts when you activate the ability rather than after the duration.]
: Cooldown now starts when you activate the ability rather than after the duration.]
Ability changed - now "For 8 seconds, Kog'Maw's basic attacks gain 130/150/170/190/210 range and deal 2/3/4/5/6% (+1% per 100 AP) of the target's maximum health as bonus magic damage."
Nunu
Blood Boil (W) REVERTED [ new effect added "Attacking enemies while under the influence of boiled blood will enrage all nearby Bloodboiled allies, increasing Attack Speed by X% per hit, up to 40/40/40/40/40% additional Attack Speed."] Absolute Zero (R) REVERTED [ new effect added "The Movement speed slow increases to X over the duration of the channel."]
Soraka
Astral Infusion (W) cooldown changed to 10/8/6/4/2 from 5/4.5/4/3.5/3 (live value is 4/3.5/3/2.5/2 seconds)
Twitch
Ambush (Q) attack speed bonus after leaving stealth lowered to 30/35/40/45/50% from 30/40/50/60/70% Contaminate (E) damage per stack REVERTED to 15/20/25/30/35 from 10/15/20/25/30
Several esports & World Championship themed assets have been added for Hextech Crafting and loot - presumably these are for another sort of crafting promotion or type of chest related to Worlds. Stay tuned for more information.In addition to the two assets above, there are also assets for the various 2016 WC team summoner icons.Two-thirds of Canadians believe that foreign ownership of broadcast and cable companies would lead to less Canadian-made cultural content, a poll commissioned by Friends of Canadian Broadcasting suggests.
In an online survey of 2,022 adult Canadians, 77 per cent said they believed that Canadian media was “too important for culture and national security” to be foreign owned. Only 23 per cent said they believed Canadian media owners should be able to sell to foreigners to be competitive.
Sixty-five per cent of respondents said they believed if foreign companies gained permission and acquired control of Canadian broadcasting and cable companies, Canadian content on radio and TV would decrease. Eighteen per cent said they thought it would remain the same, five per cent suggested Canadian content would increase and 12 per cent said they didn’t know.
The poll comes as Ottawa debates relaxing foreign ownership rules in the telecom sector in order to increase investment and spur competition.
Friends of Canadian Broadcasting asked the same questions in previous polls in 2007 and 2010, and the sense that foreign ownership would result in less Canadian content has only grown.
“There is a continuity here,” Friends spokesman Ian Morrison told The Huffington Post Canada. “Canadians fear what will happen when there is foreign control over their communication system.”
“They think that communications is pretty important for the future of the country and it’s too important to allow it to fall into foreign hands. That seems to be the standby position of a good majority of Canadians,” he said.
Current regulations prevent foreigners from owning more than 46.7 per cent of broadcasting or telecom companies. According to the federal government, "Canada appears to be one of the few advanced economies with significant restrictions remaining in place."
Many consumers have complained of a lack of competition in telecoms, particularly when it comes to cellphone service, and the Harper government has shown signs it is interested in opening up telecom to greater foreign investment, such as its decision to override the CRTC and allow Egyptian-owned Globalive to set up Wind Mobile.
But the government’s desire to open up telecom infrastructure may clash with the desire of many Canadians to protect media content from foreign ownership. Owners of telecom infrastructure, such as Bell, Rogers and Shaw, have invested heavily in TV and radio properties in recent and are now major owners of Canadian media content.
At least partly because of this convergence, some media companies are asking to be included in any relaxation of foreign ownership rules. (It was reported last month that Postmedia, owner of the National Post and many other newspapers, has hired a lobbyist for that purpose.)
It’s for these reasons that Friends of Canadian Broadcasting and other groups concerned with protecting Canadian cultural content believe it would be impossible to allow foreign ownership in telecom but not in media.
Some in the industry have suggested a “separation of pipes and content,” to allow foreign ownership in telecom and cable TV, for instance, without foreign ownership in content. But that idea is largely seen as a threat to the business models of large conglomerates like Bell, Rogers and Shaw, and is unlikely to be proposed.
The Friends of Canadian Broadcasting online survey was conducted last year, from Nov. 4 to Nov. 10, and has a margin of error of +/- 2.18 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
Asked why Friends waited so long to release the result, Morrison said he wanted to tie the data with a decision expected by the government on foreign ownership in the telecommunications sector.
“Now that Harper has a majority, there have been rumblings about changes in these statutes and we just thought we would put on the table what Canadians think,” he said.
Foreign Ownership ReportEPIC 2014 is a Flash movie released in November 2004 by Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson with original music by Aaron McLeran. It was based on a presentation they gave at the Poynter Institute in the spring of that year. The movie is 8 minutes long and is licensed under a Creative Commons non-commercial license.
The movie is presented from the viewpoint of a fictional "Museum of Media History" in the year 2014. It explores the effects that the convergence of popular news aggregators, such as Google News, with other Web 2.0 technologies like blogging, social networking and user participation may have on journalism and society at large in a hypothesized future. The film popularized the term Googlezon and touches on major privacy and copyright issues raised in this scenario.
Plot [ edit ]
The plot consists of a series of real life events from 1989 to 2004, and going through a series of hypothetical events through 2014. The first sentence of the running commentary quotes Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."[1]
In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web.
In 1994, Amazon.com is launched. It is a store that sells everything, personalized for its users, that can even offer suggestions.
In 1998, Google is unleashed by two Stanford University students, promising a faster, more effective way to search.
In 1999, Blogger is founded. Google comes out with Google News, a service unique in that it requires no human intervention.
In 2002, Friendster is released.
In 2003, Google buys Blogger.
In 2004, the rise of Gmail gives competition to Microsoft's Hotmail. Microsoft's Newsbot comes as a response to Google News. Picasa and A9 are also released this year. In August, Google goes public, acquires Keyhole (now Google Earth), a company that maps the world, and begins digitizing and indexing world libraries. Reason Magazine sends its subscribers satellite photos of their homes, with information tailored to them inside.
From this point EPIC passes into the realm of fiction.
In 2005, Microsoft buys Friendster in response to Google's action. Apple Computer comes out with WifiPod, which allows users to "send and receive messages on the go". Then, Google unveils the Google Grid, a universal platform offering an unlimited amount of space and bandwidth that can be used to store anything. It allows users to manage their information two ways: store it privately or publish it to the entire grid.
In 2007, Microsoft Newsbotster, a social news network, ranks and sorts news. It allows everyone to comment on what they see.
In 2008, Google and Amazon merge to form Googlezon. Google supplies Google Grid, Amazon supplies their personalized recommendations. Googlezon is a system that automatically searches all content sources and splices together stories to cater to the interests of each individual user.
When explaining how Googlezon profiles its users, the identification card of a man named Winston Smith appears on screen. Smith is the main character in George Orwell's classic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, in which a dystopian society is ruled by a media-distorting government.[2] The photograph on the identification card depicts Robin Sloan.
In 2010, the news wars rage between Microsoft and Googlezon. These "News Wars of 2010" are notable in that they involve no actual news organizations.
In 2011, the slumbering Fourth Estate awakens to make its first and final stand. The New York Times sues Googlezon, "claiming the fact-stripping robots are a violation of copyright law", but the Supreme Court rules in favor of Googlezon.
In 2014, Googlezon unleashes EPIC, the Evolving Personalized Information Construct, which pays users to contribute any information they know into a central grid, allowing the system to automatically create news tailored to individuals, entirely without journalists. The word "EPIC" is an amalgam of three fundamental physical and mathematical constants;[citation needed] e (Euler's number), pi (π) and c (the speed of light in a vacuum). These are depicted in the shadow of the EPIC logo.
EPIC stores and categorizes not only news, but the demographics, political beliefs, and consumption habits of every user. At its best, EPIC is "a summary of the world—deeper, broader and more nuanced than anything ever available before... but at its worst, and for too many, EPIC is merely a collection of trivia, much of it untrue." EPIC is so popular that it triggers the downfall of The New York Times, which goes offline and becomes "a print newsletter for the elite and the elderly." It must also be noted that the narrative follows the epic format, with the clashing of antagonistic entities, conquests and retreats, a concern for genealogy, and the central moral question, often rough and binary but also thrilling, of good vs. evil.
The narration ends with the statement: "Perhaps there was another way."
History [ edit ]
The inspiration for the movie came from a speech about the future of the news given in 2003 by Martin A. Nisenholtz, CEO of New York Times Digital, given to the Software and Information Industry Association. Sloan showed the transcript to Thompson, which, after much discussion and brainstorming, led to, "a very different interpretation of what Nisenholtz was talking about."[3] After some back and forth discussion while on a trip to Miami, Florida, Sloan and Thompson pondered Nisenholtz's original point when he mentioned the game Ultima Online and put it into the context of journalism. They soon agreed that it is the most advanced example of a medium people create by merely participating in it. The game, Ultima Online, is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. As people play, they add to all the other players' experiences of the game, altering the whole fabric of the medium through their interactions with it. They wondered, "what if you could apply that model to journalism?" What if individuals could create and affect news stories simply by reading, viewing, and/or listening to them?[4]
After their trip to Miami, Sloan and Thompson began assembling their ideas. They organized a powerpoint project, titled, The Miami Project, and began a series of presentations in their local offices at the Poynter Institute. Their colleagues were interested yet unenthusiastic about the project. In the spring of 2004, while preparing for an annual Online Leaders seminar at the Institute, they were asked to present it again. This time, they decided to present the story from the perspective of the future, as if it had already happened. They assembled the first version of the film late one night in Poynter's visual journalism lab, on an iMac G4 running Final Cut Pro. The narrative was met with enthusiasm by the conference participants, and they soon began revising and polishing their presentation, this time using Macromedia Flash. They kept presenting it, introducing the film dramatically – gliding into rooms wearing tin foil hats. They always followed the movie with the question: "If this is what the year 2014 looks like, what are you going to do today to make sure your news organization doesn't get sidelined? How do you make sure you can play in this environment?"[4]
As the summer passed on, they thought of future plans for EPIC 2014, including a possible website with an interactive timeline and blog. Though these never materialized, and Sloan and Thompson eventually moved on to new positions, Thompson at the Fresno Bee, and Sloan at the Current.[4]
Finally, by the third week of November 2004, they decided to just post the film. They posted it to three blogs: Convergence Chaser, Snarkmarket, and Jason Kottke's popular blog. They never intended it to become as widespread as it did. But it soon became very popular.[4] By December, the film was slashdotted.[5] Several hundred links from various forums and blogs followed in early 2005.[4] In January 2005, they released an update to the original movie, EPIC 2015. The sequel follows the same general direction of the original, but also examines the roles of podcasting, GPS and web map services such as Google Maps.[6]
Sloan himself does not believe the future portrayed in the film will actually come to pass, saying that he certainly doesn't believe that Google and Amazon would ever actually merge. He also believes that The New York Times would actually be the last media organization to fold, citing, "some incredibly good and smart things that they do in their online publishing."[3] But he points out that the purpose of the film is not to paint an accurate picture of the future, but rather, to illustrate the fact that the various monopolies of the large media organizations are currently being threatened by many of the new online services. He states that, "It's very possible that there will be some crazy integrated suite of Google services that will rule the world, but it won't be such a big deal. I do hope that there will be an integrated and easy way to navigate the network of citizen reports."[3]
Cultural impact [ edit ]
The term Googlezon has gained a life of its own,[7] sometimes being used to generally refer to real or hypothetical convergences of Google-like and Amazon-like technology. The term Amazoogle is sometimes used to describe the same effect.[8][9]
See also [ edit ]Bret Stephens, whom the New York Times hired from the Wall Street Journal after Trump’s election, woke up in a Cold War mood on Saturday. After reading journalist Anne Applebaum’s new book, Red Famine, on Stalin’s starvation of the Ukraine, Stephens began to seethe at early 1930s Times reporters who bought Stalin’s excuses. Soon he was righteously asking whether anyone today recalls the depredations of Peru’s Shining Path, or feels “even a shiver of inner revulsion at hipsters in Lenin or Mao T-shirts?” So, he asked the public from his rather bully pulpit, “Why is Marxism still taken seriously on college campuses and in the progressive press?”
Why indeed? Because of “a permanent and dangerous state of semi-denial about the legacy of communism” on the “progressive” left. Thanks to this “semi-denial,” Stephens writes, Jeremy Corbyn now threatens Britain with economic catastrophe from his woolly headed egalitarianism. But it gets worse. Because Bernie Sanders hasn’t learned that “class hatred” is morally equivalent to “race-hatred” or that “Buchenwald and the gulag” are a paired set of catastrophic historical destinations, Sanders indulges in “efforts to criminalize capitalism and financial services,” which will “have predictable results.”
No, Stephens doesn’t actually say that aggressive financial regulation and running against Wall Street will lead to mass murder. He, is after all, a Reasonable Man, and the idea, spelled out that way, is absurd — and egregiously disrespectful of the history he invokes so casually.
But what on Earth, then, is he saying? Why are a few operatic notes from twentieth-century horrors providing the backdrop for otherwise totally nonspecific denunciations of the most popular active politicians in the UK and the US?
Read in isolation, Stephens’s column is a face-palm pastiche of material the Cold War–minded Wall Street Journal kept in the drawers for slow news days. The fallacy is egregious. Why has Marxian thought not been discarded with Stalinism? One might as well ask why liberalism is taken seriously on college campuses given what we know about John Stuart Mills’s involvement in British imperialism in India, the effects of trade policy on the Bengal Famine, and Friedrich Hayek’s soft spot for the murderous Pinochet regime. Why, for that matter, do campuses tolerate constitutionalism, considering its intimate involvement in American slavery?
When I teach Marx (alongside, as it happens, John Stuart Mill and, yes, Hayek), I am not teaching (let alone channeling) Stalin’s defense of collectivization, but the view that the material order of society is the heart of the ways we make and share value, wealth, authority. The very capacity to live a life, to act individually or collectively, depends on these, and so the kinds of lives we can lead, individually or collectively, are deeply a part of this material order. Capitalism is, for better and worse, one such order, and whoever talks about liberalism, constitutionalism, or authoritarianism had also better be prepared to discuss it. (If understanding this were a job condition for the Times op-ed page, every columnist there would be looking for work.)
Stephens’s reductive and prosecutorial attack is a parody of moral seriousness. Anyone who knows the first thing about American history knows that the “predictable results” of attacks on Wall Street are probably not whatever horror Stephens is inviting readers to imagine with that grotesque “Buchenwald/gulag” line, but rather — to lean on the lessons of actual US history — antitrust law; serious regulation of the financial industry; or even a discussion of what else the country could be doing with some of the money going to bonuses and hedge-fund managers, such as single-payer health care.
It’s no surprise, really, that Stephens still addresses these prospects like an old Journal hand. In that ever-apocalyptic world, whenever anyone tries to raise the marginal tax rate, millions of peasants end up dead. The “bacillus” of communism “isn’t eradicated,” Stephens warns after describing Sanders and Corbyn as “fools, fanatics, or cynics.” It is as if Albert Camus were a Cato Institute hack.
Stephens isn’t the only one making facile comparisons. Donald Trump’s amorality and authoritarian tendencies seem to have licensed a certain intellectual latitude in his critics. Last week in Bloomberg View, Cass Sunstein, an Obama official and prominent liberal law professor, argued that Trump’s divisive politics “heightens the contradictions.” Then it got really good: this strategy ties Trump, Sunstein argued, to the Russian trolling strategy of trying to “foster a sense of grievance and humiliation” among Americans, which was how Marx and Lenin sought to spark revolution, and was no doubt transmitted through “the Marxist tradition” in which Putin and others were schooled.
But don’t just blame Trump or Putin: “intensifying social divisions... to make what divides Americans as salient and visible as possible, is more often associated with the left than the right (true to its Marxist origins).” Sunstein then proceeded straight to Bernie Sanders, who “has long been drawn to the approach, arguing that the interests of good, decent ordinary people are sharply opposed to those of powerful and supposedly evil actors (such as ‘the banks’),” moving the Democrats toward “a Manichean view of American society.”
This argument, too, is baffling if you take its proposed intellectual history at face value. Emphasizing divisions in politics extends back to the social wars of classical Rome and the religious and theoretical disputes in the English Civil War — not to mention the American Revolution, which resulted in the expulsion and expropriation of a vast number of Loyalists (and never mind the Native Americans and enslaved people whom the British were suspected of favoring). There is nothing Marxist about its “origins” or present profile.
What is not at all baffling, however, is its effect: it revives the Cold War slander that leftists in the US are Stalinoid dupes who, even if they mean well, are opposed to the American genius of free markets (Stephens), “careful policy analysis” (Sunstein), and e pluribus unum (Sunstein ends his column with the phrase, in rebuke to Sanders.) It defines American radicalism as the potentially authoritarian enemy of a national unity that must not be risked. And it treats the Sanders campaign and Trump as, really, two sides of the same coin.
Back in March, Tony Blair was already making this case in the New York Times, pointing symmetrical fingers at a “rightist populism” that seeks to protect “traditional culture” from immigrants and “political correctness,” and, at the receiving end of his other pointer, a “leftist populism” that “has aligned with the right in revolt against globalization, but with business taking the place of migrants as the chief evil.”
So framed, “populism” comes to mean any politics that adopts an adversarial (especially anti-elite) tone and challenges some portion of the 1990s-vintage consensus. To save democracy from its own tendencies to division, unrealistic hopes, and grievance, a reassertion of elite responsibility and management is therefore what the moment requires — the heroism of moderation, to put it in terms Cold War liberals would have recognized.
This running-together of the democratic left’s attacks on inequality (including racial inequality) with right-wing nativism is not just sloppy thinking. It works to define the kind of democracy that has to be saved from Trumpism: in this version, as a return to the consensus neoliberalism of the 1990s and the Obama administration.
The Left’s view is different: that democracy needs to be defended against Trump so that it can be saved from runaway inequality and insecurity, the total monetization of politics, the persistence of white supremacy, and the collapse of unions and other necessary institutions of any halfway democratic economy. From this point of view, the relevance of Marxism is the recognition that some of what divides people politically is not bad faith or petty grievance, but a profoundly structured, pervasive difference in their social roles, life prospects, and control over their own activity and their societies. The conflict involved in engaging these divisions is part of the work of building democracy.
One doesn’t need Marx, strictly speaking, for the timeless observations that social life is class-ridden and that political power follows economic power unless there is an active effort to build and maintain democracy. But the observation seems to be what is bringing him to mind, and inspiring a warmed-over Cold War in liberal and conservative minds alike.NAPA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--After years of turmoil over wine direct shipping, a ceremonial signing of House Bill 1175 and Senate Bill 248 on May 10 will mark a turning point for Maryland consumers, who will be able to receive wine shipments directly from wineries licensed by the state to ship. Pending development of licensing parameters from the Maryland Comptroller, and approval for common carrier shipments, shipping should begin in the months following the bill’s effective date of July 1, 2011.
“A special thank you needs to be extended to supporters for consumer choice in the state legislature,” said Jeremy Benson, executive director of Free the Grapes! “And this would not have happened without Adam Borden and the Marylanders for Better Beer & Wine Laws, Kevin Atticks and the Maryland Wineries Association, Wine Merchants Association of Maryland, Maryland Farm Bureau, Wine Institute, and Maryland wine lovers! Without their advocacy and patience over the past decade, Maryland would still be in the dark ages.”
While this is a major win for consumers, who will be able to order wines from their favorite wineries, the local retailer lobby ensured that retailers were excluded from the bill. “The coalition of supporters is encouraged by legislator comments in the press that indicate a willingness to make such improvements in the future,” Benson stated.
Maryland will become the 38th state that allows consumers to purchase wines directly from licensed wineries. These states plus Washington D.C. account for 85% of US wine consumption.
But a dark cloud threatens progress in Maryland, and consumer choice in wine across the nation. U.S. House Resolution 1161 was introduced in March at the request of the National Beer Wholesalers of America with the support of the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America. HR 1161 is special-interest legislation that pretends to protect the public and reaffirm states’ rights. But HR 1161 is really intended to put more money in the wholesaler middlemen’s pockets by doing an end-run around the U.S. Supreme Court and pre-empting the Constitution. The bill would give wholesalers unfettered monopoly power to pass discriminatory state laws that would ban direct shipping; harm wineries, brewers and distillers, as well as businesses, jobs, and state and local economies.
For updates, visit www.freethegrapes.org or www.facebook.com/FreetheGrapesCHAMPAIGN — It may be some time, if ever, before Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District buses and riders are able to again use the transfer area at the Country Fair Shopping Center in west Champaign.
The transfer area, used by about 1,500 riders daily on eight MTD routes, was closed May 24 in a dispute over roadway and parking-lot maintenance.
Passengers who had been using the Country Fair transfer area now have to use a temporary site about two blocks south on Round Barn Road.
"I am moving forward with a few possible outcomes," said Karl Gnadt, managing director of the MTD. "One is to continue the conversation with the owner of Country Fair. One is that I'm in the midst of conversation with one of the owners of Round Barn (shopping center on Springfield Avenue). And I am talking to the city about other alternatives."
The "central issue," Gnadt said, "is maintenance of the parking lot."
Carl Webber, attorney for Country Fair's owner, Cleveland-based GMS Management Co. of Illinois, said repairs have been needed to the center's parking lot and bus transfer area "for some time."
"Recently, the city gave owners notice that (GMS) would have to repair several areas in the parking lot. The owners found that the cost of repair is substantially different if on the one hand you're anticipating a number of buses each day versus merely anticipating some cars and a few delivery trucks," Webber said. "In fact, there are approximately 330 buses that go across Country Fair every weekday.
"The wear and tear on pavement from vehicles of that weight, especially if they have a number of passengers and are full of gas, really does take a toll on the pavement."
And the difference between bringing the pavement up to ordinary standards and to allow for bus use was substantial, he said.
"It became a question of expense, really, and there didn't seem to be any immediate resolution, although I think both sides tried to come up with an answer. The difference in cost is just quite large," Webber said.
There was some discussion of "cost-sharing," he said, "but at the level of the cost of doing that, it became very difficult. It is a substantial amount of money."
Asked if the new arrangement is permanent and whether buses no longer would be allowed at Country Fair, Webber said, "They made a suggestion, and Country Fair made a suggestion, and they're not really too close. We're certainly willing to talk to them some more, but I think the issue of negotiations ought to be left to the parties."
Said Gnadt: "We are still talking to a representative for the owner, so there are still some negotiations going on."
In a memo to MTD board members last month, Gnadt wrote that the "main point of discussion is segregation of duties."
"The duty of MTD is to provide public transit services to the community, and it is the duty of cities, villages and private landowners to maintain their roadways. In turn, when we operate on private property, we bring employees and customers to the business center."
Meanwhile, Gnadt said that the MTD is "getting a lot of feedback" about the loss of the Country Fair transfer area.
"Some of it is that it's a change. But some of it is that it actually is an inconvenience for people," he said. "I got a call from a lady who is 88 years old, and she shops at Ruler Foods and Dollar General. She'd come in on the bus, do her shopping and then she could walk to the Country Fair stop and go home.
"Now, she has to get off on Springfield, walk across the parking lot, which a pretty good distance for an 88-year-old. And then she had to walk to Springfield or to Round Barn Drive. That's just too far for her, and she can't do it. This is a life-changing situation for her. That's the kind of thing we're struggling with — how to help someone who is in that situation."The network has given a put-pilot commitment to the multicamera project from Dave Goetsch about a budding entrepreneur who launches an Internet company from his family's garage.
CBS is expanding its relationship with The Big Bang Theory's Dave Goetsch.
The writer/co-executive producer on the network's Emmy-nominated series has sold family comedy Smells Like Teen Spirit (working title) to CBS, The Hollywood Reporter has learned exclusively.
The multicamera comedy revolves around an 18-year-old budding entrepreneur who forgoes Harvard and instead opts to launch a multibillion-dollar Internet company from his garage with the assistance of his sister, best friend and his 1990s indie-rock parents.
PHOTOS: Behind the Scenes: 'The Big Bang Theory'
Goetsch will write and executive produce the project, which hails from Warner Bros. Television and has received a put-pilot order at the network.
Earlier this development season, CBS gave a script order to The Second Coming of Rob, a multicamera comedy from Big Bang Theory co-stars John Ross Bowie and Kevin Sussman loosely based on Bowie's life. Bowie plays the nemesis to Jim Parsons' Sheldon, while Sussman, recently upped to series regular, portrays the lovelorn comic book shop owner Stuart.
Goetsch, repped by CAA, has been with Big Bang Theory since its start. His credits also include Grounded for Life and 3rd Rock From the Sun.
mail: Lesley.Goldberg@thr.com; Twitter: @SnooditFormer Devils goalie Martin Brodeur expresses how it feels to be getting his jersey number retired by the franchise next February. (2:32)
Martin Brodeur is soaking it all in from the ground floor on up. The NHL's all-time winningest goalie is beginning his life in hockey management by trying to peek into all the nooks and crannies of the operation.
So when the St. Louis Blues left for Calgary on Monday to begin a road trip, Brodeur stayed behind.
"I'm trying to touch as much as possible, little details about the organization," the new assistant general manager of the Blues said Monday over the phone from St. Louis. "Like right now, I have to go to Florida and I'm meeting the analytics guy, he's going to walk me through everything, how he does his thing."
From there, Brodeur will also go meet with a couple of the team's prospects -- one in college and one in the Canadian junior leagues -- before joining back up with the Blues in Montreal for their Oct. 20 game.
"So some scouting, some different things, it's been fun. Everyone with the Blues has been very helpful," Brodeur said of his apprenticeship.
If it sounds familiar, it should. Just like Steve Yzerman went to Red Wings University after his Hall of Fame playing career ended, becoming a sponge in Ken Holland's front office for three years before feeling ready to becoming a GM in Tampa, Brodeur has similar plans for his time in St. Louis: learn, learn, learn.
"Yes, I would say that's the model that we're trying to use," said Blues GM Doug Armstrong of the Yzerman comparison. "Marty made a commitment, he moved to St. Louis. You don't make those commitments if you're not totally vested. He's giving us no indication that he doesn't want to learn and go about it in that fashion."
Brodeur and his second wife and their five-year-old moved from New Jersey to St. Louis this summer. The first step on this path was having an understanding partner who was ready to see him commit so much time and energy in his new career after all those years on the road as a player.
"I told my wife, 'At any time you think this is too much...,' because she's definitely paying the price as far as me being on the road and everything, and she said, 'No, it makes you happy.' So I've got great support on that side," said Brodeur.
He has jumped in feet-first, but with his eyes wide open about what it takes to cut it in an NHL front office.
"It's hard when you leave the game just to say, 'This is what I want to do,"' said Brodeur. "Everybody has that thought, but when you jump in, you realize there's a lot more to it. The best way is just to experience it and put the time in. That's what I've done so far, and I'll be doing that for a while."
Since retiring as a member of the St. Louis Blues, Martin Brodeur has started over in the team's front office. Jeff Curry/Getty Images
It's a steep learning curve to getting the hang of management. Many a former star player have tried their hand at it and realized the hours were too long, the commitment too encompassing. But Armstrong likes what he's seen so far from Brodeur.
"From Traverse City [prospects tournament] on, he's really gravitated towards wanting to learn all the different aspects, which is exactly what we wanted," said the Blues GM.
"He's just starting. He certainly has the capabilities, the work ethic and the knowledge," added Armstrong. "It's about wanting to put in the time. A guy like Steve Yzerman loves it, other guys that have been in it don't want to commit that much time after they've committed so much time to playing. To me, Marty is going about it the correct way, he's getting in on the ground floor."
The plan for this season is for Brodeur to get a view of all aspects of the operation, including player development, amateur scouting, the minor league affiliates, pro scouting, and travelling with the guys in different departments.
"He's going to get to get a feel for what everybody's responsibilities are," said Armstrong. "You don't have to be an expert, you just have to have an understanding. It's a credit to him, he's ready to start at a level where he can learn all that, not at a 30,000-feet level where you don't get an understanding of what people do."
Brodeur has already discovered one part of the operation that interests him more than he would have guessed.
"The amateur side, that's something I never thought I would be interested in, but it's actually pretty neat, just seeing our young guys go and seeing the new talent out there," said Brodeur. "So I'm trying to touch as much as I can so I can learn."
Brodeur got his feet wet late last season when he signed with the Blues, then hung up his skates and stayed on as a consultant of sorts. It gave him the bug. Then Armstrong brought him on for real in the offseason as assistant GM. The idea that Brodeur could have management potential was first planted in Armstrong's head back at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, when Armstrong was part of Yzerman's management staff.
"I would say it probably started in Vancouver, just from a distance, observing how Marty started as the No. 1 goalie, then Louie [Roberto Luongo] came in and played really well -- how Marty handled that with class and with great professionalism," said Armstrong. "It gives you a window into the character of the man."
All of which leads to one question: Does Brodeur fancy himself an NHL GM one day? It's still too early to answer that with confidence, but yes, if his apprenticeship goes well, it's a possibility.
"Yeah, you want to learn as much as possible. There's a process before getting a job like that, that people can trust you with the work. It's lot different than having a fantasy lineup," chuckled Brodeur. "There's a lot more to it, obviously. But it's really interesting. I'm fortunate, Army is really good to me. The experience has been really good so far."While the noise of lower GDP numbers is troubling the Government, the challenges of GST implementation is making it look more adverse. On completion of three months of GST rollout, the Finance Minister and the GST Council reviewed the challenges faced by the business during the first quarter of GST, as they had promised during the GST rollout.Before we look at the key highlights of changes proposed by GST council, we should review the key challenges of GST |
Electoral divisions in the Sydney area, drawn by the politically independent Australian Electoral Commission
Due to the perceived issues associated with gerrymandering and its effect on competitive elections and democratic accountability, numerous countries have enacted reforms making the practice either more difficult or less effective. Countries such as the U.K., Australia, Canada and most of those in Europe have transferred responsibility for defining constituency boundaries to neutral or cross-party bodies. In Spain, they are constitutionally fixed since 1978.[38]
In the United States, however, such reforms are controversial and frequently meet particularly strong opposition from groups that benefit from gerrymandering. In a more neutral system, they might lose considerable influence.
Redistricting by neutral or cross-party agency [ edit ]
The most commonly advocated electoral reform proposal targeted at gerrymandering is to change the redistricting process. Under these proposals, an independent and presumably objective commission is created specifically for redistricting, rather than having the legislature do it.
This is the system used in the United Kingdom, where the independent boundary commissions determine the boundaries for constituencies in the House of Commons and the devolved legislatures, subject to ratification by the body in question (almost always granted without debate). A similar situation exists in Australia where the independent Australian Electoral Commission and its state-based counterparts determine electoral boundaries for federal, state and local jurisdictions.
To help ensure neutrality, members of a redistricting agency may be appointed from relatively apolitical sources such as retired judges or longstanding members of the civil service, possibly with requirements for adequate representation among competing political parties. Additionally, members of the board can be denied access to information that might aid in gerrymandering, such as the demographic makeup or voting patterns of the population.
As a further constraint, consensus requirements can be imposed to ensure that the resulting district map reflects a wider perception of fairness, such as a requirement for a supermajority approval of the commission for any district proposal. Consensus requirements, however, can lead to deadlock, such as occurred in Missouri following the 2000 census. There, the equally numbered partisan appointees were unable to reach consensus in a reasonable time, and consequently the courts had to determine district lines.
In the U.S. state of Iowa, the nonpartisan Legislative Services Bureau (LSB, akin to the U.S. Congressional Research Service) determines boundaries of electoral districts. Aside from satisfying federally mandated contiguity and population equality criteria, the LSB mandates unity of counties and cities. Consideration of political factors such as location of incumbents, previous boundary locations, and political party proportions is specifically forbidden. Since Iowa's counties are chiefly regularly shaped polygons, the LSB process has led to districts that follow county lines.[30]
In 2005, the U.S. state of Ohio had a ballot measure to create an independent commission whose first priority was competitive districts, a sort of "reverse gerrymander". A complex mathematical formula was to be used to determine the competitiveness of a district. The measure failed voter approval chiefly due to voter concerns that communities of interest would be broken up.[39]
In 2017, the Open Our Democracy Act of 2017 was submitted to the US House of Representatives by Rep. Delaney as a means to implement non-partisan redistricting.
Transparency regulations [ edit ]
When a single political party controls both legislative houses of a state during redistricting, both Democrats and Republicans have displayed a marked propensity for couching the process in secrecy; in May 2010, for example, the Republican National Committee held a redistricting training session in Ohio where the theme was "Keep it Secret, Keep it Safe".[40] The need for increased transparency in redistricting processes is clear; a 2012 investigation by The Center for Public Integrity reviewed every state's redistricting processes for both transparency and potential for public input, and ultimately assigned 24 states grades of either D or F.[41]
In response to these types of problems, redistricting transparency legislation has been introduced to US Congress a number of times in recent years, including the Redistricting Transparency Acts of 2010, 2011, and 2013.[42][43][44] Such policy proposals aim to increase the transparency and responsiveness of the redistricting systems in the US. The merit of increasing transparency in redistricting processes is based largely on the premise that lawmakers would be less inclined to draw gerrymandered districts if they were forced to defend such districts in a public forum.
Changing the voting system [ edit ]
Because gerrymandering relies on the wasted-vote effect, the use of a different voting system with fewer wasted votes can help reduce gerrymandering. In particular, the use of multi-member districts alongside voting systems establishing proportional representation such as single transferable voting can reduce wasted votes and gerrymandering. Semi-proportional voting systems such as single non-transferable vote or cumulative voting are relatively simple and similar to first past the post and can also reduce the proportion of wasted votes and thus potential gerrymandering. Electoral reformers have advocated all three as replacement systems.[45]
Electoral systems with various forms of proportional representation are now found in nearly all European countries, resulting in multi-party systems (with many parties represented in the parliaments) with higher voter attendance in the elections,[46] fewer wasted votes, and a wider variety of political opinions represented.
Electoral systems with election of just one winner in each district (i.e., "winner-takes-all" electoral systems) and no proportional distribution of extra mandates to smaller parties tend to create two-party systems (Duverger's law). In these, just two parties effectively compete in the national elections and thus the national political discussions are forced into a narrow two-party frame, where loyalty and forced statements inside the two parties distort the political debate.[according to whom?]
Changing the size of districts and the elected body [ edit ]
If a proportional or semi-proportional voting system is used then increasing the number of winners in any given district will reduce the number of wasted votes. This can be accomplished both by merging separate districts together and by increasing the total size of the body to be elected. Since gerrymandering relies on exploiting the wasted vote effect, increasing the number of winners per district can reduce the potential for gerrymandering in proportional systems. Unless all districts are merged, however, this method cannot eliminate gerrymandering entirely.
In contrast to proportional methods, if a nonproportional voting system with multiple winners (such as block voting) is used, then increasing the size of the elected body while keeping the number of districts constant will not reduce the amount of wasted votes, leaving the potential for gerrymandering the same. While merging districts together under such a system can reduce the potential for gerrymandering, doing so also amplifies the tendency of block voting to produce landslide victories, creating a similar effect to gerrymandering by concentrating wasted votes among the opposition and denying them representation.
If a system of single-winner elections is used, then increasing the size of the elected body will implicitly increase the number of districts to be created. This change can actually make gerrymandering easier when raising the number of single-winner elections, as opposition groups can be more efficiently packed into smaller districts without accidentally including supporters, further increasing the number of wasted votes amongst the opposition.
Using fixed districts [ edit ]
Another way to avoid gerrymandering is simply to stop redistricting altogether and use existing political boundaries such as state, county, or provincial lines. While this prevents future gerrymandering, any existing advantage may become deeply ingrained. The United States Senate, for instance, has more competitive elections than the House of Representatives due to the use of existing state borders rather than gerrymandered districts—Senators are elected by their entire state, while Representatives are elected in legislatively drawn districts.
The use of fixed districts creates an additional problem, however, in that fixed districts do not take into account changes in population. Individual voters can come to have very different degrees of influence on the legislative process. This malapportionment can greatly affect representation after long periods of time or large population movements. In the United Kingdom during the Industrial Revolution, several constituencies that had been fixed since they gained representation in the Parliament of England became so small that they could be won with only a handful of voters (rotten boroughs). Similarly, in the U.S. the state legislature of Alabama refused to redistrict for more than 60 years, despite major changes in population patterns. By 1960 less than a quarter of the state's population controlled the majority of seats in the legislature.[47] However, this practice of using fixed districts for state legislatures was effectively banned in the United States after the Reynolds v. Sims Supreme Court decision in 1964, establishing a rule of one man, one vote.
Objective rules to create districts [ edit ]
Another means to reduce gerrymandering is to create objective, precise criteria to which any district map must comply. Courts in the United States, for instance, have ruled that congressional districts must be contiguous in order to be constitutional.[48] This, however, is not a particularly binding constraint, as very narrow strips of land with few or no voters in them may be used to connect separate regions for inclusion in one district, as is the case in Illinois's 4th congressional district.
Depending on the distribution of voters for a particular party, metrics that maximize compactness can be opposed to metrics that minimize the efficiency gap. For example, in the United States, voters registered with the Democratic Party tend to be concentrated in cities, potentially resulting in a large number of "wasted" votes if compact districts are drawn around city populations. Neither of these metrics take into consideration other possible goals,[49] such as proportional representation based on other demographic characteristics (such as race, ethnicity, gender, or income), maximizing competitiveness of elections (the greatest number of districts where party affiliation is 50/50), avoiding splits of existing government units (like cities and counties), and ensuring representation of major interest groups (like farmers or voters in a specific transportation corridor), though any of these could be incorporated into a more complicated metric.
Minimum district to convex polygon ratio [ edit ]
One method is to define a minimum district to convex polygon ratio[definition needed]. To use this method, every proposed district is circumscribed by the smallest possible convex polygon (similar to the concept of a convex hull; think of stretching a rubberband around the outline of the district). Then, the area of the district is divided[further explanation needed] by the area of the polygon; or, if at the edge of the state, by the portion of the area of the polygon within state boundaries.
The advantages of this method are that it allows a certain amount of human intervention to take place (thus solving the Colorado problem of splitline districting); it allows the borders of the district to follow existing jagged subdivisions, such as neighbourhoods or voting districts (something isoperimetric rules would discourage); and it allows concave coastline districts, such as the Florida gulf coast area. It would mostly eliminate bent districts, but still permit long, straight ones. However, since human intervention is still allowed, the gerrymandering issues of packing and cracking would still occur, just to a lesser extent.
Shortest splitline algorithm [ edit ]
The Center for Range Voting has proposed[50] a way to draw districts by a simple algorithm.[51] The algorithm uses only the shape of the state, the number N of districts wanted, and the population distribution as inputs. The algorithm (slightly simplified) is:
Start with the boundary outline of the state. Let N=A+B where N is the number of districts to create, and A and B are two whole numbers, either equal (if N is even) or differing by exactly one (if N is odd). For example, if N is 10, each of A and B would be 5. If N is 7, A would be 4 and B would be 3. Among all possible straight lines that split the state into two parts with the population ratio A:B, choose the shortest. If there are two or more such shortest lines, choose the one that is most north-south in direction; if there is still more than one possibility, choose the westernmost. We now have two hemi-states, each to contain a specified number (namely A and B) of districts. Handle them recursively via the same splitting procedure. Any human residence that is split in two or more parts by the resulting lines is considered to be a part of the most north-eastern of the resulting districts; if this doesn't decide it, then of the most northern.
This district-drawing algorithm has the advantages of simplicity, ultra-low cost, a single possible result (thus no possibility of human interference), lack of intentional bias, and it produces simple boundaries that do not meander needlessly. It has the disadvantage of ignoring geographic features such as rivers, cliffs, and highways and cultural features such as tribal boundaries. This landscape oversight causes it to produce districts different from those a human would produce. Ignoring geographic features can induce very simple boundaries.
While most districts produced by the method will be fairly compact and either roughly rectangular or triangular, some of the resulting districts can still be long and narrow strips (or triangles) of land.
Like most automatic redistricting rules, the shortest splitline algorithm will fail to create majority-minority districts, for both ethnic and political minorities, if the minority populations are not very compact. This might reduce minority representation.
Another criticism of the system is that splitline districts sometimes divide and diffuse the voters in a large metropolitan area. This condition is most likely to occur when one of the first splitlines cuts through the metropolitan area. It is often considered a drawback of the system because residents of the same agglomeration are assumed to be a community of common interest. This is most evident in the splitline allocation of Colorado.[52]
As of July 2007, shortest-splitline redistricting pictures, based on the results of the 2000 census, are available for all 50 states.[53]
Minimum isoperimetric quotient [ edit ]
It is possible to define a specific minimum isoperimetric quotient,[54] proportional to the ratio between the area and the square of the perimeter of any given congressional voting district. Although technologies presently exist to define districts in this manner, there are no rules in place mandating their use, and no national movement to implement such a policy. One problem with the simplest version of this rule is that it would prevent incorporation of jagged natural boundaries, such as rivers or mountains; when such boundaries are required, such as at the edge of a state, certain districts may not be able to meet the required minima. One way of avoiding this problem is to allow districts which share a border with a state border to replace that border with a polygon or semi-circle enclosing the state boundary as a kind of virtual boundary definition, but using the actual perimeter of the district whenever this occurs inside the state boundaries. Enforcing a minimum isoperimetric quotient would encourage districts with a high ratio between area and perimeter.[54]
Efficiency Gap calculation [ edit ]
The efficiency gap is a simply-calculable measure that can show the effects of gerrymandering.[55] It measures wasted votes for each party: the sum of votes cast in losing districts (losses due to cracking) and excess votes cast in winning districts (losses due to packing). The difference in these wasted votes are divided by total votes cast, and the resulting percentage is the efficiency gap.
Use of databases and computer technology [ edit ]
The introduction of modern computers alongside the development of elaborate voter databases and special districting software has made gerrymandering a far more precise science. Using such databases, political parties can obtain detailed information about every household including political party registration, previous campaign donations, and the number of times residents voted in previous elections and combine it with other predictors of voting behavior such as age, income, race, or education level. With this data, gerrymandering politicians can predict the voting behavior of each potential district with an astonishing degree of precision, leaving little chance for creating an accidentally competitive district.
On the other hand, the introduction of modern computers would let the United States Census Bureau to calculate more equal populations in every voting district that are based only on districts being the most compact and equal populations. This could be done easily using their Block Centers based on the Global Positioning System rather than street addresses. With this data, gerrymandering politicians will not be in charge, thus allowing competitive districts again.
Online web apps such as Dave's Redistricting have allowed any citizen to redistrict states into legislative districts as they wish [56][57] According to Bradlee, the software was designed to "put power in people's hands," and so that they "can see how the process works, so it's a little less mysterious than it was 10 years ago."[58]
International examples of gerrymandering [ edit ]
Several western democracies, notably Israel, the Netherlands, Slovakia and Slovenia employ an electoral system with only one (nationwide) voting district for election of national representatives. This virtually precludes gerrymandering.[59][60] Other European countries such as Austria, the Czech Republic or Sweden, among many others, have electoral districts with fixed boundaries (usually one district for each administrative division). The number of representatives for each district can change after a census due to population shifts, but their boundaries do not change. This also effectively eliminates gerrymandering.
Additionally, many countries where the president is directly elected by the citizens (e.g. France, Poland, among others) use only one electoral district for presidential election, despite using multiple districts to elect representatives.
Australia [ edit ]
Gerrymandering has not typically been considered a problem in the Australian electoral system largely because drawing of electoral boundaries has typically been done by non-partisan electoral commissions. There have been historical cases of malapportionment, whereby the distribution of electors to electorates was not in proportion to the population in several states. For example, Sir Thomas Playford was Premier of South Australia from 1938 to 1965 as a result of a system of malapportionment, which became known as the Playmander, despite it not strictly speaking involving a gerrymander.[61] More recently[when?] the nominally independent South Australian Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission has been accused of favouring the Australian Labor Party, as the party has been able to form government in four of the last seven elections, despite receiving a lower two-party preferred vote.[62]
In Queensland, malapportionment combined with a gerrymander under Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen became nicknamed the Bjelkemander in the 1970s and 1980s.[63] Under the system, electoral boundaries were drawn so that rural electorates had as few as half as many voters as metropolitan ones and regions with high levels of support for the opposition Labor Party were concentrated into fewer electorates, allowing Bjelke-Petersen's Country Party (later National Party) led Coalition government to remain in power despite attracting substantially less than 50% of the vote. In the 1986 election, for example, the National Party received 39.64% of the first preference vote and won 49 seats (in the 89 seat legislature) whilst the Labor Opposition received 41.35% but won only 30 seats.[64] Despite this, the Liberals/Nationals still received a greater combined share of the vote than the Labor opposition because the system also worked against the Liberal representation.
Canada [ edit ]
Early in Canadian history, both the federal and provincial levels used gerrymandering to try to maximise partisan power. When Alberta and Saskatchewan were admitted to Confederation in 1905, their original district boundaries were set forth in the respective Alberta and Saskatchewan Acts. These boundaries had been devised by federal Liberal cabinet members to ensure the election of provincial Liberal governments.
Since responsibility for drawing federal and provincial electoral boundaries was handed over to independent agencies, this problem has largely been eliminated at these levels of government. Manitoba was the first province to authorise a non-partisan group to define constituency boundaries in the 1950s. In 1964, the federal government delegated the drawing of boundaries for national seats to the "arm's length" Elections Canada.
As a result, gerrymandering is not generally a major issue in Canada except at the civic level. Although city wards are recommended by independent agencies, city councils occasionally overrule them. This is much more likely where the city is not homogenous and different neighbourhoods have sharply different opinions about city policy direction.
In 2006, a controversy arose in Prince Edward Island over the provincial government's decision to throw out an electoral map drawn by an independent commission. Instead they created two new maps. The government adopted the second of these, designed by the caucus of the governing party. Opposition parties and the media attacked Premier Pat Binns for what they saw as gerrymandering of districts. Among other things, the government adopted a map that ensured that every current Member of the Legislative Assembly from the premier's party had a district to run in for re-election, whereas in the original map, several had been redistricted.[65] Despite this, in the 2007 provincial election only seven of 20 incumbent Members of the Legislative Assembly were re-elected (seven did not run for re-election), and the government was defeated.
Chile [ edit ]
The military government which ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990 was ousted in a national plebiscite in October 1988. Opponents of General Augusto Pinochet voted NO to remove him from power and to trigger democratic elections, while supporters (mostly from the right-wing) voted YES to keep him in office for another eight years.
Five months prior to the plebiscite, the regime published a law regulating future elections and referendums, but the configuration of electoral districts and the manner in which Congress seats would be awarded were only added to the law seven months after the referendum.[66][67]
For the Chamber of Deputies (lower house), 60 districts were drawn by grouping (mostly) neighboring communes (the smallest administrative subdivision in the country) within the same region (the largest). It was established that two deputies would be elected per district, with the most voted coalition needing to outpoll its closest rival by a margin of more than 2-to-1 to take both seats. The results of the 1988 plebiscite show that neither the "NO" side nor the "YES" side outpolled the other by said margin in any of the newly established districts. They also showed that the vote/seat ratio was lower in districts which supported the "YES" side and higher in those where the "NO" was strongest.[68][69] In spite of this, at the 1989 parliamentary election, the center-left opposition was able to capture both seats (the so-called doblaje) in twelve out of 60 districts, winning control of 60% of the Chamber.
Senate constituencies were created by grouping all lower-chamber districts in a region, or by dividing a region into two constituencies of contiguous lower-chamber districts. The 1980 Constitution allocated a number of seats to appointed senators, making it harder for one side to change the Constitution by itself. The opposition won 22 senate seats in the 1989 election, taking both seats in three out of 19 constituencies, controlling 58% of the elected Senate, but only 47% of the full Senate. The unelected senators were eliminated in the 2005 constitutional reforms, but the electoral map has remained largely untouched (two new regions were created in 2007, one of which altered the composition of two senatorial constituencies; the first election to be affected by this minor change took place in 2013).
France [ edit ]
France is one of the few countries to let legislatures redraw the map with no check.[70] In practice, the legislature sets up an executive commission. Districts called arrondissements were used in the Third Republic and under the Fifth Republic they are called circonscriptions. During the Third Republic, some reforms of arrondissements, which were also used for administrative purposes, were largely suspected to have been arranged to favour the kingmaker in the Assembly, the Parti radical.
The dissolution of Seine and Seine-et-Oise départements was seen as a case of Gerrymandering to counter communist influence around Paris.[71]
In the modern regime, there were three designs: in 1958 (regime change), 1987 (by Charles Pasqua) and 2010 (by Alain Marleix), three times by conservative governments. Pasqua's drawing was known to have been particularly good at gerrymandering, resulting in 80% of the seats with 58% of the vote in 1993, and forcing Socialists in the 1997 snap election to enact multiple pacts with smaller parties in order to win again, this time as a coalition. In 2010, the Sarkozy government created 12 districts for expats.
The Constitutional council was called twice by the opposition to decide about gerrymandering, but it never considered partisan disproportions. However, it forced the Marleix committee to respect an 80–120% population ratio, ending a tradition dating back to the Revolution in which départements, however small in population, would send at least two MPs.
Gerrymandering in France is also done against regionalist parties. Départements are always used even if they split urban areas or larger identity territories, and smaller identity divisions are avoided.
Germany [ edit ]
When the electoral districts in Germany were redrawn in 2000, the ruling center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) was accused of gerrymandering to marginalise the left-wing PDS party. The SPD combined traditional PDS strongholds in eastern Berlin with new districts made up of more populous areas of western Berlin, where the PDS had very limited following.
After having won four seats in Berlin in the 1998 national election, the PDS was able to retain only two seats altogether in the 2002 elections. Under German electoral law, a political party has to win either more than five percent of the votes, or at least three directly elected seats, to qualify for top-up seats under the Additional Member System. The PDS vote fell below five percent thus they failed to qualify for top-up seats and were confined to just two members of the Bundestag, the German federal parliament (elected representatives are always allowed to hold their seats as individuals). Had they won a third constituency, the PDS would have gained at least 25 additional seats, which would have been enough to hold the balance of power in the Bundestag.
In the election of 2005, The Left (successor of the PDS) gained 8.7% of the votes and thus qualified for top-up seats.
The number of Bundestag seats of parties which traditionally get over 5% of the votes cannot be affected very much by gerrymandering, because seats are awarded to these parties on a proportional basis. However, when a party wins so many districts in any one of the 16 federal states that those seats alone count for more than its proportional share of the vote in that same state does the districting have some influence on larger parties—those extra seats, called "Überhangmandate", remain. In the Bundestag election of 2009, Angela Merkel's CDU/CSU gained 24 such extra seats, while no other party gained any; this skewed the result so much that the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany issued two rulings declaring the existing election laws invalid and requiring the Bundestag to pass a new law limiting such extra seats to no more than 15. In 2013, Germany's Supreme Court ruled on the constitutionality of Überhangmandate, which from then on have to be added in proportion to the second vote of each party thereby making it impossible that one party can have more seats than earned by the proportionate votes in the election.
Greece [ edit ]
Gerrymandering has been rather common in Greek history since organised parties with national ballots only appeared after the 1926 Constitution.[clarification needed] The only case before that was the creation of the Piraeus electoral district in 1906, in order to give the Theotokis party a safe district.
The most infamous case of gerrymandering[citation needed] was in the 1956 election. While in previous elections the districts were based on the prefecture level (νομός),[citation needed] for 1956 the country was split in districts of varying sizes, some being the size of prefectures, some the size of sub-prefectures (επαρχία) and others somewhere in between. In small districts the winning party would take all seats, in intermediate size it would take most and there was proportional representation in the largest districts. The districts were created in such a way that small districts were those that traditionally voted for the right while large districts were those that voted against the right.
This system has become known as the three-phase (τριφασικό) system or the baklava system (because, as baklava is split into full pieces and corner pieces, the country was also split into disproportionate pieces). The opposition, being composed of the center and the left, formed a coalition with the sole intent of changing the electoral law and then calling new elections, despite the fact that only seven years earlier the center and the left had fought each other in the Greek Civil War. Even though the centrist and leftist opposition won the popular vote (1,620,007 votes against 1,594,992), the right wing ERE won the majority of seats (165 to 135) and was to lead the country for the next two years.
Hong Kong [ edit ]
In Hong Kong, functional constituencies are demarcated by the government and defined in statutes,[72] making them prone to gerrymandering. The functional constituency for the information technology sector was particular criticised for gerrymandering and voteplanting.[73]
There are also gerrymandering concerns in the constituencies of district councils.[74]
Hungary [ edit ]
In 2011, Fidesz politician János Lázár has proposed a redesign to Hungarian voting districts; considering the territorial results of previous elections, this redesign would favor right-wing politics according to the opposition.[75][76] Since then, the law has been passed by the Fidesz-majority Parliament.[77] Formerly it took twice as many votes to gain a seat in some election districts as in some others.[78]
Ireland [ edit ]
Until the 1980s Dáil boundaries in Ireland were drawn not by an independent commission but by government ministers. Successive arrangements by governments of all political characters have been attacked as gerrymandering. Ireland uses the single transferable vote and as well as the actual boundaries drawn the main tool of gerrymandering has been the number of seats per constituency used, with three-seat constituencies normally benefiting the strongest parties in an area, whereas four-seat constituencies normally help smaller parties.
In 1947 the rapid rise of new party Clann na Poblachta threatened the position of the governing party Fianna Fáil. The government of Éamon de Valera introduced the Electoral (Amendment) Act 1947, which increased the size of the Dáil from 138 to 147 and increased the number of three-seat constituencies from fifteen to twenty-two. The result was described by the journalist and historian Tim Pat Coogan as "a blatant attempt at gerrymander which no Six County Unionist could have bettered."[79] The following February the 1948 general election was held and Clann na Poblachta secured ten seats instead of the nineteen they would have received proportional to their vote.[79]
In the mid-1970s, the Minister for Local Government, James Tully, attempted to arrange the constituencies to ensure that the governing Fine Gael–Labour Party National Coalition would win a parliamentary majority. The Electoral (Amendment) Act 1974 was planned as a major reversal of previous gerrymandering by Fianna Fáil (then in opposition). Tully ensured that there were as many as possible three-seat constituencies where the governing parties were strong, in the expectation that the governing parties would each win a seat in many constituencies, relegating Fianna Fáil to one out of three.
In areas where the governing parties were weak, four-seat constituencies were used so that the governing parties had a strong chance of still winning two. The election results created substantial change, as there was a larger than expected collapse in the vote. Fianna Fáil won a landslide victory in the Irish general election, 1977, two out of three seats in many cases, relegating the National Coalition parties to fight for the last seat. Consequently, the term "Tullymandering" was used to describe the phenomenon of a failed attempt at gerrymandering.
Kuwait [ edit ]
From the years 1981 until 2005, Kuwait was divided into 25 electoral districts in order to over-represent the government's supporters (the 'tribes').[80] In July 2005, a new law for electoral reforms was approved which prevented electoral gerrymandering by cutting the number of electoral districts from 25 to 5. The government of Kuwait found that 5 electoral districts resulted in a powerful parliament with the majority representing the opposition. A new law was crafted by the government of Kuwait and signed by the Amir to gerrymander the districts to 10 allowing the government's supporters to regain the majority.[citation needed]
Malaysia [ edit ]
The practice of gerrymandering has been around in the country since its independence in 1957. The ruling coalition at that time, Barisan Nasional (BN; English: "National Front"), has been accused of controlling the election commission by revising the boundaries of constituencies. For example, during the 13th General Election in 2013, Barisan Nasional won 60% of the seats in the Malaysian Parliament despite only receiving 47% of the popular vote.[81] Malapportionment has also been used at least since 1974, when it was observed that in one state alone (Perak), the parliamentary constituency with the most voters had more than ten times as many voters as the one with the fewest voters.[82] These practices finally failed BN in the 14th General Election on 9 May 2018, when the opposing Pakatan Harapan (PH; English: "Alliance of Hope") won despite perceived efforts of gerrymandering and malapportionment from the incumbent.[83]
Malta [ edit ]
The Labour Party that won in 1981, even though the Nationalist Party got the most votes, did so because of its gerrymandering. A 1987 constitutional amendment prevented that situation from reoccurring.
Nepal [ edit ]
After the restoration of democracy in 1990, Nepali politics has well exercised the practice of gerrymandering with the view to take advantage in the election. It was often practised by Nepali Congress, which remained in power in most of the time. Learning from this, the reshaping of constituency was done for constituent assembly and the opposition now wins elections.
Philippines [ edit ]
Congressional districts in the Philippines were originally based on an ordinance from the 1987 Constitution, which was created by the Constitutional Commission, which was ultimately based on legislative districts as they were drawn in 1907. The same constitution gave Congress of the Philippines the power to legislate new districts, either through a national redistricting bill or piecemeal redistricting per province or city. Congress has never passed a national redistricting bill since the approval of the 1987 constitution, while it has incrementally created 34 new districts, out of the 200 originally created in 1987.
This allows Congress to create new districts once a place reaches 250,000 inhabitants, the minimum required for its creation. With this, local dynasties, through congressmen, can exert influence in the district-making process by creating bills carving new districts from old ones. In time, as the population of the Philippines increases, these districts, or groups of it, will be the basis of carving new provinces out of existing ones.
An example was in Camarines Sur, where two districts were divided into three districts which allegedly favors the Andaya and the Arroyo families; it caused Rolando Andaya and Dato Arroyo, who would have otherwise run against each other, run in separate districts, with one district allegedly not even surpassing the 250,000-population minimum.[84] The Supreme Court later ruled that the 250,000 population minimum does not apply to an additional district in a province.[85] The resulting splits would later be the cause of another gerrymander, where the province would be split into a new province called Nueva Camarines; the bill was defeated in the Senate in 2013.[86]
Singapore [ edit ]
In recent decades, critics have accused the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) of unfair electoral practices to maintain significant majorities in the Parliament of Singapore. Among the complaints are that the government uses gerrymandering.[87] The Elections Department was established as part of the executive branch under the Prime Minister of Singapore, rather than as an independent body.[88] Critics have accused it of giving the ruling party the power to decide polling districts and polling sites through electoral engineering, based on poll results in previous elections.[89]
Members of opposition parties claim that the Group Representation Constituency system is "synonymous to gerrymandering", pointing out examples of Cheng San GRC and Eunos GRC which were dissolved by the Elections Department with voters redistributed to other constituencies after opposition parties gained ground in elections.[90]
Spain [ edit ]
Until the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic in 1931, Spain used both single-member and multi-member constituencies in general elections. Multi-member constituencies were only used in some big cities. Some gerrymandering examples included the districts of Vilademuls or Torroella de Montgrí in Catalonia. These districts were created in order to prevent the Federal Democratic Republican Party to win a seat in Figueres or La Bisbal and to secure a seat to the dynastic parties. Since 1931, the constituency boundaries match the province boundaries.[91]
After the Francoist dictatorship, during the transition to democracy, these fixed provincial constituencies were reestablished in Section 68.2 of the current 1978 Spanish Constitution,[38] so gerrymandering is impossible in general elections. There are not winner-takes-all elections in Spain except for the tiny territories of Ceuta and Melilla (which only have one representative each); everywhere else the number of representatives assigned to a constituency is proportional to its population and calculated according to a national law, so tampering with under- or over-representation is difficult too.
European, regional and municipal elections are held under single, at-large multi-member constituencies with proportional representation and gerrymandering is not possible either.
Sri Lanka [ edit ]
Sri Lanka's new Local Government elections process has been the talking point of gerrymandering since its inception.[92] Even though that talk was more about the ward-level, it is also seen in some local council areas too.[93][94]
Sudan [ edit ]
In the most recent election of |
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Via Android Police.SELECT *
You may be in the habit of usingin your SQL queries. There are several very good reasons to break this habit.
Self-Documentation Lost
SELECT * FROM products WHERE prod_id = n;
If you've ever had the task of diving into someone else's code in the attempt to make bugfixes, changes or even just understand it then you may have run across SQL queries such as:Very nice, legal SQL, sure. But what are we getting back? 1 field? 10? 100? What are the field names and in which order do they appear? Yes, you may have the luck of having a whole db layout right in front of you, but maybe not. Maybe there is some internal documentation, but maybe it's from last August when the db was built and maybe it's changed since then. Maybe there is no documentation except the database itself. Bad practice? Sure, but welcome to the real world.Either you're going to have to dig through the docs or you're going to have to connect to the db and figure out what the table looks like. However, even though you now have the table layout in front of you,nor
Maybe there are 8 fields returned and the one of them is misspelled. If the field name is in the query then you can visually match it up; it's right in front of you. Otherwise you consult the docs. Is it _id or id? Maybe the docs say id and the field name in the table is _id.
Consider:
SELECT id,desc,img_url,category,title,serial,color,mystery_field FROM products WHERE prod_id = n;
It takes up more vertical space, sure. But the few extra lines are more than worth it. The query is nicely formatted and completely unambiguous. I know exactly what I'm looking for and what I'm getting back if the query succeeds. The query goes from a being black hole to being what all good code can be:
Broken Contract
Tables change. Hopefully these changes are planned out and for a good reason. Sometimes they're not. login changes to username to avoid ambiguity. Your manager orders you to change a bunch of fields because he doesn't like leading underscores. _key changes to anything else because whomever thought _key was a good name for a field in the first place was fired 6 months ago.
When a column name changes, obviously anything that depended on the old name has to change as well. You may ask "What's wrong with this?"
SELECT * FROM products;
wrong
Lots, but some of the problems might not be obvious. The problem will be afterwards when your code tries to do something with thefield which is now thefield. The query will run absolutely fine,. There is nofield anymore.
What we want to do is have a contract with the database. We want to tell it exactly what we want and it will tell us whether or not it's there. If we issue the query
SELECT nonexistent_field FROM products;
ERROR 1054 (42S22): Unknown column 'nonexistant_field' in 'field list'
ERROR: column "nonexistant_field" does not exist
our database will tell us right away that it's never heard of this field. For example:or
We can fix our code and be confident that as long as the query is syntactically valid and as long as the the code accessing the resultset matches the fields in the query then we won't have any problems accessing the data we need. With SELECT * we lose that contract and even though the queries are completing without error we can no longer be confident about our assumptions.
Size Matters
Why ask for everything when you'd be happy with less? Why send out a request for 10 fields, have the database do that extract work retrieving them, sending them back over the wire and processed and then not use them?
The real problem comes when you SELECT * from a table that is storing more than integers and small pieces of character data. Say you have a user table which contains a username, pass and about_me fields. Maybe when you wrote the app only the first 2 fields existed, so you've been logging users into your webapp like so
SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = u AND pass = PASSWORD(p);
As long as you get 1 row back you can be sure the login is valid. Later on a VARCHAR or TEXT field was entered so your users could store a blurb about themselves. Suddenly instead of 2 small text fields, you're pulling hundreds or thousands of bytes you don't need, and that's just for one row.
Now multiply the above situation by n rows. Say you're listing users on your site, 100 at a time. If you pull out that about_me field needlessly and the average length is say, 250 bytes (about the length of this sentence), then you're wasting 25k worth of memory on 2 machines as well as the bandwidth to move it and the extra processing time it takes to handle the data per page view. Say you get a modest 1 page view per second. That's 1.5MB (25k * 60 kb/s) per minute's worth of data filling your RAM and choking your NIC that is a complete and utter waste. This is on top of all the data you're actually using.
For tables of 1 million records, every byte you make the database process needlessly is a waste of nearly 1MB's worth of RAM, bandwidth and processing time on both the server and client machine. Even if you just pull one unneeded 10 byte field you're flushing almost 10MB down the toilet, right off the bat. You might think "Yeah, but I'll never have 1 million records!" That's a) probably not true and b) the wrong attitude. Make it a habit of writing code the proper, efficient, self-documenting way no matter what the scale.
Out Of Order
Get in the habit of specifying every field, every time. Even though your language might not care what order the fields are in, there are those APIs that do. And even if your language doesn't, there are still assumptions that can be made in code that will break if an existing column is ever reordered or deleted or a new column is ever created or an deleted.
When You Assume...
Any time you fetch an array from a resultset, that is, you depend on the columns to be in a certain order... if the columns ever change your code will break and it will be very difficult to track down the problem. For example:
sql := "SELECT * FROM products WHERE id = 5" rs := db.query(sql) if db.error error(db.errstr) exit end if # else, success id, name = rs.nextrow() print(id. ":". name. "
") rs.free
ALTER TABLE products ADD FOREIGN KEY cat_id REFERENCES categories(id) DEFAULT NULL AFTER id;
This example assumes that the first 2 fields in thetable areand. Fine. Now, fast forward 6 months. People move on to different projects. Now imagine an upgrade: products are now associated with a category to better organize things:
The above code is now broken, because of its assumption of the name column's position. (When this is discovered you'll hear "But it worked before!") This is trivially remedied by enumerating the columns in the query.
Don't Do ItWhen it comes to identifying bullying, it helps to have a clear definition in mind. For instance, not every mean action is bullying. In fact, some people have a tendency to label every rude thing a child says or does as bullying. The danger with this belief is that it can dilute the message about bullying. When that happens, people become immune to the severity of bullying and the problem escalates.
Meanwhile, other people do not realize that there are several types of bullying. As a result, they may believe that only physical aggression constitutes bullying and forget about the other forms such as relational aggression, cyberbullying, verbal bullying, and sexual bullying.
When it comes to defining bullying, the best alternative is to look for the three most common components of bullying such as power imbalances, repetitive actions, and intentional acts. It’s also important to know what tactics or forms of bullying that bullies use when targeting other people.
Components of Bullying
Most bullying experts agree that what sets bullying apart from mean behavior is that bullies intend to harm their targets. There is also an imbalance of power and the acts are usually repeated. Bullying is usually not a one-time act but an ongoing pattern of behavior.
Power imbalance. When there is an imbalance of power, it is hard for the target to defend him/herself against the bully’s attacks. This difference in power can be physical or psychological. For instance, in cases of physical imbalances, the bully may be older, larger, or stronger. Or, there may be a gang of bullies targeting the victim. Meanwhile, psychological imbalances are harder to distinguish, but examples include having a higher social status, a sharper tongue, or more influence at school. The result of any power imbalance is that the target of the bullying feels weak, oppressed, threatened, and vulnerable.
Repetitive actions. Typically, bullying is not a single act of meanness or rude behavior. Instead, it is usually ongoing and sustained. Bullies often target their victims multiple times. Sometimes the bullying will be the same act over and over like demanding a child’s homework or lunch money. Other times, it will include a variety of actions such as calling the target names, tripping them in the halls, and posting mean comments online.
Even patterns of relational aggression are repeated over time. This can involve excluding a person from activities, posting mean things online, spreading rumors, and other subtle methods of emotional bullying. The point is that kids can say and do mean things, but an isolated incident does not constitute bullying. A situation becomes bullying when the torment is consistent and happens more than once.
Intentional actions. Another aspect that sets bullying apart from other mean or rude behaviors is that the bully intends to harm the target. Bullies harass other people on purpose. Their behavior is not accidental and it is not a “joke.” There is nothing funny about bullying for the victim. Instead, the consequences of bullying are steep. Victims may feel embarrassed, ashamed, upset, afraid, sad, or even angry. Additionally, bullying can become so mean that the target can begin to feel anxious and worry about going to school.
Tactics Used by Bullies
There are many different ways bullies harm other people. But these incidents can be divided into several categories including physical bullying, verbal bullying, relational aggression, sexual bullying, prejudicial bullying, and cyberbullying.
Physical bullying. This form of bullying is often the easiest to identify because it often involves some sort of physical act like hitting, shoving, kicking, and destroying or stealing property. Physical bullying also includes threats of violence as well.
Verbal bullying. Instead of hitting with hands, fists, or feet, the bully will hurt another person with words. This type of bullying includes name-calling, insulting, threatening, mocking, intimidating, and taunting. Even making racist remarks and sexist comments is considered bullying. For many people, it is hard to distinguish between teasing and bullying. But one good rule of thumb is if the target is not laughing or having fun then it is bullying.
Relational aggression. This type of bullying is insidious and uses relationships to control or hurt another person. Some common tactics of relational aggression including excluding or ostracizing other people, talking behind another person’s back, spreading rumors and lies, and participating in gossip. Relational aggression is especially hurtful because it deprives kids of the opportunity to form meaningful connections with their peers—something that is especially important during the tween and teen years.
Cyberbullying. This type of bullying usually takes place off of school grounds by utilizing technology. Some common tools of technology include cell phones, instant messaging, YouTube, social networking, e-mail, chat rooms, blogs, and so on. These tools are used as a way to engage in relational aggression and verbal bullying. Bullies insult, harass, spread rumors, and impersonate other people. They may even threaten to physically harm other people. The challenge with cyberbullying is that it can take place 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And it is done, at times, anonymously. As a result, the effects of cyberbullying are significant.
Sexual bullying. This type of bullying involves humiliating words and actions that target a person sexually. For instance, slut shaming is a relatively common form of sexual bullying. Other examples of sexual bullying include making crude comments, vulgar gestures, and propositioning. Even uninvited touching, exposure to pornographic materials, and sexual name-calling are considered forms of sexual bullying. In most cases of sexual bullying, it involves boys bullying girls or girls bullying girls. In rare cases, girls will bully boys sexually. For instance, a boy might make a crude comment about a girl's body while a girl might spread rumors about another girl's sexual activity.
Prejudicial bullying. When kids have prejudices over different races, religions, or sexual orientations, then prejudicial bullying usually takes place. In these cases, kids are targeting another person because they are different in some way. They also may use other tactics to accomplish their goal such as verbal bullying, physical bullying, and cyberbullying. While some races, religions, and sexual orientations are targeted more than others, it is important to recognize that anyone can be bullied for being different.
Spotting Bullying
When it comes to spotting bullying in your child's life, remember that most kids do not readily talk about bullying. Instead, they keep the details to themselves and try to handle it on their own. Consequently, it is essential that parents be able to identify the warning signs that bullying is taking place.
Some things to look for include changes in mood, eating habits, and sleep schedules as well as a loss of interest in normal activities. Many victims of bullying will complain of headaches and stomachaches and ask to skip school. There also may be a noticeable drop in grades, changes in friendships, and missing possessions.
If you notice any of these things, be sure you start a conversation with your child. Then, stop and listen. Let your child do most of the talking and only ask questions if you need to clarify something. Make sure your child knows that you are proud of him/her for sharing with you. And remind him/her that it took courage to talk about bullying. Then work together to address the situation including reporting the bullying to the school.
A Word From Verywell
Remember, bullying can happen to anyone and at any age. It is not just limited to middle school and high school. In fact, many people experience bullying in college and in the workplace.On July 20, China’s State Council issued the “New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan” (新一代人工智能发展规划), which articulates an ambitious, three-step agenda for China to lead the world in AI. The Chinese leadership recognizes that AI will be critical to its “comprehensive national power” and competitiveness, including in national defense. Through this new strategic framework, China will undertake a “three in one” (三位一体) agenda in AI: tackling key problems in research and development, pursuing a range of products and applications, and cultivating AI industry.
China wants to become a “premier global AI innovation center” by 2030. This plan seeks to redress current shortcomings and build up indigenous capabilities in innovation. The effort will include extensive government funding and investments, along with a focus on attracting and developing leading talent in AI. China will pursue cutting-edge research and development that could enable paradigm changes, including brain-inspired AI and quantum-accelerated machine learning. The Chinese leadership thus hopes to “occupy the commanding heights” of AI science and technology, leapfrogging the U.S. in the process.
Consequently, China plans to coordinate and optimize its use of both domestic and international “innovation resources.” Of note, the plan calls for encouraging cooperation between domestic AI enterprises and leading foreign universities, research institutes, and teams. China will encourage its own AI enterprises to pursue an approach of “going out” (走出去) through overseas mergers and acquisitions, equity investments, and venture capital, while establishing research and development centers abroad. Concurrently, China will encourage foreign AI companies to establish research and development centers in China. China will also leverage the “One Belt, One Road” strategy to establish bases for international scientific and technical cooperation and joint research centers focused on AI.
Through such measures, China will continue seeking to leverage foreign advances and expertise while still in the process of building up the capacity for independent innovation. For instance, Baidu established its Silicon Valley Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SVAIL) in 2014 and announced plans to establish a second laboratory in Silicon Valley in early 2017. In the fall of 2016, Huawei announced it would invest $1 million in a new AI research partnership with the University of California, Berkeley. This spring, Tencent revealed its intention to open its first AI research center in Seattle. Recently, CETC, a state-owned defense conglomerate that pursues dual-use research and development, also established a joint research center with the University of Technology, Sydney, which will focus on big data, AI, and quantum technologies.
Against the backdrop of current U.S. debates on CFIUS and recurrent concerns over Chinese investments in sensitive start-ups, this approach may prove controversial and could provoke further friction. For instance, this spring, Baidu acquired xPerception, which specializes in computer vision. In mid-2016, Neurala, a Boston-based start-up that makes AI software, based on technology initially developed for use by the U.S. Air Force and NASA, received Chinese investment from Haiyin Capital, which raised concerns about potential Chinese access to the associated technologies, given the clear military applications.
Several aspects of China’s strategic approach to AI inherently raise a dual-use dilemma and concerns. This new plan explicitly highlights an approach of military-civil fusion (or civil-military integration, 军民融合) to ensure that advances in AI can be leveraged for national defense. Accordingly, China plans to ensure that scientific and technological advances can be readily turned to dual-use applications, while military and civilian innovation resources will be “constructed together and shared” (共建共享). As such, certain ventures or technology transfers could eventually be leveraged to support future military capabilities.
This focus on civil-military integration in AI is consistent with a national strategy directed by the Military-Civil Fusion Development Commission (中央军民融合发展委员会), which was established in early 2017 under the leadership of Xi Jinping. The concept of “military-civil fusion,” which is actualized through an expansive policy agenda, has been integral to China’s efforts to advance its defense industrial base. Even as China tries to build the indigenous capacity for “innovation-driven” military and civilian development, technology transfer has continued to be and may remain an aspect of this effort.
As the PLA intensifies its focus on future “intelligentized” (智能化) warfare, its ability to leverage all available resources and the latest technological advances will be critical. To achieve this objective, China intends to establish and normalize mechanisms for communication and coordination among scientific research institutes, universities, enterprises, and military industry units. In particular, China wants to apply new-generation AI to support command and decision-making, military deduction, defense equipment, and other areas.
The implementation of military-civil fusion will support China’s effort to ensure that AI technology can be quickly leveraged to support national defense innovation through the “sharing and common use” (共享共用) of technologies. Certain of the “new generation” AI technologies that this new plan prioritizes will inherently have both civilian and military applications. For instance, China intends to achieve advances in human-machine hybrid intelligence, swarm intelligence, and automated decision-making, as well as autonomous unmanned systems and intelligent robotics.
China is not alone in its focus on the militarization of AI; the U.S. military is also pursuing multiple military applications of AI under the aegis of the Third Offset strategy. However, this new plan highlights that the CCP takes a state-driven approach to industrial policy that should be recognized as distinct from that of the U.S., including with regard to underlying relationships between the government, enterprises, and the military. With military-civil fusion elevated to the level of national strategy, China has the capacity to take full advantage of the dual-use character of this technology.
Looking forward, the U.S. and China will necessarily continue both to compete and to collaborate in AI. However, China’s new plan reflects the government’s intention and deliberate plan to continue to leverage foreign “innovation resources” to advance its own AI capabilities, while ensuring that relevant advances in AI are readily available for military use. China does remain highly focused on a variety of commercial and governmental applications of AI. There are plenty of cases, including issues of safety and standards, in which collaboration is warranted and may be mutually beneficial. Concurrently, it is clear that international cooperation in science and technology is critical to advancing the frontier of knowledge. However, U.S. engagement with China in AI should be calibrated based on an awareness of its official strategy for military-civil fusion and the resulting dual-use dilemma associated with potential transfers of knowledge, expertise, and technology.
In this context, while an update to CFIUS is certainly warranted, the U.S. response to China’s rise in AI must extend far beyond CFIUS. The U.S. should focus on ensuring adequate funding, leading talent, and enabling policies, while pursuing appropriate national and international cooperation to ensure future competitiveness. Although these issues can be readily hyped or politicized, the underlying challenges remain highly complex and nuanced. If the U.S. response to these issues of technology transfer is not adequately targeted and sophisticated, there could be significant unintended negative consequences for U.S. advances in AI, such as redirecting investment away from U.S. start-ups. To ensure a dynamic innovation ecosystem, the U.S. must enable and support the global flows of idea, talent, and capital that promote continued world-class leadership, while seeking to mitigate the resulting risks.
China’s new AI development plan should also serve as a timely reminder for the U.S. of the critical importance of building national capacity and competitiveness in this vital emerging technology. To date, the U.S. has yet to create a national strategy and policy framework that might ensure continued U.S. innovation in AI, despite the release of a National Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Strategic Plan in the fall of 2016. For the U.S., it will be vital to prioritize educating and attracting AI talent, while ensuring adequate investment in start-ups and funding for long-term research and development. In addition, the U.S. should start to consider new legal or regulatory frameworks, along with policies to mitigate safety issues and the potential for massive job losses as AI and other emerging technologies disrupt current employment patterns. Future U.S. economic competitiveness and military capabilities will depend upon continued innovation in such strategic emerging technologies and the associated policy frameworks.If they ever figure out how to viably populate some sort of a permanent settlement on Mars, I’d totally go. “Pack you bags,” I’d give my wife an ultimatum. “It’s either you come with me to Mars, or we’ll have to say goodbye forever.” And of course she’d say yes, because who wouldn’t want to live on another planet?
And I’m not talking about one of these one-way ticket deals where you have to go and set up your own space colony. No, I want the space colony to be already somewhat established. You know, drinking water, some sort of indoor plumbing situation, obviously food is going to be probably limited, but I’d still prefer a decent enough selection so as to have some variety in my diet. Oh yeah, and there has to be Internet. And I’m not talking just like a Mars Internet. It has to be able to connect to the Earth Internet.
Given all of these modest requirements are met, I’d absolutely go live on Mars. Would I ever be able to come back to Earth for a visit? Well, I’d like the option, but I guess it’s not mandatory. Just like maybe once every three or four years, how about I get to spend a month back home? Are there going to be regular transport ships back and forth? Maybe just some vacation time would be cool.
So I’m in. That would be so awesome. I’m so sick of looking outside and constantly seeing everything in blue and green. I for one would welcome the opportunity to feast my eyes on a landscape of red, orange and brown.
Oh yeah, I don’t know what the Mars colony policy might be regarding flora and fauna, but my dog Steve has to be allowed to come with us. That’s a non-negotiable. Obviously I’ll ask him if he wants to come. I mean, I believe that animals have a right to do whatever they want. But my dog is pretty easy to manipulate. For example, I’ve always had a feeling that if I left the door open, he’d just run away. But I buy these huge meaty dog biscuits at Petco, and any time he tries to escape, I hold one of them out, and he always comes running back. So I don’t think it’ll be too difficult convincing him to come to Mars.
Think of how much more space I’ll have on Mars. In the early stages of colonization anyway, there should be plenty of available land. I don’t see why I wouldn’t be able to be governor of my own Martian territory. And hundreds of years from now, when schoolchildren are learning about the early history of Mars, they won’t have to look back and worry about all of those dirty historical details that we’re confronted with every time we look at our own founding fathers. There aren’t any Indians to massacre, and I promise not to use slave labor to build my otherworldly utopia. On the off chance that I do happen to run into any sort of subterranean extraterrestrial civilization, I promise to be really cool. And if my earthly bacteria accidentally give the aliens a space plague, I pledge to do everything in my power to urge scientists both on Mars and back home to pour all of their resources into finding a cure.
I really want to go live on Mars. So I hope that we see some wild advances in space exploration within the next ten years or so. Because I’m not getting any younger. If developing a working cryogenics program to keep me in stasis until Mars is up and running, I’m OK with that, whatever gets me to Mars.A hectic pace at the White House has brought distinctly mixed results: ‘These guys are finding it’s a lot harder to do it than talk about it,’ says a former official
Is there method in the madness?
No one doubts that Donald Trump’s first 50 days as US president have busted norms, paradigms and taboos every bit as surely as his insurgent election campaign. On day 44, for example, he used Twitter to accuse his presidential predecessor, Barack Obama, of criminal wiretapping, then in the next moment mocked his reality-TV successor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, over poor ratings.
But Trump has also been both praised and criticised for doing more than many politicians to keep his election promises. There have been fleeting moments when a blurry picture of policy sharpens into focus. From the botched travel bans to the wrangling over healthcare reform, there are signs of how difficult it will be to translate policy into coherent action.
50 days of Trump: Bannon and Conway lead White House cast of characters Read more
“There is no ideology around the policies we see so far,” said Michael Steele, former chairman of the Republican National Committee. “There are particular impressions on issues. A lot of it is campaign-related rhetoric.”
To be in Washington these days is to dwell inside a washing machine, a daily churn of intelligence leaks, congressional demands for blood – attorney general Jeff Sessions has survived but the former national security adviser Michael Flynn did not – and pre-dawn presidential tweet storms (President Trump has topped more than 540 tweets at the last count).
Yet the architect of the chaos has also twice attempted to step back and explain his vision for America.
First, on day one, there was his dark inaugural address, with its ringing phrase “American carnage” and unabashed nationalism. Second, on day 40, there was an address to a joint session of Congress which struck a less harsh tone and promised a “new chapter of American greatness”, offering an olive branch for bipartisan cooperation.
But perhaps it was day 35 that offered a peek behind the curtains to the whirring cogs and wheels of White House machinery. It was not so much “Trumpism” as “Bannonism”, articulated by chief strategist Steve Bannon, who has compared himself to Thomas Cromwell in Henry VIII’s court and emerged as the biggest influence on the president’s thinking.
“If you look at the lines of work, I would break it up into three verticals or three buckets,” he told the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) near Washington. “The first is kind of national security and sovereignty … The second line of work is what I refer to as economic nationalism … The third, broadly, line of work is deconstruction of the administrative state.”
Work began on these “three verticals” at a hectic pace with distinctly mixed results. On the first, Trump announced that he would seek a $54bn increase in military spending, while cutting back on aid and diplomatic programmes, though he is yet to signal a meaningful shift in the fight against Islamic State.
But the most disruptive act so far was a travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries, rushed through on a Friday night, replete with glaring flaws. It backfired spectacularly, with mayhem and protests at airports, and was knocked back by the courts – an early kick in the complacency of the administration. A revised ban – slimmed to six countries but with substantially the same policy thrust – is now also facing legal challenges by six different states from Hawaii to New York.
Rich Galen, former press secretary to Dan Quayle, an ex-vice-president, said: “I think they were totally shocked how quickly it got thrown back in their face by the judicial world and the political world. That taught them a lesson that they need people around them who know what they are doing. They thought they could bluster their way through it.”
The learning curve from campaign to governance has proved steep, Galen added. “What these guys are finding out is it’s a lot harder to do it than talk about it. Being president is a lot harder than 140 characters.”
How much do you remember from Trump's first 50 days in office? – quiz Read more
He predicted: “I think the next 50 days will look very much like the first. Trump is having a lot more trouble adjusting to people not leaping in the air every time he suggests something. As president, you can’t control the press, you can’t control the legislature, you can’t control the judiciary.”
Economic nationalism implies an assertion of domestic control of the economy, protectionist policies such as tariffs and, perhaps most importantly in this context, opposition to trade and immigration. At CPAC, Bannon hailed withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership as “one of the most pivotal moments in modern American history”, enabling Washington to negotiate bilateral trade deals instead.
Trump – who likes the mantra “Buy American and hire American” – has made questionable claims that jobs are already returning to the country because of him. There are fears he will impose punitive tariffs on Mexican and Chinese imports, triggering a trade war that will stifle economic growth.
John Hudak, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington, said some Republicans in Congress would be unwilling to support “trade sovereignty” and Trump had diminished his chances of enlisting Democrats. “For a person who can become so petty in party politics, to launch an agenda that needs help from the other party shows a president who is under-talented,” he said.
Hudak described Trump as “the anti-Clinton”, contrasting him with President Bill Clinton’s ability to reach across the aisle even in his darkest political moments.
As for immigration, the populist movements in Britain, France and elsewhere have been characterised as dividing the world between “nationalists” and “globalists”. Bannon has made clear his loyalty to the former while declaring war on the “corporatist, globalist media that are adamantly opposed to an economic nationalist agenda”.
Construction on Trump’s border wall has not yet begun but he has backed his incendiary campaign rhetoric with new guidance that promises a security crackdown on the border and could see millions of undocumented immigrants deported. A series of highly visible raids by the president’s nascent deportation force has left Latino communities across the country on edge.
Then, in the longer term, there is a $1tn infrastructure plan, intended to boost employment. In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter last November, Bannon gave a crucial insight. “It’s everything related to jobs,” he said. “The conservatives are going to go crazy. I’m the guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. With negative interest rates throughout the world, it’s the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything.”
That infrastructure plan, also cited in Trump’s speech to Congress, will be tough for some Republicans to swallow, while sympathetic Democrats might balk at lending support to this president.
A tally of the people, places and things Trump insulted in his first 50 days Read more
Third in the set of Bannon principles was “deconstruction of the administrative state”, a phrase reminiscent of The Lord of the Rings, according to one commentator. It implies that the left has created a shadowy bureaucracy to push its agenda and that the state itself is inimical to the popular will. “The way the progressive left runs, is if they can’t get it passed, they’re just going to put in some sort of regulation in an agency,” Bannon said.
Trump has signed two executive orders slashing regulations and declared: “We don’t need 75% of the repetitive, horrible regulations that hurt companies, hurt jobs.” Activists are concerned that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will be a particular target, risking an increase in pollution.
But Hudak warned: “There’s a heck of a lot of regulation in this country that protects industry. You can kill the EPA but if you go too far you’re going to harm big business in this country. The idea that you can take a hatchet to the federal bureaucracy and always please conservatives is a myth.”
It is still uncertain, for example, whether Trump intends to shut down the Export-Import Bank, which has benefited some major corporations. “Closing it would be conservative but not Republican,” Hudak said.
For all the hurly-burly, few believe that a clear blueprint is yet discernible amid Trump’s scattergun approach to the making of both policies and wild, distracting accusations that tend to consume news cycles.
Rich Tyler, a conservative political analyst, observed: “There is no ideology, save for populism. There’s no anchoring governing philosophy to any of this. There may be ‘Trumpism’ but it’s not really conservatism or Republicanism. There may be a realignment but the incompetent and mixed messages coming out of the White House make it very difficult.”
Bannon’s three verticals need to be better defined, Tyler added. “I still don’t know what our position is towards Russia and Putin, I’m still unclear what the plan is to defeat Isis in Syria and Iraq, I don’t know what our agenda is for North Korea and Kim Jong-un. I don’t know what ‘economic nationalism’ means.”
For the next 50 days, he predicted, “It’s going to get harder. We’ve now seen the way the administration reacts. They don’t have a replacement for Obamacare. Foreign powers will continue to test us and we’ve shown we don’t have a response.”
Such is Trump’s temperament and volatility, there were some who doubted he would make it to 50 days. But his speech to Congress reassured doubtful Republicans and left Democrats digging in for a protracted battle against a constantly moving target.
Bob Shrum, a Democratic political consultant, said: “There’s a deal here: the congressional Republican party is putting up with the tweets and other things they don’t like and in return they get to repeal and replace Obamacare and cut taxes for rich people.
“These are conservative dreams. They are putting up with Trump because he’s giving them their conservative dreams. I expect more of the same so long as he’s there.”Close
The first peoples migrating into the Americas did not bring dogs along, and our canine companions may have only followed on around 10,000 years ago, a new study indicates.
Analysis of genetic evidence from ancient dog remains in both North and South America suggests significant dog migrations followed the first waves of humans only thousands of years later, the study at the University of Illinois found.
"Dogs are one of the earliest organisms to have migrated with humans to every continent, and I think that says a lot about the relationship dogs have had with humans," said study leader Kelsey Witt. "They can be a powerful tool when you're looking at how human populations have moved around over time."
Analysis of mitochondrial DNA, inherited only from mothers, shows dogs have a more recent history in the Americas than was previously believed, the researchers reported in the Journal of Human Evolution.
"Dog genetic diversity in the Americas may date back to only about 10,000 years ago," Witt said.
Previous studies suggested dogs were in Alaska from 40,000 to 20,000 years ago, and while people of those earlier times may have brought dogs with them, they may not have been widespread, the researchers said.
Some of the dog remains analyzed showed considerable genetic similarities shared with American wolves, the researchers said, pointing to the interbreeding of dogs with wolves.
Or alternatively, early peoples in the Americas could have domesticated dogs anew after their arrival from American wolves, they posited.
Ancient dogs that learned to tolerate human companionship gained benefits, including availability of new food sources and the safety of human settlements, the researchers noted, and they eventually moved across the globe with their masters.
Genetic analysis of ancient dog remains can be a valuable tool to track human migrations since the type of data it yields is rare.
"Living [human] populations who are very connected to their ancestors in some cases may be opposed to the destructive nature of genetic analysis," Witt explained.
Such peoples often permit examination of ancient dog remains even when analysis of human remains is barred, Witt noted.
Four genetic signatures never seen before were found in the new samples studied, suggesting the diversity of dogs throughout the Americas was greater than previously thought, the researchers said.
However, a few ancient dog populations showed unusually low levels of genetic diversity, evidence that some ancient peoples were already engaging in significant dog breeding efforts to fix certain characteristics, they said.
ⓒ 2018 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.As temperatures around the globe begin to plummet in time for the autumn and winter months, car owners will inevitably start servicing their engine coolant systems to avoid frozen radiators.
While it’s great to stay on top of scheduled vehicle maintenance, animal experts over at Purdue University remind us all that it's also vital to handle related hazardous chemicals safely to prevent harm to animals and the environment; this includes storing and disposing of them properly when finished.
Image Credit: Robert Couse-Baker/Flickr via SPCA |
finished product ends up pregnant with both meaning and aesthetic value. This is the poetic essence to Tarkovsky’s work that inspires two states of bliss for the audience: rational and irrational. The rational bliss is more commonly known as an epiphany—when a person very suddenly gains insight into the essential meaning of something that alters their perception of reality. The dialogue in Stalker—mediated by the slow-paced narrative and surrounded by an aura of conscious reverie—undoubtedly has the power to spark an epiphany in any receptive person. This type of rational bliss is a different facet of the poetic essence at work than the irrational bliss, which is brought on by what we don’t understand in the film, but are still drawn to. In contrast to the epiphany, the visual poetry of Stalker suspends rational thought and lets the viewer focus on the experience of the film itself. A good example of this is the scene when the three characters have stopped fighting with each other and sit down together on the threshold of The Room. Rain starts to fall into the shallow pool, and again, we look at the three archetypal characters together from a far, static angle. This scene inspires chills. But on the first, second or maybe even third viewing, the audience may still not have a rational explanation for the falling rain. This is not because it is unable to be explained, but because the power of this scene is rooted in the raw, irrational essence of poetry as opposed to something that is meant to be clear in its message.
In addition to these methods of creation and the states of bliss his films inspire, Tarkovksy employed a clear devotion to his art form that would be expected of a poet. As shown in the documentary film Directed by Andrei Tarkosvky, he had a great passion for the collaborative work of film making. Though poetry is most often a solitary craft, there are still parallels to be found in the technical aspects of creating a poem and creating a film. For instance, in Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, one sequence shows the process of designing a set for his last work, The Sacrifice. Tarkovsky has a hand in everything, but he is not dictatorial. He helps to accent the set with small items, says which colored couch he would prefer, and knows how to arrange the lighting. These details are like the technical elements of poems that a poet must pay close attention to, even if they are not fully conscious of how each small thing will affect the work as a whole. For example, when a poet puts a phrase together that, for some reason feels a little bit off, there may be a word that needs to be added or a word that needs to be removed to make the phrase feel right. This is likely the way Tarkovsky and his set-designers go about creating a set. They have a feeling in mind that they want to produce, and they need to put things together in a certain order to make it a reality. Unlike a poet, however, Tarkovsky has many people to cooperate with during the creation of his films. There are different personalities to deal with and perhaps different artistic visions that need to be reconciled with Tarkovsky’s. With so many things going on during the making of a professional film, Tarkovsky said in the documentary that it can be easy for a director to become more like an observer during the creation of a film, as opposed to an active participant. He made a point of being directly involved in everything that he could be, and this is one reason why each of his films are unmistakably his. He developed his own style of film making that is instantly recognizable by anyone familiar with his work.
One such trademark of his films is explained by one of his former collaborators, Eduard Artemyev, in an interview about Tarkovsky’s use of music. Artemyev was a young composer when he met Tarkovsky and was asked to score his 1972 film Solaris. He was never given specific directions for the score, but was actually granted a rather overwhelming amount of creative freedom. Tarkovsky trusted him to set a score for his films that would match his artistic vision and contribute to putting the essence of poetry in action. One thing Tarkovsky insisted upon, however, was for Artemyev to try and “orchestrate the sounds of nature” in his scoring of the films. In Stalker, evidence of this approach to the sound effects can be heard throughout. Dripping water—which is a common sound in the movie—is supplemented by a slight echoing, metallic effect. Not only does this give certain scenes in Stalker a more futuristic feeling (it is a science-fiction film, after all), but it also makes the viewer become more aware of water as a central theme to the film. Another example where Artemyev subtly complements the sound effects in Stalker is when the three characters are riding the trolley on their way into The Zone. There is a rhythmic industry to the sounds the trolley makes in that long shot that mesmerizes the viewer as they anticipate entering The Zone. The clacking of the wheels on the track creates a musical bridge between the bleak, sepia-toned world they are coming from and the lush, colorful zone they are entering. In addition to supplementing natural sounds, Stalker also makes use of more conventional music to enhance certain scenes. The dream sequence, where the Stalker, Writer, and Professor decide to take a rest by the bank of the river, makes excellent use of an ambient piece to accompany the reading of the poem “The Prayer of the Stalker.” While the poem is read by a disembodied female voice (also the voice of the Stalker’s wife), there are orchestrated bird and animal sounds in the background that were likely pre-recorded and then placed into the film. Once the poem has been finished, the music begins and helps set into motion the irrational state of bliss for the viewer that this scene is so famous for. In this way, the music used in Tarkovsky’s films help to actuate the poetic essence. It is a flawless example of Tarkovsky’s ideal aesthetic on full display.
Though it should be simple to enjoy a film like Stalker for anybody interested in feeling and thinking, the slow pace of the narrative and the cinematic style on the whole may take some getting used to. In an interview with Vadim Yusov, a cinematographer who worked with Tarkovsky on his 1983 film Nostalghia, he said that Tarkovsky was interested partly in the reproduction of reality when it came to the cinematography. This holds true for most of his post-Ivan’s Childhood works. The use of long, unedited shots in the majority of Tarkovsky’s films take the viewer on a journey with the main characters, as opposed to leaving them as observers. From beginning to end in Stalker, the viewer can feel each step in the story as it unfolds because of the way it is shot. There are a few time-lapses, but nothing that is terribly disorienting. It begins in the morning when the Stalker gets out of bed, and ends soon after he goes back to sleep. According to Russian film expert Vida Johnson, Tarkovsky’s interest in the reproduction of reality by using long shots only increased over time. Wikipedia says that in Stalker, a 163 minute film, there are a total of 142 shots with the average length of the shots lasting over a minute. But in The Sacrifice, Tarkovsky’s last film, there are only 115 shots for a total of 149 minutes. This shows a clear progression towards the longer, more virtuosic style of cinematography that Tarkovsky sought to perfect throughout his career.
In the end though, it is not the technical details of his art that prove to be the most interesting. Tarkovsky was a master of his craft with a deeply personal connection to everything he created. He believed in making art that responded to a necessity of man—a kind of art that forces a person to the center of his being in a desperate attempt at rebirth while under the constant threat of dissolution. He lived during a time when the world threatened itself openly with its own destruction, and he responded to that threat the only way a solitary person can: he created art. He posed eternal questions of love, happiness, beauty, wisdom, etc., in his films that will continue to open people up in a way they have never been opened up before. If anything is made clear after absorbing Tarkovsky’s aesthetic philosophy and works, it is that when confronted with good art, our reductionist tendencies as rational, pragmatic people are made useless. Stalker is not a film to be reasoned with in order to find answers—it is a film to be experienced in order to find questions. The essence of poetry as Tarkovsky saw it was not only a thing to be experienced in the leavened moments of bliss induced by great art, but also a thing that comes to birth and rebirth inside oneself in daily life. It is when it is embodied in art, however, that one becomes so acutely aware of its inflammatory nature that they develop a vast, insatiable yearning for its constant activity. This is not unlike the Stalker’s own yearning for The Zone, which torments him to the point where he would sacrifice anything, even his life, for a chance to be with it again. In this sense, The Zone is accessible to each and every person capable of making art, for it is when making art that a person feels free of the dreaded and eternal human task of survival in a dispassionate world. To enter The Zone is an act of liberation, but to explore it—as in the film—is a dangerous thing. A successful journey through The Zone requires more than art. If one is not lead in the right direction and by the right forces at the right times, they may go mad from disorientation. In other words, there must be a balance of forces to inform one’s world view in order to make it through The Zone and find themselves suddenly on the threshold of The Room, where they are faced with the great question of desire. The essence of poetry is something that helps a person on the way to The Room, as when the Writer leads the way through the Meat Grinder, but it is not the only force at work. Tarkovsky understood the multiple ways of reaching forms of truth. Faith, Art, and Science may sometimes be at odds in his work and in our society, but in the end he realizes they must cooperate as even-handedly as possible in order to reach the sought-after happiness. The paradox is that this happiness as destination may not even be desirable by any party because happiness is not a destination; it is an endless state of exploration carried out by the three forms of understanding. In the end, though, Tarkovsky understood the world as an artist. He pursued his vocation with the conviction of one wholly consumed by the essence of poetry and proved to the world that to have real love for anything in this world is the most essential part of being human. He died as a martyr of his beloved cinema due to cancer likely caused by the radioactive site where Stalker was filmed. In Sculpting in Time, Tarkovsky wrote “The aim of art is to prepare a person for death, to plough and harrow his soul, rendering it capable of turning to good.” If art has ever prepared a person for death, there was never one more deserving than him.
AdvertisementsBELLEFONTE - Jerry Sandusky lost a major round in his bid to win a new trial on the child sex abuse charges that, six years ago, rocked Penn State, the college football world and, in some ways, the nation.
Jefferson County Judge John Foradora dismissed in its entirety a set of far-ranging appeals brought by the former Penn State football assistant's defense team that, in essence, distilled to the argument that his original trial was not fair.
Penn State child sex abuse scandal timeline: Sandusky's crimes continue to cast shadows
Foradora, was named to the case earlier this year, after the original trial judge, John Cleland of McKean County, recused himself because of one of those claims.
The immediate effect of the ruling is that Sandusky's conviction for the sexual abuse of 10 boys between 1994 and 2008 stands, along with his 30-year minimum state prison term.
But the likelihood is that Sandusky, now 73, will seek a further review of his claims - known technically as post-conviction relief act arguments - in Pennsylvania's Superior Court.
Ex-Penn State athletic director Tim Curley freed from prison, under house arrestI have been asked a few times recently "What is the state of the Designate project?", "How is Designate getting on?", and by people who know what is happening "What are you going to do about Designate?".
Needless to say, all of this is depressing to me, and the people that I have worked with for the last number of years to make Designate a truly useful, feature rich project.
Note TL;DR; for this - Designate is not in a sustainable place.
To start out - Designate has always been a small project. DNS does not have massive cool appeal - its not shiny, pretty, or something you see on the front page of HackerNews (unless it breaks - then oh boy do people become DNS experts).
A line a previous PTL for the project used to use, and I have happily robbed is "DNS is like plumbing, no one cares about it until it breaks, and then you are standing knee deep in $expletive". (As an aside, that was the reason we chose the crocodile as our mascot - its basically a dinosaur, old as dirt, and when it bites it causes some serious complications).
Unfortunately that comes over into the development of DNS products sometimes. DNSaaS is a check box on a tender response, an assumption.
We were lucky in the beginning - we had 2 large(ish) public clouds that needed DNS services, and nothing currently existed in the eco-system, so we got funding for a team from a few sources.
We got a ton done in that period - we moved from a v1 API which was synchronous to a new v2 async API, we massively increased the amount of DNS servers we supported, and added new features.
Unfortunately, this didn't last. Internal priorities within companies sponsoring the development changed, and we started to shed contributors, which happens, however disappointing. Usually when this happens if a project is important enough the community will pick up where the previous group left off.
We have yet to see many (meaningful) commits from the community though. We have some great deployers who will file bugs, and if they can put up patch sets - but they are (incredibly valuable and appreciated) tactical contributions. A project cannot survive on them, and we are no exception.
So where does that leave us? Let have a look at how many actual commits we have had:
Commits per cycle Havana 172 Icehouse 165 Juno 254 Kilo 340 Liberty 327 Mitaka 246 Newton 299 Ocata 98
Next cycle, we are going to have 2 community goals:
Control Plane API endpoints deployment via WSGI
Python 3.5 functional testing
We would have been actually OK for the tempest one - we were one of the first external repo based plug-ins with designate-tempest-plugin
For WSGI based APIs, this will be a chunk of work - due to our internal code structure splitting out the API is going to be... an issue. (and I think it will be harder than most people expect - anyone using olso.service has eventlet imported - I am not sure how that affects running in a WSGI server)
Python 3.5 - I have no idea. We can't even run all our unit tests on python 3.5, so I suspect getting functional testing may be an issue. And, convincing management that re-factoring parts of the code base due to "community goals" or a future potential pay-off can be more difficult than it should.
We now have a situation where the largest "non-core" project in the tent has a tiny number of developers working on it. 42% of deployers are evaluating Designate, so we should see this start to increase.
How did this happen? Like most situations, there is no single cause. Certainly there may have been fault on the side of the Designate leadership. We had started out as a small team, and had built a huge amount of trust and respect based on in person interactions over a few years, which meant that there was a fair bit of "tribal knowledge" in the heads of a few people, and that new people had a hard time becoming part of the group. Also, due to volume of work done by this small group, a lot of users / distros were OK leaving us work - some of us were also running a production designate service during this time, so we knew what we needed to develop, and we had pretty quick feedback when we made a mistake, or caused a bug. All of this resulted in the major development cost being funded by two companies, which left us vulnerable to changes in direction from those companies. Then that shoe dropped. We are now one corporate change of direction from having no cores on the project being paid to work on the project. Preceding this, the governance of OpenStack changed to the Big Tent While this change was a good thing for the OpenStack project as a whole it had quite a bad impact on us. Pre Big Tent, you got integrated. This was at least a cycle, where you moved docs to docs.openstack.org, integrated with QA testing tooling, got packaged by Linux distros, and build cross project features. When this was a selective thing, there was teams available to help with that, docs teams would help with content (and tooling - docs was a mass of XML back then), QA would help with tempest and devstack, horizon would help with panels. In Big Tent, there just wasn't resources to do this - the scope of the project expansion was huge. However the big tent happened (in my opinion - I have written about this before) before the horizontal / cross project teams were ready. They stuck to covering the "integrated" projects, which was all they could do at the time. This left us in a position of having to reimplement tooling, figure out what tooling we did have access to, and migrate everything we had on our own. And, as a project that (at our peak level of contribution) only ever had 5% of the number of contributors compared to a project like nova, this put quite a load on our developers. Things like grenade, tempest and horizon plug-ins, took weeks to figure out all of which took time from other vital things like docs, functional tests and getting designate into other tools. One of the companies who invested in designate had a QE engineer that used to contribute, and I can honestly say that the quality of our testing improved 10 fold during the time he worked with us. Not just from in repo tests, but from standing up full deployment stacks, and trying to break them - we learned a lot about how we could improve things from his expertise. Which is kind of the point I think. Nobody is amazing at everything. You need people with domain knowledge to work on these areas. If you asked me to do a multi-node grenade job, I would either start drinking, throw my laptop at you or do both. We still have some of these problems to this day - most of our docs are in a messy pile in docs.openstack.org/developer/designate while we still have a small amount of old functional tests that are not ported from our old non plug-in style. All of this adds up to make projects like Designate much less attractive to users - we just need to look at the project navigator to see what a bad image potential users get of us. This is for a project that was ran as a full (non beta) service in a public cloud.Getty Images
Buccaneers defensive end Da’Quan Bowers dodged a bullet Thursday.
That’s something Plaxico Burress wasn’t able to do, and the difference was shown in their sentences.
Bowers paid a $250 fine and a $120 surcharge, and had his felony second-degree possession of a weapon charges reduced to disorderly conduct, according to Mike Garafolo of USA Today.
The initial charge was the same as Burress faced in New York, and the then-Giants wide receiver served nearly two years in prison.
Bowers was arrested in February, when he told LaGuardia Airport employees he had a gun in his luggage while checking in for a flight.
“[Da’Quan is] very happy, and honestly the Queens County District Attorney’s office investigated the case thoroughly and he was honest when he had the gun,” attorney Dennis Coppin said. “He turned it over to the first gate agent he saw. He did the right thing, and they did the right thing in their investigation.”
“Sometimes with these cases, you have to use common sense. Obviously, a lot of people are anti-guns or what not, but you just can’t have a blanket rule that applies to [all cases].”
The disorderly conduct charge carries no jail time or probation, meaning he won’t miss any football activities this offseason because of it.Cointelegraph has conducted a review of the ongoing ICO campaign of Adel, and we are now making it available for our readers.
ICOs are a new paradigm of fundraising, in use with many young Blockchain-based startups. During one, the company in question releases a cryptocurrency token and sells a part of the total supply to its intended audience.
ICOs do not have any specific legal regulations associated with them, and as such can be a risky thing to participate in for the investors. In order to not fall prey to a fraudulent campaign, one should conduct due diligence and stay on the lookout for any possible red flags.
Cointelegraph has performed its own review of the ICO campaign of the project called Adel, which is currently underway. We have decided to make it publically available, for the consideration of potential investors.
While reviewing a Blockchain project undergoing an ICO, the two primary goals are to evaluate the chances and the extent of its potential success and the risks associated with investing into it. As you are doing that, it is important to pay attention to several key factors. Let’s divide them into several groups: the project, the team, the company, and the technical details of the ICO.
We will go over the specific aspects of each of these categories, looking for the positive and negative factors, as well as red flags pointing to possible mismanagement or fraudulent activity.
The project
Adel is a global community built on the NXT Blockchain, focused on facilitating the development of various Blockchain-based projects into real-life use cases. The project encompasses a wide range of features, and can be described as a “Blockchain-oriented business incubator.”
Among Adel’s features are:
The Board, comprised of several people, who are experts in various aspects of business. The proclaimed purpose of the Board is to direct the development of the community and provide guidance to the Blockchain-powered projects whose development will be facilitated by Adel;
A thoroughly developed and described process, which Adel will use to help the new Blockchain-based companies throughout their early existence, from the stage of an idea to a fully functioning use case;
Adelphoi, a cryptocurrency token which will be used to power the inner workings of Adel’s ecosystem. It provides an easy and transparent way to exchange value between the participants.
Three planned projects, whose implementation is set to begin right after the end of the three rounds of funding of Adel. Their descriptions and implementation plans are available on Adel’s home page as project 01, project 02 and project 03.
On the positive side:
In the pre-Blockchain industries, business incubators have proven themselves as an excellent tool for facilitating economic and technological progress. The idea of creating a similar organization oriented on the Blockchain projects is very relevant, given the fact that the field is mostly comprised of very young companies, a lot of which are looking for support and guidance.
Not merely looking for profit, Adel focuses on the deployment of working, real-life use cases of the Blockchain technology. This approach is expected to be highly beneficial not only to Adel but also to the industry as a whole.
Transparency is proclaimed as one of the core values of Adel, and the availability of Adelphoi, a cryptocurrency token, ensures the necessary openness of all transactions inside the project.
There is a negative side to the project, however. The idea of a Blockchain-oriented VC fund/business incubator is not a new one. There are several other projects, which may be different to Adel in many aspects, but are quite similar in their mission, which is to fund new Blockchain-based projects, help them grow, and make a return at a later stage.
One example of such project is Blockchain Capital, which has already managed to secure $10 mln during an ICO in April. So, ultimately, while the idea behind Adel is very relevant, the project is going to face serious competition. Its ultimate success will depend on the team, the Blockchain projects it will take on, and the power of the community it will build.
The team
Information about the team is available on the homepage of Adel. It includes many professionals of business, marketing, software architecture, law, etc. Their claimed specialties and prior working experiences make them sufficiently qualified to implement the project.
There is, however, one negative aspect associated with the team, specifically the Board: there is not a lot of info available about the Board members.
The cryptocurrency community values transparency incredibly highly and for a good reason. If the founders of a project are transparent about their names, identities and past experiences, they have a reputation to lose in case of mismanagement or fraud and are as such stimulated to perform as best they can.
Conversely, in the case of Adel, not much is known about the Board members, so they stand little to lose when it comes to reputation if something goes wrong.
Firstly, Jan Lamser seems to be the only Board member who has had prior experience in the blockchain industry. It’s claimed on the website that he is a “Fintech entrepreneur and leading spokesperson for Blockchain innovation in Central and Eastern Europe.” However, not much information can be found online to back that claim. The few things which are available are Mr. Lamser’s LinkedIn profile, and several speeches in an unknown language (presumably Czech), which, on the surface, do not seem Blockchain-related.
Similarly, not a lot of info is available on Gabriel Dusil. There are two blogs available, authored by him. One is supposed to cover all aspect of his professional activities but only Adel-related posts can be found on it, which raises unanswered questions about his prior business experience. The home page of his other company, Eurostartups.tech, is also not very informative, conveying little about both the business itself, and Mr. Dusil’s person.
This seeming lack of proof of the Board members’ identities, qualifications and prior experience is a significant problem, which makes the investment into the project more risky. The claims made on the site are almost the only source of information about the Board members, and one should consider whether they are sufficient enough, before investing into the project.
The company
The legal entity behind Adel is ADEL ECOSYSTEM LIMITED, an LTD registered under the laws of the Isle of Man, under the registry number 131257C.
The records are present on the official registry, and no legal charges are present against the company as of the time of writing.
The legal entity is very young, having been established on March 17, 2017. However, that fact alone does not represent any cause for concern.
The technical details of the ICO
Adel plans to secure funding via three ICO rounds. During each of these rounds, 33,333,33 Adelphoi tokens will be sold to the public, totaling 100 mln across all three. The first round has already begun on May 1, and within the first four days, the campaign has managed to bring in more than 140 Bitcoins worth of contributions. The current round of ICO is planned to last until May 31.
The company has implemented a strict AML policy and requires investors to submit their ID’s before participating. Any person who invests more than one Bitcoin during the ICO will become a stakeholder, with full voting powers in regards to Adel’s future decisions.
As we have said in one of our previous articles, there are several important things, which are expected from a Blockchain project conducting an ICO.
Firstly, a project has to provide a range of documents which describe its idea, product, business model and its long-term goals. These documents are primarily a Whitepaper and a Roadmap. Adel has covered the former with a significant degree of redundancy - there are nine whitepapers available on its homepage, describing in thorough detail everything associated with the project’s vision, management structure, decision making and so on.
However, an explicit roadmap is unavailable, which is unattractive from an investor’s standpoint, as it makes the project’s goals unclear and its future uncertain.
One of the most critical aspects of an ICO is the availability of an escrow wallet for contributions. During an ICO, investors’ contributions are usually collected in a special kind of wallet, protected by several keys, which are held by different persons. In order to access the money, one needs to use a certain number of those keys.
As covered on the FAQ page of Adel, its ICO employs a five out of six escrow wallets. This means that there are six people holding their secret keys and five of them are needed in order to access the stored money.
Cointelegraph has got in touch with Bas Wisselink, one of the key holders and also a known member of the Advisory Board of the Nxt Foundation. He has confirmed the fact that he, and Yassin - another key holder - are indeed involved in the ICO and are holding the keys to the escrow wallet.
This approach provides a high degree of security for the investors’ funds. The Board members of Adel will be unable to take the contributions out of the escrow wallet without the keys of the aforementioned people, making any fraudulent activity highly unlikely.
Conclusion
Overall, Adel’s ICO seems to have good potential for success. There are not a lot of security concerns - the primary one being lack of publically available information about the Board members. However, the escrow wallet with confirmed key holders outside of Adel’s team ensures that fraud is not an issue.
The absence of a roadmap leaves some ambiguity in regards to the project’s specific goals. It is up to an investor to evaluate the project’s chances of success. But given the highly relevant idea, Adel is based on, the thorough way in which the whitepapers describe its vision and business model, and a highly qualified team all indicate that the people behind the project are serious about what they are doing.
If you are interested in participating in Adel’s ICO, feel free to conduct further research on their website, and on any other sources available online.
Cointelegraph has contacted Adel to ask to provide more information about their team members. The following is their reply:
Adel is not all about Board members with many years of Blockchain experience. We are mainstream business experts that have established Adel to bring Blockchain technologies to the world. Many Blockchain services up till now have developers with some level of visibility in the crypto community, but many lack decades of experience in real world businesses, and in managing very large companies. Adel was formed to legitimize Blockchain for mainstream investors and the mainstream market. This requires real-world expertise. Regardless, we have hired many Blockchain experts with several years of experience:
Travin Keith
Kelvin Lee Wilhelm
Ruben Bueno Castro
Martynas Bacevicius
Dirk Reuter
Adam Vaziri
Robert Gasch
Daniel Backman
Natalie Gavrilenko
We also have the backing of the entire Nxt Foundation, and the Ardor community.
We don't look at Blockchain as a closed community. We don't feel that this is a situation like "you need to have blog posts since 2013 talking about Blockchain, otherwise you can't join our club". This community requires real world legitimacy with people that have decades experience in the real-world. We have already supplemented our expertise with Blockchain experts. This is what it means to build a company - you bring in people with the expertise and you provide strong leadership to guide them to success.
Michal Vavrek, Gabriel Dusil & Jan Lamser have collectively over 70 years of experience in trading, banking, IT security, ICT, VC funding, marketing, sales, operations, and other disciplines. Jan Lamser was the general manager of the largest saving bank (CSOB, part of the KBC Group) in the Czech Republic for nearly 20 years.
We feel we have been as transparent as feasibly possible for our website, without littering the website with many many links. To keep our home page clean we have decided not to provide endless links on all of our team. We feel that a Google search already serves that purpose.
Jan Lamser was responsible for 8000 people in CSOB. Many CEOs don't focus on their online presence. His credentials are based on the success of CSOB over a 20 year stretch.
Gabriel Dusil’s blog was started 4 years ago. Here is the index of all posts before 2017. He has been quoted in the press since the 1990's. He also has skills and enforcements from hundreds of business associates from all around the world, reflected in his LinkedIn profile.As with many people that populate the inner ring of Trumpland, Lewandowski has virtually no cachet independent from his relationship to the president. He has spent his career as a journeyman political operative, a two-time failed candidate for office (in Massachusetts and New Hampshire) and a police officer. Yet where the Clintons were surrounded by a vast horde of ‘‘friends,’’ Trump ran a family business with a small network of flag-wavers. His campaign was a tiny operation, and Lewandowski got in early, stuck around and stayed loyal. Never mind that he was bounced as campaign manager in June 2016, one reason being that he had run afoul of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump; Bloomberg reported last month of a détente between Lewandowski and Kushner, consummated on a ‘‘stroll through the White House Rose Garden,’’ ending in a hug.
Being one of ‘‘Trump’s guys’’ positions Lewandowski at the apex of Washington influence in 2017. He is clearly close to the president. He can decipher his moods, know which buttons to push and when to stay away. Rather than ‘‘going in’’ (local shorthand for ‘‘going in to an administration’’), Lewandowski leveraged his big-fish status in Trumpland to open a lucrative Washington consultancy to help corporations and clients ‘‘navigate’’ the new administration. Unlike Spicer’s position, this inside-out role enables Lewandowski to pick his spots and steer clear of the West Wing infighting and fiefs and, maybe most of all, the day-to-day dramas inherent in being too close to Donald J. Trump.
Lewandowski warned me to keep my voice down, as he suspected that the guy sitting on the couch behind him was an eavesdropping reporter — a familiar hazard at the Trump Hotel. After a few minutes, we were joined by Anthony Scaramucci, the Long Island-born financier, fund-raiser and Trump acolyte — known as ‘‘the Mooch’’ to fellow Trumpians, New York tabloid-headline writers as well as his long-ago Little League teammates. Scaramucci, whose sculpted jaw, hair and form-fitting suit give the impression of an infomercial host, had been having trouble landing a top White House job. He had apparently been up for a role as an adviser and public liaison to government agencies and businesses, but that stalled because of complications related to the sale of his company, SkyBridge Capital, to foreign buyers.
‘‘Thanks for that thing at the White House today,’’ Scaramucci told Lewandowski, the first of four times he would thank him in the five minutes that we were together. The men locked eyes and nodded simultaneously: Gratitude acknowledged, accepted. Lewandowski had to rush off to catch a flight home to New Hampshire, where he lives with his wife and four children. The Mooch thanked him again.
I found out later that Scaramucci was now in line to be the Paris-based ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, pending Senate confirmation. In the interim, Scaramucci has been appointed chief strategy officer of the United States Export-Import Bank, an institution that Trump derided during the campaign as ‘‘excess baggage.’’ But the Mooch says the plan is now to keep the bank open. The excess baggage, in other words, has been claimed.
Trump was elected in part by portraying and revealing politicians to be feckless weenies — and many of them went out and reinforced this view by displaying their willingness to be rolled by Trump in the campaign and unwillingness to stand up to him in office. This gets to one ethic of This Town that has endured and that Trump has reinforced: The interests of self-perpetuation drive nearly everything. Much of the Republican base still loves Trump, and few Republicans in Congress can afford to alienate these voters by defying him too forcefully, even though many of them — particularly senators — plainly hold the president in low regard.
There have been exceptions, but by far the most vocal critics of Trump on the right have been the columnists, political consultants and former Republican officeholders who don’t need to face voters. Trump ‘‘has been a complete disaster’’ in office beyond foreign policy, said John Boehner, the former Republican speaker — the key word being ‘‘former.’’ (He was speaking at a private event in Houston; he later tried to walk the comment back.) You encounter many elected Republicans these days who struggle to calibrate their reactions to the president by what the Republican media consultant Rick Wilson refers to as ‘‘F.O.M.T.’’ — ‘‘Fear of Mean Tweets.’’ ‘‘It’s the great dichotomy of my life right now,’’ says Wilson, an outspoken anti-Trump voice who speaks often to clients and friends who are Republican officeholders. ‘‘I have guys call me literally on the verge of tears some days, like, ‘This guy is going to get us killed,’ ’’ Wilson told me. ‘‘And then they go out the next day, and they can’t wait to build the wall, they want to ‘make America great again’ all day long.’’AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Rates on toll roads managed by the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority are increasing by 2.2 percent at the start of the new year.
If you drive the full length of 183A Toll in northwest Austin, it'll now cost you 6 cents more with an electronic tag. However, the price varies at each toll plaza. The Lakeline Mainline will see an increase from 55 cents to 56 cents whereas the Park Street Mainline will see an increase from $1.48 to $1. |
Born in Bournemouth, England, Rushton received a Ph.D. in social psychology from the London School of Economics and Political Science and has taught psychology at the University of Western Ontario in Canada since 1977.
Although his training is unrelated to biology or genetics, Rushton has not hesitated to spread his opinions far and wide, especially through his major published work, Race, Evolution and Behavior. The book makes such claims as an inverse relationship between penis and brain size (blacks are supposedly more promiscuous and less intelligent than whites).
Rushton began his university career investigating the basis of altruism — why one person sometimes aids another even at personal risk — and concluded "birds of a feather flock together" and that "genes incline people to marry, befriend, associate with, and help others like themselves."
Although the University of Western Ontario has always been careful to defend Rushton's academic freedom, officials did reprimand him twice for carrying out research on human subjects in 1988 without required prior approval. In the first incident, Rushton surveyed first-year psychology students, asking questions about penis length, distance of ejaculation, and number of sex partners. In the second, he surveyed customers at a Toronto shopping mall, paying 50 whites, 50 blacks and 50 Asians $5 apiece to answer questions about their sexual habits.
Rushton crossed the political Rubicon in 1989, when he set up the Charles Darwin Research Institute in Port Huron, Mich. (apparently to avoid breaking Canadian laws on hate speech), and also presented his views on race publicly to an outraged meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Association officials called a press conference the same day to attack what the association's president called Rushton's "highly suspect" research.
In recent years, Rushton has spoken on eugenics several times at conferences of the racist American Renaissance magazine, in which he has also published a number of articles. In 2002, after renting several academic mailing lists, Rushton mailed an abridged version of Race, Evolution and Behavior to 40,000 people — a mailing paid for by the Pioneer Fund.
Reacting to scientists' complaints, the book's original publisher, Transaction, disavowed the smaller booklet and said that this abridged version had been "purged" of any "evidentiary basis." Rushton was named the fourth president of the Pioneer Fund in 2002, after long-time president Harry Weyher died.
Today, Rushton presides over a 66-year-old fund that still has some $3 million to disburse.
Kenneth J. Schmidt, 43 | UPPER MONTCLAIR, N.J.
Ken Schmidt may be the principal American proponent of the so-called "Third Position" — an ideology, systematized by British neofascists in the 1980s, that rejects both communism and capitalism, strongly supports environmentalism and animal rights, sides with labor against capital, and proposes to separate the races into their own ethnically pure countries, where they will live close to the land and govern themselves at the most local level possible.
Schmidt has run a tiny hate group, the American Third Position (ATP), out of his New Jersey condominium since 2001, when an Arvada, Colo., associate left. (The group was then called the American Coalition of Third Positionists, but Schmidt shortened the name.)
Recently retired from an 18-year career as a senior probation officer for Passaic County, Schmidt distributes the British third position magazine, Final Conflict, and his own Nationalist Dawn, and runs a Web site. The ATP is a formal affiliate of the International Third Position (ITP), a Britain-based neofascist group with several European chapters that has run paramilitary training camps in France, Poland and Spain.
The ITP was founded in 1989 by a breakaway faction of the English party National Front and Italian fascists including Roberto Fiore (who fled to England and was convicted in absentia of terrorist association in connection with the 1980 bombing of a Bologna, Italy, train station that left some 80 people dead). The ITP has long been associated with clerical fascism, with many members also belonging to the schismatic Catholic sect, the Society of Pius X. This religious aspect caused many Europeans to leave ITP in the early 1990s.
For his part, Schmidt, despite the frankly revolutionary nature of his ideology, is an officer of the New York chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens — a remarkable fact, given the council's longstanding efforts to portray itself as mainstream.
In February 2000, Schmidt told a council meeting in Washington, D.C., that members "must serve, to use a Marxist phrase, as a revolutionary vanguard for the white masses.... Our aim must be to establish the preconditions for National Revolution on behalf of European-Americans. We must take our country back and if sometime in the distant future we have to bloody a few noses to do so, then so be it."
Schmidt, who until 2000 was also an officer of the Mississippi-based Nationalist Movement, travels abroad frequently for third position events — a talk to the neofascist England First last February being the latest example.
In recent years, Schmidt has also spoken at conferences of the Holocaust-denying Barnes Review, the now defunct American Friends of the British National Party, and the American Nationalist Union. Typical of third position ideologues, Schmidt frequently attacks both "Zionists" and major corporations.
Jeffrey S. Schoep, 29 | LITCHFIELD, Minn.
Jeffrey Schoep's National Socialist Movement, composed in large part of youths who look like they're barely out of middle school, is one of the fastest growing neo-Nazi groups in America — and the one that more than any other displays a fetishistic love of Nazi uniforms and paraphernalia.
Schoep claims he began reading Hitler in fourth grade, and knew immediately that the führer's ideas were "definitely right." Involved in neo-Nazi organizations from the age of 19, Schoep joined the National Socialist American Workers Freedom Movement of South St. Paul early on, rising to second in command by 1993.
In the years since then, he has traveled frequently to white supremacist events, including the 1994 Aryan Nations World Congress in Idaho, where he spoke alongside such movement heavyweights as former Klansman Louis Beam, neo-segregationist J.B. Stoner and neo-Nazi Neuman Britton.
In 1998, Allen Vincent, a man whose roots in the neo-Nazi scene stretched back decades, handed the Freedom Movement over to Schoep, declaring the 24-year-old the future leader of the white race and the man who would finally achieve "white revolution." At the same time, the group's unwieldy name was shortened to the National Socialist Movement (NSM).
The NSM under Schoep has held a rising number of rallies and its leader has continued to speak at events put on by other hate groups, including this year's diminished Aryan World Congress. In particular, Schoep has worked closely over the recent months with White Revolution, a new neo-Nazi group run by Billy Roper (see Revolting in Arkansas).
Despite the mockery that members' brown shirts, black armbands and tall leather boots draw from many others on the racist right, Schoep's group has grown to 43 urban chapters, totaling an estimated 100 or so members.
Malik Zulu Shabazz, 36 | WASHINGTON, D.C.
Born Paris Lewis, Malik Shabazz has been involved in increasingly radical Black Muslim politics since the early 1990s and now leads the violently anti-Semitic New Black Panther Party.
A graduate of Howard University and its law school, Shabazz early on went to work as a campaign aide and then spokesman for Marion Barry, the three-term Washington, D.C., mayor implicated in a cocaine sting in 1990. (At around the same time, in 1989, Shabazz was part of the Defiant Giants rap group, where he called himself Zulu King Paris and helped cut an album called "Rise, Black Man, Rise.")
Shabazz then signed up with the black supremacist Nation of Islam and played a key role organizing and promoting that group's 1995 Million Man March, telling one group of high school students that "America should be glad that every black man is not on a killing spree."
Another Nation official, Khalid Abdul Muhammad, who had been a key deputy of Nation leader Louis Farrakhan, moved away from the Nation during this period and began associating with the New Black Panther Party, which was formed from small groups in Milwaukee and Dallas that began operating around 1990.
By about 1997, Shabazz had followed his mentor Muhammad — who by now was famous for vicious tirades against whites, Jews, Catholics and homosexuals — into the New Panthers, rising to become the party's chief spokesman.
"We will never bow down to the white, Jewish, Zionist onslaught," Shabazz said around this time. Muhammad, Shabazz added with evident delight, was the man "who gives the white man nightmares... who makes the Jews pee in their pants at night."
Remarkably, in 1998, Shabazz was named "Young Lawyer of the Year" by the National Bar Association, the leading black lawyers' association. The same year, he ran unsuccessfully for the Washington, D.C., city council. Also in 1998, Shabazz co-organized a Panther takeoff on the Nation's marches, leading a much smaller Million Youth March in Harlem, N.Y., that ended in clashes with police.
When Muhammad died unexpectedly in February 2001, Shabazz took over the New Panthers and moved its headquarters from New York to Washington. He began to build the group up by traveling around the country — to Cincinnati, Louisville, Ky., and Decatur, Ala., among other places — to protest police brutality.
And while not as incendiary as Muhammad had been, he made similarly strident remarks. In 2001, for instance, he told Fox News' "Hannity & Colmes" show that he was not anti-Semitic. He had many Hebrew friends, he said, but they "happen to be black." (He was referring to the belief of some black nationalists that they, not the Jews, are the real Hebrews of the Bible.)
The next year, Shabazz traveled to Georgia to show his support for Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, the former H. Rap Brown, who was ultimately convicted of murdering a black sheriff's deputy in Georgia. In early 2003, Shabazz organized another activist group, Black Lawyers for Justice, and also came out with another rap album, featuring parts of his speeches and entitled "Amerikkka's Most Hated," that harshly attacked the Bush administration.
On Sept. 6, Shabazz's Panthers organized a Second Million Youth March — this time in Brooklyn, N.Y. Though the Panthers said they expected to draw 20,000, fewer than 1,000 marchers actually turned out.
Yusuf Shabazz, 41 | SAVANNAH, Ga.
Long before he began calling himself Yusuf Shabazz, Lorenzo Jackson was taking in some of the tenets of early black nationalism from his family. His grandfather was a follower of Marcus Garvey and his mother took the young Jackson to lectures and rallies of the black supremacist Nation of Islam.
While still in high school, Shabazz told the Savannah Morning News, he started a fight that evolved into a campus riot after a white student wouldn't move his feet from Shabazz's chair. Later, while at the Savannah State College studying civil engineering, he joined the Nation of Islam and changed his name.
At 22, Yusuf Shabazz entered politics with an unsuccessful run for a local county commission seat and, in 1990, he opened the Shabazz Fish Restaurant in his home town. He also started publishing two newspapers, Freedom's Journal and the Statesboro Sun. Shabazz would try again for the county commission in 1995, when he made it to a runoff but failed to win the seat.
Shabazz got to know Khalid Abdul Muhammad, then the fiery second in command of the Nation of Islam, inviting him to Savannah for several lectures. When Muhammad left the Nation to take over the reins of the anti-white, anti-Semitic New Black Panther Party around 1997, Shabazz followed him. By 2001, shortly after the death of Muhammad, he had organized a major chapter of the Panthers in Savannah, and he was soon the Georgia state coordinator for the group as well.
Yusuf Shabazz travels frequently in his organizing work. In October 2002, for instance, he came to Montgomery, Ala., to protest police brutality and set a local chapter in motion (although this chapter never materialized). "If they take our lives, we begin to take their lives. A life for a life," Shabazz told the crowd. Although he has claimed not to be anti-white but merely pro-black, his words gave the lie to that. "There are no good crackers," he said.
Back in Savannah, Shabazz was a central figure in a controversy over a monument to African-American history. Angry that the artist selected was white, Shabazz and his Panther chapter funded a "Black Holocaust Monument" that was erected in an abandoned lot in a tough part of town.
Depicting a shackled black man, the memorial finished last December was made of papier-mâché and toppled in July. Police said the memorial may have been brought down by rain, but the Panthers suspected otherwise.
Edgar J. Steele, 58 | SAGLE, Idaho
Edgar Steele was a little-known lawyer with some unconventional ideas in the northern reaches of Idaho until he took the case that would make him something of a celebrity on the radical right — defending the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations and its leader against a 2000 lawsuit brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
After he lost the case — which he described as an attack on free speech — Steele abandoned any effort to appear mainstream, now publicly singling out "the Jews" as being behind all that ails America.
Steele graduated from college in 1967 and then served four years in the Coast Guard, rising to command a radio-navigation station in the East China Sea. Shortly afterward, he earned a master's degree in business at the University of California at Berkeley, and worked at several corporations. But Steele soon decided to change professions and graduated from UCLA with a law degree in 1982, going to work for two years at a San Francisco firm but then setting up shop as a sole practitioner.
Today, Edgar Steele describes a Jewish lawyer who once worked for him and supposedly tried to steal his clients as a principal "trigger" for his realization that Jews are "predatory." But that attitude was not public when he took the Aryan Nations case, which the SPLC had filed on behalf of a woman and her son terrorized by Aryan security guards.
At around that time, Steele began writing essays suggesting, among other things, that the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing involved a government conspiracy.
In a late 2000 interview published in Resistance, a neo-Nazi magazine, Steele suggested that the FBI stacked the deck against the Aryan Nations by purposely failing to find an important witness. In an essay entitled "The Conspiracy Grows Ever Larger" published two years later, Steele accused the judge in the Aryan Nations case of unfairly refusing to allow him to present evidence, suggesting that it was an example of how "[j]udges and lawyers actively use existing rules and laws, or simply make it up as they go along, in furthering the leftist agenda, particularly when it comes to keeping the spotlight off things they don't want you to know."
Still, as late as September 2001, he was writing on his conspiracypenpal.com Web site that "the vast majority of American Jews are fine people," some of whom were his "friends." But an Oct. 7, 2002, essay, "It's the Jews, Stupid!!!" put an end to any question about his virulent anti-Semitism.
In 2002, Steele filed an amicus brief for the anti-black hate group Council of Conservative Citizens in a case that sought to invalidate a Virginia law outlawing cross burning. More recently, he gave a June 2003 speech to a conference of the Holocaust-denying magazine The Barnes Review.
And on July 12, taking on one more enemy, he posted the latest of scores of essays on his Web site — the first of a multi-part series, "In Defense of Racism," that attacks blacks for their alleged intellectual inferiority.
Elisha H. Strom, 28 | EARLYSVILLE, Va.
Elisha Strom is about as close to a feminist as you can get on the American radical right. She has engaged in running battles with some leading neo-Nazis and others over their use of salacious images of women, and has managed to enrage many male members of the group her husband helps lead, the neo-Nazi National Alliance*.
Strom apparently joined the revolutionary right early this millennium, when she became the second wife of Kevin Alfred Strom, who was a key deputy to Alliance founder and leader William Pierce. Though the couple did not live on the Alliance's compound in West Virginia, they visited often from their Earlysville, Va., home, and Pierce is known to have developed a dislike for Elisha Strom's assertive ways.
Up until their marriage, Kevin Strom's personal Web site had carried a gallery of alluring photos of young girls, many of them scantily dressed, and running to shots of a teenage Brooke Shields atop a horse. That changed after the wedding, and today his site carries a gallery of far less alluring classical art, although it includes many nude paintings.
After Pierce died in July 2002, Kevin Strom was named to replace him as host of the Alliance's shortwave "American Dissident Voices" broadcast. In that post, he has been attacked by many racists as effeminate and weak (see Against the Wall). But neither those attacks nor the criticisms leveled at her personally have caused Elisha Strom to desist.
Today, she has her own Web site (elishastrom.com) that celebrates Renaissance art and classical European composers along with the raising of "elite white children" and her "favorite man of all," Kevin Strom.
She also runs the angrywhitefemale.com Web site. And she has engaged in running battles with two key Internet racists, Bill White (see The Gossip) of overthrow.com and Alex Linder (see Potty Humor and the Revolution) of Vanguard News Network (VNN).
When Linder, an Alliance member known for his misogyny, attacked her recently, Elisha Strom responded coolly: "Very much looking forward to meeting you again, Linder. My really awesome 'Fuck VNN' t-shirt is already packed."
Samuel Jared Taylor, 51 | OAKTON, Va.
In his personal bearing and tone, Jared Taylor projects himself as a courtly presenter of ideas that most would describe as crudely white supremacist — a kind of modern-day version of the refined but racist colonialist of old.
And indeed, that is the stock-in-trade preferred by Taylor, who carefully avoids epithets, writes in language that approximates that of academia, and generally seeks to put a rational and well-argued face on anti-black racism.
Taylor is a Yale graduate who worked for 17 years in Japan, is fluent in that language, and greatly admires his former hosts. The reason for that admiration is instructive — the Japanese, Taylor told British journalist Nick Ryan, "think with their blood, not their passport."
Taylor entered the active racist scene in 1990, when he began publishing American Renaissance, a magazine that focuses on alleged links between race and intelligence, and on eugenics, the now discredited "science" of breeding better humans.
"Never in the history of the world has a dominant people thrown open the gates to strangers, and poured its wealth out to aliens," Taylor wrote in his magazine, under the pseudonym Thomas Jackson, in 1991. "All healthy people prefer the company of their own kind." Blacks, Taylor writes, are "crime-prone," "dissipated," "pathological" and "deviant."
Taylor, whose 1992 Paved With Good Intentions: The Failure of Race Relations in Contemporary America makes similar points in a book format, went one further in 1993, speaking at a conference of the racist Council of Conservative Citizens. (Today, Taylor's New Century Foundation, which publishes American Renaissance, is intimately related to the council through "common membership, governing bodies, trustees and officers," according to the foundation's tax forms.)
In the late 1990s, he came out with The Color of Crime, a booklet that tries to use crime statistics so as to "prove" that blacks are far more criminally prone than whites. That racist booklet is now a staple of white supremacists like former Klansman David Duke.
One thing that separates Taylor from much of the radical right, however, is his lack of anti-Semitism; he told MSNBC-TV interviewer Phil Donahue in 2003 that Jews "are fine by me" and "look white to me." That view may be related to his wife, who some in the movement have said is Jewish.
Evelyn Rich became well known because of her 1985 and 1986 interviews of Duke, conducted as part of her dissertation research, and was perceived by many as an anti-racist. (The recorded interviews, in Tulane University's archives, were used by anti-Duke forces to make radio ads attacking Duke during his run for Louisiana governor in 1991.) As a result, Taylor's long term cohabitation with Rich has shocked many of those who know about it.
Today, Jared Taylor's conferences are well-attended, suit-and-tie affairs that reflect his international reach. In 2002, speakers included Nick Griffin, leader of the neofascist British National Party, and Bruno Gollnisch, who was then second in command of Jean Marie Le Pen's immigrant-bashing National Front in France.
Harold C. Turner, 41 | NORTH BERGEN, N.J.
Just when some thought that the modern white supremacist movement had adopted the calmer language of scientific racism, along came Hal Turner. A belligerent, foul-mouthed talk show host, Turner is the maestro of radio hate — a man who rants about a "Portable Nigger Lyncher" machine, "faggots," "savage Negro beasts," "bull-dyke lesbians" and "lazy-ass Latinos... slithering across the border." And that is just the beginning.
According to a profile in his local newspaper, The (Bergen County, N.J.) Record, Turner was born in Jersey City and raised in Ridgefield Park. He served a 10-month stint in the Marines, was honorably discharged, and went to work as a driver and sales manager for a moving company. Later, he sold commercial property.
Turner got involved in politics as well, serving as a Republican committeeman in Hudson County, the North Jersey coordinator for white nationalist Pat Buchanan's 1992 presidential campaign, and manager of the 1997 gubernatorial campaign of Libertarian Murray Sabrin.
As early as 1994, he was defending racism, holding a rally for New York radio talk show host Bob Grant, who had been fired from his show for making racist comments about blacks. In the late 1990s, Turner often called in to local radio shows as "Hal from North Bergen," telling their hosts things like, "The problem with police brutality is that cops don't use it enough."
In 2000, Turner sought the local Republican nomination for Congress, and was enraged when GOP leaders instead supported Theresa de Leon, a dark-skinned Hispanic who was the chief financial officer for New York's Legal Aid Society and the mother of 10 children. It was at this moment that Turner had a reported "epiphany," deciding the system was rigged against white men and abandoning all ties to the mainstream.
Not long after, he started up "The Hal Turner Show," renting time on shortwave radio maverick Allan Weiner's WBCQ, located in Monticello, Maine.
Building up a substantial audience and paying for the five-nights-a-week, two-hour show with advertising and donations, he became a favorite of many on the radical right, including several in the neo-Nazi National Alliance. After neo-Nazi World Church of the Creator* leader Matt Hale was arrested in late 2002 for allegedly soliciting the murder of a federal judge, Turner openly supported Hale.
"I don't think killing a federal judge in these circumstances would be wrong," he said, referring to the judge's ruling against Hale's group in a copyright dispute over its name. "It may be illegal, but it wouldn't be wrong."
Early in 2003, Turner told The Record, federal agents from the Secret Service and the U.S. Marshals Service questioned him about statements made on the air. Also in early 2003, Turner joined a neo-Nazi rally held in front of the Southern Poverty Law Center. In June, he was at the Aryan Nations World Congress in Idaho, where rainy weather prevented his planned outdoor on-site broadcasts.
In recent months, however, Turner has repeatedly told his listeners he was gravely ill and begged for donations to pay his creditors. But he has never said what his disease was, and his many skeptics have noted that his "illness" seems to worsen when bills come due at month's end.
Mark E. Weber, 51 | COSTA MESA, Calif.
Born in Portland, Ore., and equipped with a master's degree in history from Indiana University, Mark Weber first appeared on the radical right in 1978, when he became news editor of National Vanguard, a neo-Nazi publication of the National Alliance, the most important hate group in America.
But while he remained connected to the Alliance for years, Weber was by 1979 already writing articles for The Spotlight, an anti-Semitic tabloid started by Willis Carto, and other Carto publications. (Carto is the main architect of American Holocaust denial. In 1978, Carto founded the Liberty Lobby, publisher of Spotlight, and, in 1979, the Institute for Historical Review, or IHR. IHR has long published the Journal of Historical Review, a Holocaust denial journal.)
In these articles, Weber referred to the Holocaust's Jewish "mythmakers," attacked the credibility of Anne Frank's diary, claimed that the Allies used torture to extract false stories about extermination camps, and suggested that the testimony of victims of the Holocaust was unreliable at best.
"The Holocaust hoax is a religion," he wrote in 1989, according to the Anti-Defamation League. "[T]he rise of religions such as this generally coincides with the decline and fall of nations which tolerate them." The same year, he said he didn't believe it possible for blacks to assimilate into American society.
In the mid-1980s, Weber remained a part of the Alliance and was listed as the treasurer of its Cosmotheist Church, which was an attempt by the basically atheistic group to win tax-exempt status. This is surprising because Carto and AlliancGamekeeper Graeme MacDonald leads a shooting party on a grouse moor in Aviemore, Scotland, on Aug. 12. That’s the day the grouse season opens — “the Glorious Twelfth,” to grouse-hunting enthusiasts. (Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
We ventured up to the heather moors to watch tweedy gents shoot many grouse. That is not as easy as it sounds, not in Britain today, where the traditional blood sports pursued by the elite have become highly politicized — and shielded by a clubby, slightly paranoid veil of secrecy.
In the United Kingdom, grouse shooting is under fire from a coalition of environmentalists, birdwatchers and anti- cruelty activists — or, as one of the hunters, a retired solicitor, described them, a rabble of "extremists and Jeremy Corbyn types living in the Islington echo chamber," a reference to the vegetarian Labour Party leader and his lefty London constituency.
This fight over the future of a game-bird hunt is a surprisingly serious business, a subject to be debated in Parliament and the opinion pages, because it is as much about class and tradition, rural life and changing times as it is about the whirling red grouse itself, a bird that is bigger than a quail, smaller than a chicken, but blazingly, video-game fast on the wing.
The grouse-shooting folk — who may own heirloom shotguns, vote Tory and have a nickname like Bunny — can mock their critics, but the activists still inspire unease, even dread, because they have accomplished the once unimaginable: In the early 2000s, they got fox hunting with dogs banned in England, Scotland and Wales.
[Call Off the Hounds]
As the environmentalists like to boast, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has more paying members than all the U.K. political parties combined, not to mention the backing of celebrities such as the late Sir Roger Moore, a.k.a. James Bond, who once declared sport hunting "a perversion."
Now the anti-hunting crowd is targeting the annual grouse shoots, which take place on a few hundred private, often vast estates in northern England and Scotland, beginning, per the Game Act of 1831, on the day they call "the Glorious Twelfth" in August and ending in December.
Driven grouse shoots are a pinnacle of field sports for the tallyho set. If you are into shooting birds, this is as good as it gets. Aficionados wax rhapsodic about the darting, jinxing flier capable of speeds of over 50 mph — the quarry of kings, if they have keen aim.
Shooting them can cost upward of $2,000 or $3,000 a day, per person, accommodation not included. "Yachts, castles and Bentleys — if you have enough money, all these can be yours," the Financial Times explained. "Yet grouse moors are different."
[The Shooting Party]
Exactly, said Luke Steele, a spokesman for a local group called "Ban Bloodsports on Ilkley Moor," who adds bluntly: "It's over."
"The British care deeply about animal protection and the environment, and to see half a million birds shot out of the sky each year for sport?" he said. "It's so out of tune with the way modern society is progressing."
Steele and his allies claim that the intensive shoots create too much collateral damage: flooding; illegal culling of eagles, owls, hawks; and the release of planet-warming carbon when the peat bogs are burned.
Asked about the tradition of it all, Steele, who also works for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, answered, "Bear baiting was tradition."
Because of shooters' concerns about harassment, it is not easy to watch a day of grouse hunting. One must be invited — or be a foreign correspondent who promises to abide by strict ground rules.
For The Washington Post, those rules included not naming the Owner of the Moor, or the local Lord, or any nearby manors, pubs, sheep farms or the unique view of the sea. We also are not to name the staff — not the Gamekeeper, Loaders, Beaters or Flankers.
When we asked, as a droll joke, if we could mention any of the dogs by name, it was decided that some of the hounds were quite well known locally and could help identify the grouse moor, and so the answer was, please, best not.
Amanda Anderson, director of the Moorland Association, which supports both grouse hunting and uplands preservation, drove us out to the site in North York Moors National Park, a patchwork of privately owned lands. It was a stunning autumn morning of sun and cloud.
Anderson explained that the moors are not truly wild landscapes, but have been shaped by humans since the Iron Age. Grouse moors are today intensively managed, Anderson said — for grouse. The gamekeepers eradicate invasive weeds, sometimes with aerial spraying. The heather itself is burned in patches, to provide ideal habitat — older heather for nesting and young heather for eating.
One of the day’s “Guns” surveys the hunting estate in the North York Moors National Park. It is a treeless, boggy, peaty environment that humans have shaped to their own needs since the Iron Age. (William Booth/The Washington Post)
As we bumped along the dirt track, Anderson pointed out the metal traps arranged over the soggy streams, designed to snap shut and kill weasels and stoats, who like to eat grouse. The Gamekeeper also hunts the foxes, with a gun and spotting lamp, to keep their numbers low. This is all legal.
Until recently, red grouse populations would spike and plummet. Now, the gamekeepers feed the birds a medicated grit that kills the worms that once decimated the flocks.
Anderson argued that grouse shooting is saving the precious moors, providing the money the old families and new owners need to manage the habitat for generations to come. "The moors would be lifeless without shoots," she said.
We parked and the hunters arrived, in a flurry of well-waxed mustaches and Range Rovers. There were nine paying guests this day, called the "Guns," decked out head to toe in traditional tweed. Everyone wore a sporty tie.
"Safety first!" the Moor Owner advised as the Guns assembled. "Please, don't shoot anyone!" The clients chuckled, but a grouse shoot is an almost martial affair, organized along strict rules — with horns, whistles, flags — to make sure no one does as Vice President Richard B. Cheney did on a quail hunt in Texas in 2006, which was shoot a 78-year-old attorney in the face.
We went out to the first of six "drives." These events involve dozens of very happy dogs, who imagine the day was organized just for them, along with locals hired as "Beaters," who drive the birds toward the Guns, who conceal themselves in trenches, and their "Loaders," who replace spent shells in their shotguns to quicken the pace of fire.
Driven grouse hunting is booming. Developed by the Victorians 150 years ago, enabled then by railroads and breech-loading shotguns, the sport today positively exudes posh, with a morning break for a glass of champagne, followed by a catered lunch of game and French reds, and ending with an evening of whisky by the fire.
Depending on your view of meat and where it comes from, grouse shoots are exhilarating or disturbing — or an opportunity for debate. It was certainly thrilling for the hunters.
One of the “Guns” waits for the birds to fly his way. He is partially concealed from the grouse by his tweedy attire and his location in a trench, called a “butt.” (William Booth/The Washington Post)
On the first drive, we huddled behind a skilled Gun in his trench, alongside his Loader. About a half-mile away, we could hear whoops and see the Beaters whipping flags through the air, the dogs howling in a sea of purple heather.
As the grouse began to flush, the Gun lit a cigar. He was a retired doctor, on the quiet side. But as the first coveys were driven toward him, his gun stock leapt to his cheek, and he began to fire and fire.
First one grouse, a puff of exploded feathers, and the dead bird cartwheeled to earth. Then a second, winged and wounded, a crash landing. Then his Loader pressed another fresh shotgun into his hand.
This went on all day. Hits and misses. A row of nine Guns, aided by their teams, can shoot a lot of birds. By lunch time, they had killed 144. The butcher's bill for the day surely topped 200 grouse.
Yet many more birds survived than died. The grouse were quick. The dead and the wounded lay in the heather, until they were quickly found by the dogs and collected. The injured birds were dispatched by the picker-uppers with a smack to the skull.
Grouse can taste rich or gamy, depending. Most Guns don't really want to eat a lot of them. It might cost $125 to shoot a grouse, which the butcher sells for $7 a dressed bird.
Mark Avery is a conservation campaigner and a former director of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. He said, "There are far more reasons to ban intensive grouse hunting than fox hunting." Fox hunting became unpopular when people saw films of dogs tearing the foxes apart. It was a cruelty issue, and the British — who love their sausage — have a soft spot for animals.
According to Avery, those managing the moors for grouse hunting are killing not just foxes and weasels, but birds of prey, who also eat grouse. He points to the hen harrier, a threatened raptor known for its aerial "sky dancing." Studies suggest there should be sufficient habitat for 2,600 hen harrier pairs in England and Scotland — but there are 575. In England, there are seven breeding pairs.
"I don't think you can run a large, driven grouse shooting operation and follow the law," said Avery, author of "Inglorious: Conflict in the Uplands," who has rounded up 123,077 online signatures for a petition to get grouse hunts banned.
Edd Morrison is a shooting consultant who helped manage the day. He pointed to the young Beaters.
"They make 50 pounds a day," almost $70, he said. In all, about 40 people would serve the nine Guns. Then add the inns, pubs, gun shops, tweed tailors and Land Rover dealerships, he said.
"The whole of North Yorkshire revolves around the grouse shoot, and we're on the brink of getting banned?" Morrison said. "It's warfare."
Just then, one of the Guns missed a darting grouse — and his shotgun's pellets peppered a stone wall beside us, a breach of etiquette.
"Bloody hell," Morrison said.
He promised he'd have a word with that gent.
Shooters head out on the moor in Aviemore, Scotland, on Aug. 12. Scotland has numerous grouse-hunting sites, and they attract affluent hunters from all over the world. (Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
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In northeast England, learning about birds of prey
Catch me if you can
Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign newsSAN ANTONIO - It's dubbed the Satan fish for a reason -- It's eyeless, has see-through skin and spends its life in complete darkness in the depths of the Edwards Aquifer.
Scientists have not seen a living Widemouth Blindcat, also known as the Satan fish, since 1984. Now, researchers are trying to |
000 new barrels per day into production for a net gain of 26,000 b/d by the end of the month. In the Eagle Ford shale 105,000 b/d of new production is forecast to come on stream for a net gain of 24,000 b/d or 50,000 b/d for the two oil fields. The other four shale oil fields should have negligible increases in production.
This of course raises the important question of what will be the state of our shale oil production will be by December of 2014 and during the following year. Remember, the number of producing wells in North Dakota is increasing at about 1,800 a year and even more down in Texas.
Related article: Shale Projects Lagging in Eastern Europe
In looking at the steep decline in production from legacy wells in the Bakken and Eagle Ford shales, decline between November 2012 and November 2013 increased from 44,000 b/d to 60,000 b/d and from 54,000 b/d to 78,000 b/d respectively. Given that there will be another 4,000 or so legacy wells in production by this time next year, the decline going on by this time next year is certain to be considerably greater.
While the EIA does not seem willing to make a forecast, it sure looks as if the increase in production for these two fields will be unlikely to keep up with the rate of decline within the next 12 to 18 months and that US shale oil production will no longer be growing.
While it is possible that a surge of investment will increase the drilling to keep up with declines in production from the older wells, this is expensive, and for now it looks as if oil prices are heading for a level where fracked oil production is not profitable. Outside geologists with access to proprietary data on decline rates have been forecasting for some time now that as the number of wells increases and their quality declines, the shale boom will be coming to an end in the next two years. The release of EIA data seems to confirm these predictions.
By. Tom WhippleNewly-minted vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan was already having a bad first week of running-matery when he told a reporter that he “never asked for stimulus,” only to be later confronted with letters in which he did exactly that, letters in which he extolled the job-creating virtues of stimulus funds. On Sunday morning’s Up with Chris Hayes, host Chris Hayes dug Ryan’s shovel-ready hole a little deeper with some devastating archival videos that show Ryan arguing for stimulus more forcefully than any Democrat.
With the Romney/Ryan ticket already losing the fight they knew they were going to have, they needed this stimulus story like they needed a knife in their Granny’s necks. When Ryan told an Ohio TV reporter that he “never asked for stimulus,” however, he opened a can of worms the size of Cleveland. Ryan also told that local reporter that he “opposed the stimulus because it doesn’t work.”
As it turned out, Ryan had secured tens of millions of dollars in stimulus funds by writing letters praising the program. Ryan’s office explained that he was just trying to help some of his constituents out…with something that he says “doesn’t work.”
That’s pretty bad, but “a constituent made me do it” is the kind of answer that might satisfy people, especially the Ryan-enthralled mainstream media. Enter Chris Hayes, who set the table with a 2010 clip of Ryan blasting “borrow and spend” policies as a failed experiment, followed by some Bush-era clips of Ryan forcefully advocating for those exact kinds of policies, while also acknowledging that unemployment often drags on in a recovery. The fact that Paul Ryan is making arguments in these clips that could serve as campaign ads for President Obama isn’t the most surprising thing about these clips, though:
What is surprising is that, while Romney, Ryan, and the Republicans are running around attacking the President’s economic record, no one on the President’s side is making these arguments this well. Despite the fact that the stimulus did exactly what it was promised to do, and the fact that the President’s job creation record since the Bush Effect wore off is pretty damn good, the President and his team have downplayed them because the political media has made the calculation that those aren’t winning arguments, that if things are still bad, people don’t want to hear how much worse they could have been. However, flat poll numbers for Romney following recent poor jobs reports would seem to indicate that people get that argument, to some extent.
As Hayes and panel also pointed out, it’s not as if 2002 Paul Ryan came to Jesus after passing several stimulus packages under President George W. Bush. In 2009, he voted in favor of a competing $715 billion Republican stimulus package.
Liberals are often too enamored with hypocrisy arguments, though, as Hayes mentioned at the start of Saturday’s show (but fir different reasons). The notion of hypocrisy strikes at the character of the hypocrite, rather than at the ideal they’re not living up to. In my view, these arguments obscure the real problems with Republican views and policies, which is that they’re wrong.
Don’t judge Paul Ryan and Mit Romney on whether they have always thought the same things they do now, or even on whether they magically, coincidentally changed their minds when Barack Obama became president. Listen to what Ryan said in 2002, or what Romney said in 2004, and what they’re saying now, and decide, for yourselves, which of them makes more sense.
In 2002, Ryan said “What we’re trying to accomplish is to pass the kinds of legislation that, in the past, have grown the economy and gotten people back to work,” which is true, and verifiable. Now, he insists the stimulus didn’t work, despite the fact that he wrote letters indicating the opposite, and despite the fact that the stimulus did exactly what it was designed to. Ignore the hypocrisy, and focus on the fact that Paul Ryan is beating himself in this argument.
Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.comFortney Hillman "Pete" Stark, Jr. (born November 11, 1931) is an American businessman and politician who was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1973 to 2013. A Democrat from California,[1] Stark's district—California's 13th congressional district during his last two decades in Congress—was in southwestern Alameda County and included Alameda, Union City, Hayward, Newark, San Leandro, San Lorenzo, and Fremont (his residence during the early part of his tenure), as well as parts of Oakland and Pleasanton.[2] At the time he left office in 2013, he was the fifth most senior Representative, as well as sixth most senior member of Congress overall. He was also the dean of California's 55-member Congressional delegation, and the only open atheist in Congress.
After 2010 redistricting, Stark's district was renumbered as the 15th district for the 2012 election. He narrowly finished first in the primary ahead of fellow Democrat Eric Swalwell, and lost to Swalwell in the general election. He was the second-longest serving U.S. Congressman, after Jack Brooks (D-Texas, 1994), to lose a general election.
Early life, education, and banking career [ edit ]
Stark was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on November 11, 1931;[3] he is of German and Swiss descent.[4] He received a Bachelor of Science degree in general engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1953.[5] He served in the United States Air Force from 1955 to 1957. After leaving the Air Force, Stark attended the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, and received his MBA in 1960. Stark bought a home in Anne Arundel County, Maryland in 1988, and spent most of his time there in the latter part of his congressional tenure. However, he continued to claim a house in Fremont as his official residence, and visited his Bay Area district twice a month. Since his retirement from public office, he has remained in Maryland.[2]
In 1963, Stark founded Security National Bank, a small bank in Walnut Creek. Within 10 years it grew into a wealthy company with branches across Alameda and Contra Costa counties.[citation needed]
Stark grew up as a Republican, but his opposition to the Vietnam War led him to switch parties in the mid-1960s.[citation needed] He printed checks with peace signs on them and placed a giant peace sign on the roof of his bank's headquarters.[citation needed] In 1971, Stark was elected to the Common Cause National Governing Board.
U.S. House of Representatives [ edit ]
Elections [ edit ]
In 1972, Stark moved to Oakland to run in the Democratic primary against 14-term incumbent U.S. Representative George Paul Miller of Alameda in what was then the 8th district. Stark, then 41 years old, claimed that the octogenarian Miller had been in Congress too long. He stated, "Miller entered the House in 1945... 28 years ago." He won the Democratic primary with 56% of the vote, a 34-point margin.[6] In the 1972 general election, he defeated Republican Lew Warden with 53% of the vote. He would not face another contest nearly that close until 2012, and was re-elected 18 times. He only dropped below 60 percent of the vote twice (1980 and 1990). In 1980, he won with just 54%, and in 1990 he won with 58% of the vote. Due to redistricting, his district had changed numbers twice, from the 8th (1973–75) to the 9th (1975–93) to the 13th (1993-2013).
He was unopposed for the Democratic nomination in the 2008 election and was re-elected in the general election with 76.3% of the vote.[7] He faced his first Democratic challenger in 2010, and the challenger showed weakening support for Stark, gathering 16% of the primary votes without any endorsements.[8]
In the 2012 elections, Stark's district was renumbered as the 15th District. Because of California's new nonpartisan blanket primary, which allows the general election to be contested by the two highest vote-getters in the primary, regardless of party affiliation,[9] his opponent in the general election was Dublin city councilman Eric Swalwell, a fellow Democrat almost 50 years his junior.[10] During the campaign, the Stark campaign circulated a flyer accusing Swalwell of being a Tea Party candidate–an accusation knocked down by both Swalwell and the San Jose Mercury News.[11] In the general election, Swalwell narrowly defeated Stark by just under 10,000 votes.[10]
Tenure [ edit ]
At 40 years (as of the end of service on January 3, 2013), Stark had been the longest-serving member of Congress from California, serving continuously from January 3, 1973 through January 3, 2013. The Hayward Area Historical Society will be the repository of Stark's papers from his tenure.[12]
Fiscal policy [ edit ]
Stark voted against the bipartisan May 2008 farm subsidy bill, which was supported by most House Democrats and over half of House Republicans, in part because of its cost.[13][14]
He also voted against both readings of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, which gave $700 billion dollars to troubled investment banks.[15][16] Stark argued that "the proposed bailout will only help reckless speculators who have been caught on the wrong side of the come line." Criticizing the bill as corporate welfare, he said "The bill before us today is basically the same three-page Wall Street give-away first put forth by President Bush" before the vote on the first bailout.[17][18]
On September 25, 2008, Stark and Peter DeFazio signed a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi proposing a one quarter of one percent "transaction tax" on all trades in financial instruments including stocks, options, and futures. On September 29, 2008, Stark voted against HR 3997, the bailout bill backed by President Bush, House Speaker Pelosi and presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain, and the bill subsequently failed to pass. Explaining his vote, Stark stated:
President Bush tells us that we face unparalleled financial doom if this $700 billion bailout is not approved today. He and his Treasury Secretary—a former Wall Street fat cat—tell us that we have reached the point of 'crisis.' That is a familiar line from this President. It sounds like the disastrous rush to war in Iraq and the subsequent stampede to enact the Patriot Act. As I opposed the Iraq War and the Patriot Act, I stand in opposition to his latest rush to judgment.[19]
On October 3, 2008, Stark voted against HR 1424, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. With this vote, Stark became the sole member of the House of Representatives from the San Francisco Bay Area to oppose the bill.[20] Explaining his vote, Stark stated, "You're getting the same kind of misinformation now, the same kind of rush to judgment to tell you that a crisis will occur. It won't. Vote 'no.' Come back and help work on a bill that will help all Americans."[20]
Health care [ edit ]
Stark is known to have a longstanding interest in health care issues and was critical of the fate of the uninsured under the George W. Bush administration.[21] With John Conyers, in April 2006, Stark brought an action against President Bush and others alleging violations of the Constitution in the passing of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which cut Medicaid payments.[22] The case, Conyers v. Bush, was ultimately dismissed for lack of standing in November of the same year.
Iraq War [ edit ]
Pete Stark speaks at a Town Hall meeting in January 2007 in San Leandro, California
Stark was an early opponent of the Iraq War, speaking on the floor against the resolution authorizing military force against Iraq, on October 10, 2002. In part, he said:
Well then, who will pay? School kids will pay. There'll be no money to keep them from being left behind—way behind. Seniors will pay. They'll pay big time as the Republicans privatize Social Security and rob the Trust Fund to pay for the capricious war. Medicare will be curtailed and drugs will be more unaffordable. And there won't be any money for a drug benefit because Bush will spend it all on the war. Working folks will pay through loss of job security and bargaining rights. Our grandchildren will pay through the degradation of our air and water quality. And the entire nation will pay as Bush continues to destroy civil rights, women's rights and religious freedom in a rush to phony patriotism and to courting the messianic Pharisees of the religious right.[23]
In January 2003 Stark supported a reinstatement of the draft, partly in protest against the call to war but also saying, "If we're going to have these escapades, we should not do it on the backs of poor people and minorities."[24] In October 2004, he was one of only two members of Congress to vote in favor of the Universal National Service Act of 2003 (HR 163), a bill proposing resumption of the military draft.[25]
He did not vote for any bills to continue funding the Iraq war, but voted 'present' for some. In a statement posted on his website he explained, "Despite my utmost respect for my colleagues who crafted this bill, I can't in good conscience vote to continue this war. Nor, however, can I vote 'No' and join those who think today's legislation goes too far toward withdrawal. That's why I'm making the difficult decision to vote 'present'."[26] Stark was the only member of Congress to take this position.[citation needed]
Atheism [ edit ]
"[I am] a Unitarian who does not believe in a Supreme Being. I look forward to working with the Secular Coalition to stop the promotion of narrow religious beliefs in science, marriage contracts, the military and the provision of social service." Statement from Stark, January 2007[27]
Stark was the first openly atheist member of Congress, as announced by the Secular Coalition for America.[28] Stark acknowledged that he is an atheist in response to an SCA questionnaire sent to public officials in January 2007.
On September 20, 2007, Stark reaffirmed that he was an atheist by making a public announcement in front of the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard, the Harvard Law School Heathen Society, and various other atheist, agnostic, secular, humanist, and nonreligious groups.[29] The American Humanist Association named him their 2008 Humanist of the Year,[30] and he serves on the AHA Advisory Board. On February 9, 2011, Stark introduced a bill to Congress designating February 12, 2011, as Darwin Day as a culmination of collaboration between Stark and the American Humanist Association. The resolution states, "Charles Darwin is a worthy symbol of scientific advancement... and around which to build a global celebration of science and humanity."[31]
Stark serves on the Advisory Board of the Secular Coalition for America.[32]
Committee assignments [ edit ]
Caucuses
Controversies [ edit ]
Controversial statements [ edit ]
On October 18, 2007, Stark made the following comments on the House floor during a debate with Congressman Joe Barton of Texas:
Republicans sure don't care about funding $200 billion to fight the illegal war in Iraq. Where are you going to get that money? Are you going to tell us lies like you're telling us today? Is that how you're going to fund the war? You don't have money to fund the war or children. But you're going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the President's amusement.[33][34]
Following the initial criticism to his statements, when asked by a radio station if he would take back any of his statements, Stark responded "Absolutely not. I may have dishonored the Commander-in-Chief, but I think he's done pretty well to dishonor himself without any help from me."[35] The same day, his office also issued a press release, saying in part:
I have nothing but respect for our brave men and women in uniform and wish them the very best. But I respect neither the Commander-in-Chief who keeps them in harms [sic] way nor the chickenhawks in Congress who vote to deny children health care.[36]
Five days later on October 23, after the House voted down a censure resolution against Stark sponsored by Minority Leader John Boehner, he said:
I apologize for this reason: I think we have serious issues before us, the issue of providing medical care to children, the issue about what we're going to do about a war that we're divided about how to end.[37]
Other controversies include singling out "Jewish colleagues" for blame for the Persian Gulf War and referring to Congressman Stephen Solarz of New York (who co-sponsored the Gulf War Authorization Act) as "Field Marshal Solarz in the pro-Israel forces." in 1991.[38] In 1995, during a private meeting with Congresswoman Nancy Johnson of Connecticut, he called Johnson a "whore for the insurance industry" and suggested that her knowledge of health care came solely from "pillow talk" with her husband, a physician. His press secretary, Caleb Marshall, defended him in saying, "He didn't call her a 'whore,' he called her a 'whore of the insurance industry.'"[38] In a 2001 Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health hearing on abstinence promotion, he referred to Congressman J. C. Watts of Oklahoma as "the current Republican Conference Chairman, whose children were all born out of wedlock."[38] In 2003, when Stark was told to "shut up" by Congressman Scott McInnis of Colorado during a Ways and Means Committee meeting due to Stark's belittling of the chairman, Bill Thomas of California, he replied, "You think you are big enough to make me, you little wimp? Come on. Come over here and make me, I dare you. You little fruitcake."[38]
In an older video taped interview with Jan Helfeld concerning the size of the national debt, Stark stated that the size of the national debt is a reflection of the nation's wealth. When pressed if the nation should take on more debt in order to have more wealth, Stark threatened Helfeld: "You get the fuck out of here or I'll throw you out the window."[39]
On August 27, 2009, Stark suggested that his moderate Democratic colleagues were "brain dead" for proposing changes to the health care reform bill being considered by Congress. During a conference call, Stark claimed that they:
... just want to cause trouble... they're for the most part, I hate to say, brain dead, but they're just looking to raise money from insurance companies and promote a right-wing agenda that is not really very useful in this whole process.[40]
During a town hall meeting in 2009, a constituent who opposed President Barack Obama's health care plan told Stark, "Mr. Congressman, don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining." Stark responded with, "I wouldn't dignify you by peeing on your leg. It wouldn't be worth wasting the urine."[41]
Real estate taxes [ edit ]
For two years, Stark was allegedly claiming his waterfront Maryland home as his primary residence in order to claim a homestead exemption to reduce his local real estate taxes. Under Maryland law, in order to qualify, the owner must register to vote and drive in Maryland—Stark uses a California address for those purposes.[42]
On December 24, 2008, the House Ethics Committee began an investigation in regard to Stark using his Maryland residence as his primary residence while claiming to live in San Lorenzo. The home Stark claims as his residence and where he is registered to vote is owned and occupied by his in-laws.[43] In January 2010, the House Ethics Committee voted unanimously that the allegations that Stark took a tax break on a property he owns in Maryland were unfounded.
Electoral history [ edit ]
Year Office District Democratic Republican 1972 U.S. House of Representatives California 8th District Pete Stark 52% Lew M. Wardin 47% 1974 U.S. House of Representatives California 9th District Pete Stark 71% Edson Adams 29%
Year Office District Democratic Republican Peace and Freedom 1976 U.S. House of Representatives California 9th District Pete Stark (inc.) 71% James K. Mills 27% Albert L. Sargis 2% 1978 U.S. House of Representatives California 9th District Pete Stark (inc.) 65% Robert S. Allen 31% Lawrance J. Phillips 4%
Year Office District Democratic Republican Libertarian 1980 U.S. House of Representatives California 9th District Pete Stark (inc.) 55% William J. Kennedy 41% Steven W. Clanin 4%
Year Office District Democratic Republican 1982 U.S. House of Representatives California 9th District Pete Stark (inc.) 60% William J. Kennedy 39%
Year Office District Democratic Republican Libertarian 1984 U.S. House of Representatives California 9th District Pete Stark (inc.) 70% J.T. Beaver 26% Martha Fuhrig 4%
Year Office District Democratic Republican 1986 U.S. House of Representatives California 9th District Pete Stark (inc.) 70% David M. Williams 30% 1988 U.S. House of Representatives California 9th District Pete Stark (inc.) 73% Howard Hertz 27% 1990 U.S. House of Representatives California 9th District Pete Stark (inc.) 58% Victor Romero 41%
Year Office District Democratic Republican Peace and Freedom 1992 U.S. House of Representatives California 13th District Pete Stark 60% Verne Teyler 32% Roslyn A. Allen 8%
Year Office District Democratic Republican Libertarian 1994 U.S. House of Representatives California 13th District Pete Stark (inc.) 65% Larry Molton 30% Robert Gough 5% 1996 U.S. House of Representatives California 13th District Pete Stark (inc.) 65% James S. Fay 30% Terry Savage 4%
Year Office District Democratic Republican Natural Law 1998 U.S. House of Representatives California 13th District Pete Stark (inc.) 71% James R. Goetz 27% Karnig Beylikjian 4%
Year Office District Democratic Republican Libertarian Natural Law American Independent 2000 U.S. House of Representatives California 13th District Pete Stark (inc.) 71% James R. Goetz 24% Howard Mora 3% Timothy R. Hoehner 1% Don J.Grundman 1%
Year Office District Democratic Republican Libertarian American Independent Reform 2002 U.S. House of Representatives California 13th District Pete Stark (inc.) 71% Syed R. Mahmood 22% Mark R. Stroberg 3% Don J.Grundman 2% John J. Bambey 2%
Year Office District Democratic Republican Libertarian 2004 U.S. House of Representatives California 13th District Pete Stark (inc.) 72% George I. Bruno 28% Mark R. Stroberg 4%
Year Office District Democratic Republican 2006 U.S. House of Representatives California 13th District Pete Stark (inc.) 76% George L. Bruno 25% 2008 U.S. House of Representatives California 13th District Pete Stark (inc.) 76% Raymond Chui 23% 2010 U.S. House of Representatives California 13th District Pete Stark (inc.) 72% Forest Baker 27%
Year Office District Democratic Democratic 2012 U.S. House of Representatives California 15th District Eric Swalwell 52% Pete Stark 48%skewed plume) lifts off with the OSIRIS-REx mission on September 8."/>
UPDATE: The Atlas V 411 rocket lifted off successfully at 7:05pm ET and has delivered the asteroid-hunting spacecraft into a hyperbolic trajectory away from Earth. The listing image showcases the skewed thrust required to keep the rocket with a single strap-on booster stabilized.
ORIGINAL STORY: The Atlas V rocket is the "workhorse" that will get NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft into space this evening, and on the way to the distant asteroid Bennu. But for aerospace aficionados, tonight's launch vehicle is of great interest in and of itself. That's because the 7:05pm ET (12:05pm BST) launch from Cape Canaveral’s Complex 41 launch pad offers the rare opportunity to see the 411 configuration of the Atlas V rocket in action.
The Atlas V 411 variant, with just a single strap-on solid booster, has flown only three times previously, and just once from Cape Canaveral back in 2006. The other two launches, in 2008 and 2011, were national security payloads that flew from Vandenberg Air Force Base near Los Angeles. Up to five strap-on boosters can be added to an Atlas V launch vehicle, but it makes sense to only pay for the power you need. For the Bennu-bound spacecraft, which will get a gravity assist from Earth in one year, just one booster is required.
As there is only poor quality video of the non-classified 2006 launch, tonight offers a viewing opportunity for people to see an Atlas V 411 fly with unprecedented clarity. And it should be quite a show. With just a single strap-on booster, the rocket will have to gimbal its main engine, the RD-180, during the initial ascent to account for the lack of symmetry. Fortunately the RD-180 engine, with its two nozzles, can gimbal (or pivot) up to 8 degrees during full thrust. You will be able see this skewed thrust during liftoff, which should look quite awkward but is nonetheless well grounded in rocket science.
United Launch Alliance
United Launch Alliance
United Launch Alliance
United Launch Alliance
United Launch Alliance
United Launch Alliance
United Launch Alliance
United Launch Alliance
United Launch Alliance
United Launch Alliance
Tonight's launch window opens at 7:05pm ET (12:05pm BST) and lasts until 9pm. The launch will be the 111th one conducted by United Launch Alliance, which has a perfect record of primary mission success. It will take the NASA spacecraft about two years to reach Bennu and, after some 500 days of observations, OSIRIS-REx will swoop in toward the asteroid to grab a sample in July, 2020. If all goes well, the spacecraft will return to Earth in 2023 with half a kilogram or so of pristine asteroid material.One of the problems with the Welfare State is that it conflated Middle Class accoutrements, such as nice homes, with Middle Class values. Simply having the accoutrements of the Middle Class will not make one Middle Class, or instill Middle Class values. It is the work ethic and values of the Middle Class that allowed them to have the nice things; it was their drive and desire to stand on their own two feet and become masters of their own lives that lead to the broad prosperity that is associated with the Middle Class. Welfare mistakenly flip this cause and effect.
Section 8 housing, that allows people to live in nice homes without paying much of anything, while actual hard working folk have to save an scrimp to get the same thing, gives nothing more than superficiality to the former, while denigrating the later.
A couple who rented their home out to such a Section 8 Welfare case demonstrates what happens to people who did not earn those “nice things” and subsequently have to respect for those “nice things” because they can trash it and then just move on like locusts:
Rather than lift the unfortunate, Welfare drags down everyone to the lowest common denominator.
This will not end well…
Hat Tip: “Country Singer” over at the Ace of Spades HQ.
TweetSince becoming an editor for DC Comics’ mature readers Vertigo imprint in 1994, Axel Alonso has worked behind the scenes on some of the most distinctive comics of the past 20 years. His work editing books like Preacher and 100 Bullets at Vertigo grabbed the attention of Marvel Comics in 2000, and he took on a position at DC’s top competitor reviving the Spider-Man titles and editing controversial books like X-Force and Rawhide Kid: Slap Leather. In 2011, Alonso was promoted to the position of editor-in-chief at Marvel, and he is currently overseeing the Marvel Now! relaunch that has proven a critical, commercial, and creative success for the publisher. He chats with The A.V. Club about making the transition from Vertigo to Marvel, the importance of creative risk, and what he sees for the future of the company.
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The A.V. Club: Were comics a part of your upbringing at all?
Axel Alonso: I grew up in San Francisco, California. I was a young boy, meaning 5 or 6 years old, learning to read. I was introduced to comics by my grandmother who would walk me home from school every Friday, and would buy me a couple comic books at the five and dime. So every Friday I would pick a couple comics off the rack; I’d normally find a cool cover or flip through a comic book and see a cool fight, and that would be the one I would bring home. The concept of being only about Marvel or only about DC is completely ridiculous; I grew up reading everything. My favorite characters spanned even Charlton Comics, and I’m a big fan of Yang, the bald-headed kung fu guy. So I grew up reading comics like that. I gave them up as a teenager for a brief period of time and rediscovered them in college. I was on an Alaskan fishing boat—I would’ve been 19—and the boat I was on was subject to food-and-game inspection.
I found a stack of magazines and comic books that I had previously not looked at because there was no time. It was mostly pornography, but there were two comic books in there that had no cover, and it just turned out that they were two issues of the Alan Moore Swamp Thing. It was the story of a serial killer who remembered his victims from their eyes, and maybe it was the sleep deprivation from working on the boat, or maybe it was the way that life was on the water, but comics blew me away so I was convinced that I had missed out on six or seven years’ worth of incredible comic books. And when I went back to school—I was in college at UC Santa Cruz—I went to Atlantis Fantasyworld, as the retailer is proud to say, and got all my first comics again. So I got back into comics again as a 19-year-old. I was big on punk rock, and during the period of time I didn’t read comics, I got into that whole California SoCal punk scene. So artists like Raymond Pettibon, it wasn’t a surprise that his art borders on comic book. I dabbled in a little bit of that stuff, so I was always into that weird, pulpy aesthetic when I got back into comics.
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AVC: How did you get involved with Vertigo?
AA: I moved to New York after college and worked as a journalist, so I did a lot of reporting for the dailies, and I even worked for Editor & Publisher magazine briefly. I went to Columbia journalism school just because I felt like I hit a ceiling in journalism. I applied, they gave me a partial scholarship, so I went. When I got out of school, I entered into a job market that was worse than when I had gone to school. [Laughs.] I saw an ad in The New York Times that DC Comics was hiring editors. So, just out of curiosity I sent in my résumé, and I surprisingly got a call from an editor, the late Lou Stathis. He called me in because he had read an article I’d written and wanted to meet me. He knew my name, and it was just one of those things where if I had a common name, none of this would’ve happened.
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We talked about everything, and in the article I guess one of the guys I quoted had indicted himself as an idiot, and Lou loved it because this guy had stolen his girlfriend. So I had a leg up on the competition, and he hired me on the spot. I wasn’t even convinced I wanted to take the job, because the pay was so bad and it wasn’t a lateral move for me. But I took the job, and I liked what Vertigo was doing. I guess the one thing for me at Vertigo is that as much respect I had, as much enjoyment I got as a reader from something like Sandman, I never felt that that was in my wheelhouse, in terms of references. I didn’t think I would be a good editor for Neil Gaiman, I had nothing to contribute to that kind of book because I had never really leaned on fantasy or even dark fantasy. I liked horror and I loved pulp crime and I loved B-movies, so I looked to carve that kind of ground for myself at Vertigo. And that’s what I ended up doing, a lot of books that people jokingly called the “gun in the mouth” books.
AVC: What lessons did you learn at Vertigo that you carried with you once you became an editor at Marvel?
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AA: I don’t think I would’ve ever been prepared to do superhero comics had I not worked for Vertigo. It was an invaluable experience, because I functioned doing genre work, doing stories. I work within very broad parameters. For me, Vertigo was not only a place I could develop my own editorial voice; I found a way to bring my own passion about art and politics to the table. And I think that helped me transition to Marvel when Bill Jemas, who was then the publisher of Marvel, came to me and asked if I’d come to Marvel. I was actually contemplating a job offer from a book publisher at the time, and they had made a very attractive offer. So when Bill approached me, I was kind of cocky and wasn’t interested. I think that made him want me more. I remember him saying to me, “We’ve got a Spider-Man movie that has been optioned and is in preproduction, and it’s going to come out in a couple years. I need you to come in here with a group of other people and make Spider-Man sell as much as we think it should in a diverse market.” I told him, “You’re crazy, I haven’t read Spider-Man since I was 13.” He sent me a bunch of Xeroxes of Spider-Man. “Read up, young man!” I think what Vertigo enabled me to do was approach comics purely as stories. That allowed me to look at Spider-Man as being an iconic mythological figure, and even if I didn’t have deep-seated affection for him the way I did for someone like, say, The Hulk, I would be able to access him as a character and make decisions about who should write and draw him and understand what the mythology was about and respect that. Which is really what being an editor is about, especially with superhero comics.
AVC: There was a certain amount of risk involved in those first projects at Marvel like Amazing Spider-Man and X-Force. With X-Force, it was getting rid of the Comics Code, and with Spider-Man you had Aunt May finding out early in the run that Peter was Spider-Man. Do you think that it’s important to have a certain level of risk when approaching a new project?
AA: Without a doubt. I know when I was hired by Bill to come to Marvel that he wanted me to take risks, he wanted his editors to take risks, and use their Rolodexes. Joe [J. Michael] Straczynski happened to be writing a book called Rising Stars at Image [Comics], which was my favorite superhero comic book at the time. He was someone I was very attracted to, but I didn't know if he had a sense of humor. Rising Stars was many things, but it wasn't funny. So I just gambled, but I thought Joe Straczynski would be a really good fit for Spider-Man, and when I was offered to take over the Spider-Man line I decided to keep Paul Jenkins on at Peter Parker: Spider-Man because he was telling young adult-friendly Spider-Man stories. It didn |
that ever nut, bolt and wire serves to keep Nero’s heart pumping. It’s like Nero exhales when you see the spit-fire from the pipes.
Nero is Bandit9’s most innovative bike yet. Instinct drove the design. Rather than an exercise purely in engineering, Nero was more of an emotional and experimental build. And that suits well with the Bandit9 style.
And you use Chang Jiang bikes as a foundation for your bikes…
Chang Jiangs are Chinese military bikes with an engine configuration like classic BMWs. As one of our fans beautifully put, “they’re the AK-47s of the motorcycle world.” These things just don’t give up. They’re made to survive war, rain, snow, mud, extreme heat, the Chang Jiang keeps kicking.
Detail on your motorcycles that you spend the most time refining?
Most of my time is spent coming up with concepts for the bike. Once I have the basic idea of what I want, we just rock and roll with the build. Our biggest challenge is we don’t have the machines to build things quickly so most of what we do is done by hand. But it’s nice to build things with your hand. You feel much closer to the project. It’s a really intimate process.
Your motto is “It’s more fun to be a pirate than a sailor.” How so?
Our name comes from the idea that bandits, pirates and outlaws are the kings of innovation and individualism. They’re not afraid to try and fail. They’re not afraid to be outcasts. I like to think that each build is an experiment. If I’m not afraid of failing during a build, an alarm in my brain goes off telling me that I’m not pushing myself.
Woody Allen once said, “If you’re not failing every now and then, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.” Fall on your face. Pick yourself up. Conquer what you thought was insurmountable.
Most inspirational bike you’ve ever seen and or rode? What about it made it so special?
The most inspirational bike was my 50cc Honda Cub. It was my first bike, my first love. It was mine. It was the first time I felt that connection between man and machine; something cars have completely lost.
My first “custom” job was to paint my Cub solid white. During the process, something just clicked inside and I fell in love. That’s where all of this custom motorcycle madness started.
Most memorable compliment you’ve ever received about one of your motorcycles?
An editor of a really popular custom motorcycle site said “[Nero] looks like it came straight from the labs of Lucius Fox.” Lucius Fox is the man that designs all of Batman’s toys including the Tumbler and the awesome Batpod.
Everybody knows how much I love Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. I even flew to Hong Kong for the premiere. If Bandit9 is mentioned on the same sentence as Batman, we must be doing something right.
“I love China. Everything here feels so grand. It’s such a beautiful country. How can you beat riding your bike on a winding road side by side to the Great Wall of China?”
What’s it like living and working in Beijing?
I love China. Everything here feels so grand. It’s such a beautiful country. How can you beat riding your bike on a winding road side by side to the Great Wall of China? Sometimes you just pass by buildings that are over 500 years old; you feel the history in your bones. It’s humbling.
There’s a language barrier, which makes working here incredibly difficult and frustrating but it’s not something that we can’t overcome. There are a lot of people here with incredible craft and we try to utilize these talents to help us build our bikes. It’s a lot of fun.
Biggest misconception about Beijing?
People will always be unhappy about something. A lot of foreigners complain about the living conditions here. It’s too polluted. It’s over-populated. It’s so dry or humid here. If you stop and really open your eyes for a moment, you’ll realize how luck you are to be in this city. There’s so much culture and knowledge in this city, I don’t understand how you can get bored in a city like this.
City in the world you most enjoy riding a motorcycle?
I had a lot of fun riding around Saigon. It’s a scooter city; there are only a handful of cars. During the day, the roads are packed with scooters and motorcycles. If you’re looking from a heightened view, the roads look like a complex network of streams. The traffic just flows. It’s quite a beautiful sight and it feels great to be on the road with the Vietnamese people, shoulder to shoulder.
I used to take midnight rides along a road next to where I used to live. It’s a really quiet neighborhood. There are stretches where I’d be driving next to a still lake reflecting the streetlights. It’s like meditation. Nothing else matters. For a moment, I’m Zen.
Phrase you use most around the shop?
“Hmm…It’s not there yet.” I’m really anal about the work.
What music/band are usually playing in you shop?
I love all sorts of music but if I had to narrow it down, I’m a big fan of the Strokes, Blur, and Radiohead. But sometimes you’ll catch me putting on some 80s…maybe some of the Cure.
What do you like to do when you’re not building bikes?
When I have time away from my advertising life and Bandit9, I like to empty my brain. It needs to recharge. So you’d probably find me watching a cheesy action movie that doesn’t use any brainpower.
I like photography as well. All our Bandit9 bikes are shot by me (another one of the many things I’m psycho about). I’ve finally gotten back into the habit of bringing my camera around and shooting some black and white street shots.
If you could build a bike for anyone it would be…
Batman, obviously. Bruce Wayne, second. But someone real, I’d say Steve McQueen. He’s just a cool cat.
Who or what inspires you nowadays?
There isn’t one source of inspiration for me. A new design for a chair might inspire me to create a new design for a tank. Something as simple as elegant candy packaging might inspire me for a unique color combination. I just try to keep my eyes open and observe.
What’s next for Bandit9?
I don’t want Bandit9 to be seen as just another custom garage. I want it to be a design powerhouse and I believe we’re going in the right direction but there’s still a lot of work to be done to hammer our name amongst the greats.
On a larger scale, I really want to show China that it’s capable of producing great things and that they don’t need to look to the west as a standard of what’s “good” or “fashionable.” I want to show the world that China isn’t just a nation of copycats. “Made in China” will one day no longer have a stigma attached to it; I want Bandit9 to be a part of that change.
+ Source: Bandit9
RELATED POSTS:Top 6 Most Expensive Poker Chip Sets
No matter how much we all love poker, most of us don’t have any real reason to invest a huge amount of money in our home game poker sets. We are going to use them time and time again, after all, so why would we spend a ton of cash on cards and chips when they are going to be passed around, dropped, thrown, splashed and just plain abused by ourselves and our friends repeatedly?
On the other hand, a lot of hosts take great pride in their home game sets and will do whatever it takes not to just keep up with the Jones’ set, but to buy a presumably better and certainly more expensive set for themselves. If you are one of the people who consider your home game set to be a status symbol or you’ve won the lottery and are looking for ways to spend a portion of your winnings on an asset that is not likely to appreciate too much in value during your own lifetime, then you might want to pick up at least one of the six most expensive home game poker sets we could find.
Here they are, ordered from least to most expensive:
6. Pre-WWII Poker Chips With Inlaid Swastika
For just $1,999.99, you can buy this set of vintage clay inlaid swastika poker chips with the original box still intact. There are a total of 283 chips which were apparently manufactured before WWII broke out in this set. The person selling them is a collector and has a lot of vintage stuff for sale although this item probably stands out the most even to someone who doesn’t play poker.
If anyone even buys this set, it’s likely going to be another collector. However, if you do decide to spend $2,000 on swastika poker chips, then congratulations on being the next host of the weirdest, most politically incorrect home game in the world.
5. Asprey Luxurious Poker Set
Asprey, a 200 year-old UK-based luxury goods company, is well known for its designer products. From jewelry to board games, Asprey has it all, including a $7,500 poker set in cinnamon-colored English saddle leather.
The set contains 550 ceramic chips, 2 packs of Asprey playing cards and a dealer chip that has a palladium finish. The carrying case also has palladium locks on the front of it.
4. Cartier’s Bold Poker Set
If you are willing to spend $7,500 for an Asprey poker set, then you might want to consider another option first. Founded in Paris, France by Louis-François Cartier in 1847, Cartier designs, manufactures and sells high-end jewelry and watches throughout the world…and now, the company also makes the occasional luxurious poker set.
For only $10,100, you can buy this one-of-a-kind set which contains 360 chips in five colors, two sets of playing cards and five dice in a red and black, wood, gold-plated chest.
3. Vintage Cartier Poker Chips Set
Being sold on Ebay by the Gallery of Design and Culture in Dortmund, Germany, this set is truly unique and unlike any other on this list; the chips are made of plastic and they have a genuinely original design.
This set is distinct from the other sets in this list for another reason, too – its description says its worth over $30,000 even though the set is currently for sale for “only” $7,500. It’s hard to estimate the true worth of this novel set because its description does not say much else about it, but since its value is likely more than $10,000 this set gets a well-deserved third place on our list.
2. The Meteorite Poker Set
Designed and developed by Swedish jeweler, Stahl, The Meteorite Poker Set is the second most expensive poker set in the world, priced at $150,000. It is carved from an 800,000 year-old meteor located in northern Sweden which is known as “Muonionalusta“.
All of the elements included in the set are covered with 18-karat white gold and decorated with precious, premium quality stones such as diamonds, Burmese Rubies and Sri Lankan Sapphires. It contains 120 chips, a deck of cards of superb quality and five ivory die.
The interior of the set’s case is made from Swedish reindeer calf skins and the exterior is made from exquisite polished leather. It is hard to imagine this set being used to play an actual game, but if you are a rich collector that likes poker, this just might catch your eye.
1. Geoffrey Parker Poker Set
Founded in Hertfordshire, England in the early 1960s, Geoffrey Parker is known for being one of the top handcrafted game manufacturers in the world. A few years ago, Geoffrey Parker shattered the record for the most expensive poker set when the company introduced one that costs $7.5 million.
Made for the ultimate high stakes game, the case is covered with genuine alligator skin which is finished in the color of the client’s choice. Combination locks are fitted with 18-karat white gold and the suede lining features an 18-karat gold and diamond frame.
Inside you will find 384 18-karat white gold chips, each inlaid on both sides in stingray which can be in any currency and denominations the client desires. The edge of each chip is set with precious stones – white diamonds for the white chips, sapphires for the blue, rubies for the red, emeralds for the green and black diamonds for the black. The dealer button is also fitted with 18-karat white gold and set with two rows of diamonds which extend to the button’s edges. The set has a total of 22,364 precious stones which equals 1,012 karats. To top it all off, the set includes four platinum-plated decks of cards.
If you have the money and the desire to buy this, you may be a bit disappointed since the expected delivery time for this work of art is six-to-nine months.New Delhi: The Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas made its maiden appearance in the 68th Republic Day parade by joining in the fly-past over Rajpath on Thursday. It had earlier flown at Indian Air Force (IAF) Day in 2016. The LCA was inducted into 45th Squadron of the IAF in last July.
Here are the key facts on Tejas:
■ The LCA programme was intended in part to further expand and advance India’s indigenous aerospace capabilities.
■ The Tejas aircraft’s design was finalised in 1990 as a small tail-less delta winged machine with relaxed static stability (RSS) to enhance maneuverability performance and a host of other advanced features.
■ The LCA is the smallest and lightest multi-role supersonic fighter aircraft of its class.
■ Tejas is designed and developed by the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) for the IAF and the Indian Navy.
■ Prior to the Republic Day parade and IAF Day, Tejas was also flown at the IAF’s fire power demonstration Iron Fist, Aero India, and the Bahrain International Airshow.
■ Tejas is a 4th generation aircraft and can fly at 1,350 kmph and is comparable to the world’s best fighter jets of its generation such as French Mirage, US fighter jet F-16, and Swedish Gripen.
■ Two Tejas aircrafts were inducted into the IAF’s 45th Squadron last year on 1 July.Yep, that’s pretty good.
Dating back to December 16, 2012, and including the playoffs, Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown has 578 receptions for 7,755 yards in his last 77 games. Brown has 48 catches in six games this season for 700 yards, a 116.7 yards per game average.
Before the 2015 season, I wrote that Julio Jones had maintained a 100 receiving yards per game average over 57 straight games. I did not include the postseason when I wrote that post, but Jones still would have qualified had I done so: he had 5,703 receiving yards in his last 57 regular season games and 305 receiving yards in his 3 playoff games during that time. Through the end of last regular season, Jones was still keeping this pace up, at 7,417 receiving yards through his last 74 games.
And following the Super Bowl, Jones was at 7,751 yards — or just 4 yards behind Brown’s pace — through his last 77 games. Even through week 3 of this year, Jones had 8016 receiving yards in his last 80 games, but he has had two poor games since: as a result, he’s fall slightly under the 100 yard/game pace in his last 82 games.
But Jones still is at over 100 yards per game through his last 79 games (that’s because the first 3 games in his 82-game streak weren’t great). In his last 79 games, Jones has 7,932 receiving yards, a 100.4 yards per game average.
As for Brown, he’s at 100.7 yards per game over his last 77 games. In other words, Browns and Jones are simultaneously putting together two of the greatest receiving streaks in NFL history.
Lance Alworth averaged 101.0 receiving yards per game in his best 77-game stretch (playoffs included), from October 1963 through the end of the 1968 season.
From week 6 of the 2010 season through week 6 of the 2015 season (playoffs included), Calvin Johnson picked up 7,827 receiving yards in a 77-game stretch, a 101.6 yards per game average.
Even the great Jerry Rice didn’t average 100 yards per game for such a long stretch: his best yards per game average over a 77-game stretch was 95.1 receiving yards, from October 1992 through November 3, 1996. His longest stretch (postseason included) averaging 100 receiving yards per game was 57 games, through week 6 of the 1996 season.
As for Brown, he’s having yet another magnificent season as part of what we can now say with some certainty is a Hall of Fame career. If Brown averages 90 receiving yards per game over his final 10 games (or a lesser amount over fewer games), he’ll have his third season with at least 100 receiving yards per game. In NFL history, only Jones and Johnson have three 100 receiving yards/game seasons (minimum six games), and both are right at three.
With 245 yards over his next 3 games, Brown will be at exactly 8,000 yards over his last 80 games, the equivalent of five full seasons. He is also in line for his fourth consecutive season as AP first-team All-Pro. And Brown is showing no signs of slowing down. He’s picked up a remarkable 46.0% of the Steelers receiving yards.
If that holds — which, to be clear, is extraordinarily unlikely — it would be the highest percentage of team receiving yards gained by a player since Ken Burrough on the 1975 Oilers (50.6%). If he keeps this pace up, Brown could join Rice, Harlon Hill, and Don Hutson as just the fourth wide receiver to win a major NFL MVP award (Alworth also won the UPI AFL MVP award in 1963, too).
With Brown, I’m not even sure what the most interesting question to ask is anymore. What do you think the most interesting Brown debate question is?Today's advanced technology makes nearly every aspect of day-to-day life simpler and easier. Despite these advances, there is one heavily used product that has not significantly progressed in decades: the suitcase.
Having decided that the time has come to rethink the traditional suitcase, we have developed FUGU LUGGAGE – an innovative lifestyle product that adjusts to meet the needs of the modern traveler!
Join the Suitcase Revolution and help us make FUGU LUGGAGE a reality!
FUGU LUGGAGE in the News
CHECK OUT FUGU LUGGAGE'S UNIQUE FEATURES!
Size and Dimensions
FUGU LUGGAGE has been measured to comply with the standard airline size limitations on baggage. The suitcase is thus designed to expand from the size of a maximum regulation sized carry-on size to the size of a maximum regulation sized check-in.
Strength and Stability
FUGU LUGGAGE is made from durable materials, which have proven to be strong enough to successfully pass an altitude crash test.
In addition, the suitcase is water resistant and the walls absorb shock to better protect your items inside.
FUGU Shelves
FUGU LUGGAGE includes built-in shelves that can be attached or collapsed at any point. The shelves enable the suitcase to double as a storage unit, eliminating the need to unpack into a hotel closet and then later repack. The shelves have the added bonus of keeping belongings neat and tidy throughout any journey.
Whether FUGU LUGGAGE is collapsed or expanded, it is easy to open and comfortably add or remove belongings.
FUGU Table
The FUGU LUGGAGE's height and width make it ideal for use as a portable table, which can be utilized for a variety of purposes, including but not limited to laptop stand, makeup dresser, and reading desk.
FUGU Laptop Case
FUGU LUGGAGE comes with a removable laptop case, which can double as a laptop stand. Our custom-made laptop case fits both into and on FUGU LUGGAGE, and can be used to store your laptop and personal items. This case provides you with the option of either keeping your personal belongings with you at all times, or storing your items with your checked-in bag under the plane.
FUGU Vacuum Bags
The same pump that inflates the walls of FUGU LUGGAGE can also deflate vacuum bags, making the use of vacuum bags extremely convenient for travellers by eliminating the need to carry an external pump with which to deflate the vacuum bags.
Weight
FUGU LUGGAGE does not weight significantly more than the average suitcase. Despite the addition of inflatable walls and an extra handle, the difference in the suitcase's overall weight is only a few hundred grams (less than a pound). The FUGU LUGGAGE suitcase is made of plastic, which contributes to the fact that it is lighter than many standard cloth suitcases!
Movement
It is simple to drag FUGU LUGGAGE in either of its forms, and to turn it full circle (360 degrees), as a result of the addition of its "spinner wheels".
How FUGU LUGGAGE Works
There are three ways to inflate the walls of FUGU LUGGAGE:
1. Pressing a button in order to activate the built-in electric pump
2. Externally attaching any regular air pump
3. Breathing into an external tube
While the easiest way to expand and collapse the suitcase is the first option listed above, there are also other options available to modify the size of the suitcase, all of which are quick and easy to use.
Innovation
FUGU LUGGAGE was developed in an attempt to find a solution the "suitcase dilemma." FUGU LUGGAGE's founders realized the need for a solution to the dilemma in 2013, when one of our founders, Isaac, found that the carry-on that he had packed to take on a business trip was not sufficient to transport gifts back home to his loved ones after the completion of the trip.
While searching for a solution to this dilemma, Isaac and the FUGU LUGGAGE team noted that all suitcases on the market are essentially the same. Their research of the luggage market found them unable to obtain a quality suitcase that adequately adjusted itself to fit all travellers' needs. This lack of flexibility led the FUGU LUGGAGE team to realize that the time had come to rethink how a suitcase should look and function.
During the initial stages of FUGU LUGGAGE's development, the FUGU LUGGAGE team applied for a patent through Luzzatto & Luzzatto, one of the top patent attorney firms in Israel.
Who Are We?
FUGU LUGGAGE is an innovative industrial design company that is currently putting all of its efforts into developing new products in the luggage industry. We believe that our suitcase represents a huge step forward within the world of luggage and traveling!
The idea for FUGU LUGGAGE came to Isaac Atlas in early 2013. He felt that there had to be a better way to travel, that would not force travellers to make difficult decisions regarding packing space. With the help of Daniel Gindis and David Lifshitz, he developed FUGU LUGGAGE.
Together with Intovision, an industrial design company, FUGU LUGGAGE has set out to revolutionize the world of travel. The staff consists of creative and professional engineers and designers. Everyone involved shares a love of travel, and a desire to save time, money, and space, while increasing consumer choice. Nothing gives the FUGU LUGGAGE team greater satisfaction than combining the things it loves most – travel, innovation and entrepreneurship!
What We Need
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Your support will enable us to finish developing the product, create molds for the initial manufacturing run, and fund the first round of production. Be a part of FUGU LUGGAGE's success - help make all of our trips easier, more comfortable, and more enjoyable!Short Bytes: Two Ohio prison inmates built DIY computers, hid them in the ceiling and hacked the prison network. They obtained the parts from the PC from onsite computer skills and electronics recycling program. The inmates used the computers for credit card fraud, reading material on how to make drugs and weapons, download porn and music, etc. Notably, the incident happened in 2015 and its investigation report was released on Tuesday.
I
f this story sounds like an episode of Orange is the New Black to you, I won’t be surprised. According to a new report from the Ohio Office of the Inspector General, the geeky inmates of the medium security Ohio prison secretly assembled two functioning computers.
The inmates, Adam Johnston and Scott Spriggs, obtained from an onsite computer skills and electronics recycling program. They hid the computers in the ceiling (see the picture below) and used it to connected to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction’s computer network.
As it looks like, the inmates used the computers to steal another inmate’s identity to commit credit card fraud, read material on how to make drugs and weapons, and download porn. They distributed download porn, music, and videos to fellow inmates in exchange for goods.
The support staff of Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction smelled something fishy when got an email alert that a computer has exceeded its internet threshold and an unauthorized device keeps using proxies for hacking.
The inmates were able to lay internet cables the roof and down to the network switch. The report states that the inmates got the credentials of employee-turned-contractor by looking over his shoulder, something which is called visual hacking. They used the password to steal records and commit fraud.
Here’s the complete list of the software that was found on the computers: CC Proxy, Cain, Zed Attack Proxy, CC Cleaner, Wireshark, NMap, ZenMap, SoftEther VPN Server, OpenVPN, Jana Server, Yoshi, VLC, Clamwin, phpBB, AdvOr Tor Browser, Paros, 3CXVoip Phone, Webslayer, Cavin, Virtual Box, TrueCrypt, THC Hydra, and Kali Linux.
You can find many of the above-mentioned software in our list of the top hacking tools for 2017.
Interestingly, this incident occurred long ago in 2015 and the prison took so long to report it to the authorities. Moreover, the prison officials also removed the computers and other materials before it could’ve been examined.
The prison spokesperson said that officials would review the reports and take necessary steps to avert such mishaps in future.An Indian woman has alleged that she was gang-raped by four officers at a police station in the state of Uttar Pradesh state, barely two weeks after two teenage girls were gang-raped and hanged from a tree in another area of the state.
The woman said she had gone to the station overnight on Monday in the state's Hamirpur district to seek her husband's release when she was attacked.
"At 11:30pm when there was no one in the room the sub-inspector took me to his room and raped me inside the police station," the woman told local news channel CNN-IBN.
The woman filed a complaint with a senior officer on Wednesday over the attack, which allegedly occurred when she refused to pay a bribe to secure the release of her husband.
"The procedure will be followed, the victim has filed a complaint and the guilty will be arrested soon," Virendra Kumar Shekhar, a police official from Hamirpur, said.
Sub-inspector Balbir Singh said a criminal case had been lodged against four officers from the station.
Police said they were also investigating the death of a 19-year-old found hanging from a tree in a village in Moradabad district.
"The body was strung up using the girl's dupatta (long scarf)," senior police superintendent Ashutosh Kumar said.
"The FIR (first information report) was lodged by the girl's brother against unidentified persons. He has alleged the girl was murdered," Kumar told AFP.
No action
The case is the latest in a string of horrific rapes and murders in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, where its chief minister Akhilesh Yadav is under growing political pressure over his handling of law and order.
Late last month, two girls, aged 12 and 14, were gang-raped and lynched in their village. They were attacked after going into a field to relieve themselves at night because they did not have a toilet at home.
Their families refused to cut the bodies down from the tree for hours in protest, saying police had failed to take action against the attackers because the girls were from a low caste.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday urged all politicians to work together to protect women, in his first comments on the issue since the hanging of the girls sparked public outrage.
Modi warned politicians against "politicising rape", saying they were "playing with the dignity of women" in his first speech to parliament since sweeping to power at last month's national elections.
India brought in tougher laws last year against sexual offenders after the fatal gang-rape of a student in New Delhi in December 2012, but they have failed to stem the tide of violence against women.
In another incident on Wednesday, a 45-year-old woman was found hanging from a tree in Uttar Pradesh, with her family saying she had been raped and murdered.
A police officer said they were questioning five men over the incident, which occurred several kilometres from her home in Bahraich district.
Mamata Sharma, head of the state-run National Commission for Women, urged Yadav to resign, calling his government's failure to protect women "shameful".
"They (the government) not only fails in protecting their women but they don't even have the police in their control," Sharma told NDTV news channel.Try to enjoy The Strain while you can, because the show won’t be around much longer. FX has just announced that it is picking up the vampire thriller series for a fourth season… which will be its last. But that’s not necessarily bad news, even if you’re a fan of the show. Showrunner Carlton Cuse has stressed that the decision allows him and his team to wrap up the drama on their own terms. “It is a true joy to work at FX where creative intentions always comes first,” he said in a statement.
The news comes just as The Strain hits the halfway point of its third season, which consists of ten episodes instead of the usual 13. The show is based on a trilogy of books by Chuck Hogan and Guillermo del Toro, and the current season will bring the narrative arc up to the end of the second book. The next season, then, will cover the events of the last book. The show will return to FX for season four sometime in summer 2017, for an unspecified number of episodes.
Cuse explained the decision to end The Strain after season four:
Our original plan was for the series to last three years. Once we began telling that story it expanded to be more. After finishing the writing on season three, Guillermo, Chuck and I looked at our remaining story and felt the best version could be told in one more season. We have a fantastic plan for an exciting and climatic season four. We are deeply grateful to FX for supporting our vision and for allowing us to end the show on our own timetable.
While some shows are designed to run indefinitely, The Strain was never one of them. Earlier this year, Cuse suggested the series would likely wrap up around season five. It’s probably just as well that the show can start working toward an end. Let’s just hope it’s a satisfying finish for everyone who’s stuck with Eph (Corey Stoll) and his adventures so far.
The Strain airs Sundays at 10 PM on FX. The season three finale is scheduled for October 30.Image: Flickr/Gregory "Slobirdr" Smith
Last week, as the United States added its support to the first global law that would finally hold nations accountable for climate change, biologists in California were attempting to triage an influx of dying sea lions—victims of global warming—that had washed up on their beaches.
Animal rescuers first witnessed the sudden arrival of hundreds of emaciated pinnipeds in early 2013. The majority of the sea lions were pups, and almost all of them showed signs of viruses and infection, in addition to severe malnourishment. The exact source or pathogen responsible for the unprecedented event wasn't immediately clear.
Scientists at the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA) agreed that it was an "unusual mortality event."
Image: The Marine Mammal Center/Bill Hunnewell
Since then, these sudden, mass strandings continued every year in the spring.
Historically, the atmospheric phenomenon known as El Niño has caused sea lion numbers to ebb and flow over time. Every so often, a starvation epidemic will level an entire generation of sea lion pups, as uncharacteristically warm waters decimate their food supply.
But 2013 and 2014, while hotter than ever, weren't El Niño seasons, and the pups that washed ashore appeared to have been born sick. Sea lion mothers were barren of life-supporting milk for their offspring, and many were forced to leave their young for days at a time in search of food. Some scientists suggested the ocean stranded the animals because it just couldn't support them anymore.
This year, animal rescue centers have reported record-breaking sea lion numbers at their facilities. Many are already at capacity, such as the Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach where staff are rehabilitating 130 animals at any given time. According to the center, sea lion strandings this year are nearly four times higher than the average from 2003 to 2012.
Researchers and wildlife officials are struggling to keep bystanders away from the sick animals on Malibu's beaches because there are simply too many to keep track of. According to the Marine Mammal Protection Act, no one is allowed within 100 feet of the sea lions, but curiosity and misguided attempts to help the dying pups have resulted in beach-goers unnecessarily stressing them.
The real causes of the epidemic are overfishing and climate change. Together, they deliver a one-two punch to sea lions.
There's now scientific consensus that as greenhouse gasses heat Earth, El Niño will not only intensify, it will appear more frequently, reducing the time that ecosystems need to naturally recover from its effects.
Image: The Marine Mammal Center/Bill Hunnewell
Climate change is also compounding other major threats to sea lion populations, the primary being overfishing of the animal's most important food source. Sardine numbers off California have dropped by 90 percent since 2007, according to a National Marine Fisheries Service assessment. In 2012, NOAA scientists warned of a fatal sardine population collapse, but they never anticipated it would ever lead to a mass sea lion starvation event.
"Sea lions are an indicator species that are showing not all is well in the current California ecosystem. There is simply isn't enough food out there," Geoff Shester, California Program Director at the conservation organization Oceana, told me.
Conservation groups are focused on promoting policies that would curb overfishing and help to replenish sardine and anchovy numbers, he said.
Until we address the root cause of overfishing, sea lion numbers will undoubtedly continue to starve. But as ocean conditions become more extreme, even protected fish populations might never have the chance to recover.
The ripples of climate change are being seen all around the world, but it's not often they wash up on our very doorstep. In a way, the stranded sea lions are an unfortunately opportune mascot for the cascading environmental effects of global warming. Afterall, "baby sea lions are dying" and people care about that.
"You can see the eyes of these creatures that are starving to death," Shester said. "It's a sad occurrence that's happening right now, but it draws a lot of people in."
Thankfully, the sea lion pups have a pretty good recovery rate, and rescue staff are more prepared than ever to rehabilitate them. But once released back into the ocean, will it only spit them out again? Let's hope not.Photo
After Ferguson cops greeted unarmed protesters with tear gas and combat vehicles, there was public gnashing of teeth over whether police departments really need military gear, acquired from the Pentagon through the federal 1033 transfer program. Some national politicians, notably Republican Senator Rand Paul, criticized the militarization of law enforcement.
Military surplus ends up not only in the hands of big-city police departments or suburban police departments like the one in Ferguson, but even—as it turns out—on college campuses. Last week The Chronicle of Higher Education revealed that nearly 120 colleges and universities have acquired equipment through the 1033 program since 1998.
Working off of records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, The Chronicle found that colleges collected equipment running the gamut from office supplies to M-16s to weapons one would only expect to find on a battlefield. The Arizona State University police received 70 M-16s. Lincoln University, in Missouri, ordered 15 military backpacks and 20 bayonets. And the University of Central Florida police department owns an M-79 grenade launcher.
Some college professors and administrators defend the acquisition of Pentagon equipment for campus police by arguing that 1) the gear is free and 2) why not?
An associate professor of criminal justice at Fort Valley State University in Georgia, Michael Qualls, who previously worked for campus police departments, told The Chronicle: “If we continue on with the 1033 program, as those items become obsolete at the military level and if they become available, why not get ‘em? It’s better to be prepared than not prepared.”
But the “better safe than sorry” totally ignores the possibility that owning such weapons could create the urge to use them. That isn’t to suggest that campus cops will open fire on students for no reason, but they could well overreact to a protest—just as the Ferguson police did. Owning grenade launchers and M-16s could also convince well-meaning campus police chiefs that they can handle violent incidents |
there’s only a certain number of dollars to go around, I’m in favor of that,” Bloomberg said.
United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew said he put the mayor’s latest views on teaching in the same category of his decision to appoint a former magazine editor with no teaching experience to be schools chancellor.
“So the mayor thinks this is a good idea, in high schools to have class size in high schools of 70 kids. Clearly the mayor has never taught,” said United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew.
“And probably the mayor’s having another Cathie Black moment.”
The mayor also said he’s given teachers a 105 percent raise since he took office. Mulgrew said maybe the mayor should have stopped in at a math class while he was at MIT.
In lamenting the quality of teachers, the mayor claimed they come from the bottom 20 percent of their class and not the best schools.
Do you agree with the mayor? Please offer your thoughts in the comments section below.CONCACAF Disciplinary Committee Fines, Suspends Cuban Coach for Offensive Behavior during Competition
Miami (Monday, May 18, 2015) -- The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) announced today that its Disciplinary Committee has suspended and fined Raul Valentin, head coach of the Cuban men’s team at the Central American and Caribbean Games in November, for racist behavior during and following a match of that competition played on November 23, 2014.
The coach was fined an undisclosed amount for racial abuse of the referee of the November match disputed between the national teams of Cuba and Venezuela at the XXII Central American and Caribbean games.
During the 83rd minute of the match, Valentin was documented by match officials to have used offensive and racist language toward the referee. At the end of the game, the coach was documented to have continued using the same offensive and racist language.
In addition, Raul Valentin was handed a five match suspension, of which he has already served two matches. The remaining three match suspensions will be served in upcoming friendly matches.
CONCACAF embraces and promotes diversity as a key value of football, by fostering a culture of respect and inclusiveness. The Confederation enforces a strict zero tolerance policy concerning incidents of racist and/or discriminatory behavior.
Last month, the CONCACAF Disciplinary Committee sanctioned the Costa Rican club Liga Deportiva Alajuelense, by levying a fine and a stadium ban for racist behavior by fans during a Scotiabank CONCACAF Champions League match disputed earlier this year.
-- The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) announced today that its Disciplinary Committee has suspended and fined Raul Valentin, head coach of the Cuban men’s team at the Central American and Caribbean Games in November, for racist behavior during and following a match of that competition played on November 23, 2014.The coach was fined an undisclosed amount for racial abuse of the referee of the November match disputed between the national teams of Cuba and Venezuela at the XXII Central American and Caribbean games.During the 83minute of the match, Valentin was documented by match officials to have used offensive and racist language toward the referee. At the end of the game, the coach was documented to have continued using the same offensive and racist language.In addition, Raul Valentin was handed a five match suspension, of which he has already served two matches. The remaining three match suspensions will be served in upcoming friendly matches.CONCACAF embraces and promotes diversity as a key value of football, by fostering a culture of respect and inclusiveness. The Confederation enforces a strict zero tolerance policy concerning incidents of racist and/or discriminatory behavior.Last month, the CONCACAF Disciplinary Committee sanctioned the Costa Rican club Liga Deportiva Alajuelense, by levying a fine and a stadium ban for racist behavior by fans during a Scotiabank CONCACAF Champions League match disputed earlier this year.Two people have been charged with murder in the shooting deaths of two people on Tussing Road.
Columbus police arrested 19-year-old Mia V. Shamis and 21-year-old Connor C. Jefferies Wednesday. Both have been charged with two counts of murder.
The shooting happened near the intersection of Tussing and Brice Roads just after 2:00 p.m. Tuesday.
Police said Shamis and Jefferies met with 20-year-old Gary Francis and 21-year-old James Miller Jr. in a parking lot behind Enterprise Rent-A-Car. There was a brief conversation that ended with Francis and Miller Jr. shot.
Officers and medics found Francis still inside a vehicle suffering from gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Miller Jr. was found near the rear garage of Enterprise and was taken to Grant Medical Center. He died shortly after 3:00 p.m.
Court records show the shooting stemmed from a drug deal and Jefferies was the alleged triggerman.
On Thursday, a judge set bond for Jefferies and Shamis at $1 million and $1.225 million, respectively.
Anyone with information on this incident is encouraged to call the Columbus Police Homicide Unit at 645-4730 or Crime Stoppers at 645-TIPS (8477).Leah Pritchett will compete in the next NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series event in 10 days near Atlanta as the fourth woman to drive for Don Schumacher Racing when she pilots the FireAde Top Fuel dragster.
It’s been a whirlwind year for the winner of the NHRA Top Fuel event title at this year’s second race when she joins the biggest team in professional drag racing and drives a fourth Top Fuel dragster that will be the eighth nitro team for DSR, which has won 14 NHRA world championships and 269 Mello Yello titles.
This development brings her nitro career full circle. The 27-year-old native of Redlands, Calif., who lives in Avon, Ind., earned her nitro Funny Car license with DSR eight years ago.
“I am thrilled to finally have Leah in the seat of a DSR racecar,” DSR owner and drag racing pioneer Don Schumacher said of the California State University of San Bernardino graduate.
“She showed me a lot when she tested with us and earned her NHRA license. But she is much more than a very good driver; she is an excellent marketer and outstanding representative of our sport.”
Pritchett, who is ranked eighth in Mello Yello points, also will drive DSR’s FireAde dragster in the prestigious U.S. Nationals over Labor Day Weekend near Indianapolis. She is working with Schumacher to secure additional marketing partners to allow her to run a full 2016 schedule.
FireAde provides the world’s most advanced, innovative and environmental friendly firefighting, tank cleaning and dust control products. FireAde, a product of Fire Service Plus Inc., is based in Fayetteville, Ga., near Atlanta and was founded by chief executive officer Ron Thames.
“A huge thanks goes to Ron and FireAde for the belief they have in us and making this happen so we can keep racing,” Pritchett said.
After competing part-time in Top Fuel the past three years, she has ridden a 329-mph rollercoaster through this season’s first six Mello Yello races. She joined Bob Vandergriff Racing at the start of the season with a promise she would run the first full season of her career. But the unexpected death of Josh Comstock, 46, who was one of Vandergriff’s major sponsors led him to retire to spend more time with his family that led to the shutdown of BVR.
That decision was made after the race at Las Vegas but the perseverant Pritchett competed with a different team at the next Mello Yello event near Charlotte and was able to get BVR to one more event last weekend near Houston where the team led by crew chiefs Mike Guger and Joe Barlam advanced to the semifinals and she recorded the fastest run of her career at 329.18 mph.
Veteran tuners Guger and Barlam will join Pritchett at Atlanta along with some members of her BVR team combined with veteran nitro technicians who are longtime DSR technicians.
“If you would have asked a couple of weeks ago if I’d being running Atlanta I wouldn’t have bet too much on that happening,” Pritchett said. “When the door shut on all of us it was not a fend-for-yourself moment. Our goal was to continue to race together and because of that we were able to go to Atlanta.
“These last couple weeks with the support from so many people who have rallied around my team to keep my dream going has just been phenomenal.”
Schumacher decided it was time to bring out a fourth Top Fueler, initially as a part-time program, and make Pritchett his four female driver since opening DSR in 1998. Two of the previous woman to drive for DSR went on to win multiple NHRA world championships: Erica Enders in Pro Stock and Angelle Sampey in Pro Stock Motorcycle. Melanie Troxel won two Top Fuel titles for DSR.
“What we accomplished in Houston gives us an extra boost of confidence,” Pritchett said of her semifinals finish.
“It’s ironic that it comes full circle for me that I will be driving for Don Schumacher in a Mello Yello race. He was the first one to see my potential when I was a teenager and helped me get my first fuel license.
“To be able to run under his umbrella is a very proud moment for me.”Liberal activist groups are mobilizing their supporters to stack Sunday night’s debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump with questions designed to be hostile to Trump.
The debate is a “town hall style” event, with questions coming from the audience. But those questions and the questioners will be pre-screened so as to not be out of left field or redundant. As part of the process for picking questions and topics, CNN and ABC News have “agreed to consider the Top 30 questions voted up” on the website “Presidential Open Questions.”
Liberals are attempting to vote up questions that they think would entrap Trump.
One of the top vote-getting questions so far include one from a 6-year-old whose parents are illegal aliens.
The question, from a user identified as Sophie Cruz from California, reads, “If you deport my parents, what happens to me? I am 6 years old and an American citizen. I have a 3 year old sister who is also an American. My heart is very sad, because I’m scared that ICE is going to deport my undocumented mommy and daddy.”
The question currently sits at No. 28, and would therefore qualify for consideration by the moderators.
“If you deport my parents, what happens to me?” VOTE at https://t.co/YsJn5Bi6Jf, so our future President will hear her question. #debatepic.twitter.com/GGyVnBHZAZ — Define American (@DefineAmerican) October 3, 2016
The group “Define American,” co-founded by journalist and illegal alien Jose Antonio Vargas, produced the above video for Sophie Cruz and is pushing hard to vote up the question. They are mobilizing celebrities and activists to achieve that goal.
Vote to help 6y/o Sophie Cruz ask her presidential #Debate question: ‘If you deport my parents, what happens to me?’ https://t.co/5txNwf8FBm — Russell Simmons (@UncleRUSH) October 6, 2016
Please do me a favor and vote for this question. I’d like to see it asked to the candidates. Sincere question from a wonderful little girl. https://t.co/gaSTR53VXm — Cristela Alonzo (@cristela9) October 6, 2016
Vote to get Sophie Cruz’s q on the next pres debate: https://t.co/SkpDwZ93wI Read more: https://t.co/FJ0qvtD7Ua — NHLA (@NHLAgenda) October 6, 2016
Join us + make sure Sophie’s question is asked at the Presidential #debate on 10/9: https://t.co/DcbLlKyGQN pic.twitter.com/6EUYVOUkDZ — FWD.us (@FWD_us) October 6, 2016
Vote to help 6y/o Sophie Cruz ask her presidential #Debate question: ‘If you deport my parents, what happens to me?’ https://t.co/D4X4UQvhTI — Michael Skolnik (@MichaelSkolnik) October 6, 2016
Some of the other top vote getting questions also have a very liberal bent.Let’s be clear: President Donald Trump’s executive order suspending refugee admissions into the United States for 120 days and blocking entry to citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries for 90 days is both a moral outrage and strategically self-defeating. No refugee has committed an act of fatal terrorism in the United States—the specter of which this directive is allegedly intended to prevent—and while applying a higher level of scrutiny to citizens of anarchic or jihad-plagued nations is certainly appropriate, indiscriminately prohibiting those who already hold visas and green cards from entering our country is absurdly overreaching and vindictive. In a particularly cruel twist, one of the first people detained by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officials after the order was signed was an Iraqi translator who had risked his life working alongside the U.S. military for a decade.
But by signing that order, Trump also provided progressives with an opportunity to do what they do best: preen hysterically, signal their virtue and engage in collective bouts of competitive moral vanity. Demonstrating that they’ve learned absolutely nothing from Trump’s election victory, which had more than a little to do with liberals’ own tendency to denounce everything they don’t like as a sign of incipient fascism, progressives took to social media and airport terminals around the country decrying Trump’s so-called Muslim ban.
It is a strange Muslim ban, however, whose text includes neither the words “Muslim” nor “Islam.” If anything, Trump’s executive order is an enhancement—an excessive and harsh one—of pre-existing Obama administration policies. In 2011, long before anyone even seriously contemplated the prospect of a President Donald Trump, Barack Obama suspended Iraqi refugees from entering the United States for a period of six months. You don’t recall the massive protests in response to this measure because there were none. As for the seven countries whose citizens are hereby prohibited from entering the United States for three months, they had originally been targeted for restricted visa access by the Department of Homeland Security two years ago, part of a law—passed with Democratic congressional support and signed by Obama—called the Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015. As Seth Frantzman, an Israeli journalist who has covered the story of refugees fleeing the tumult in Syria and Iraq for the past two years, writes: “Trump’s decision to go beyond the policy and increase the Obama policy harms refugees, but it only increases an existing discriminatory policy, it doesn’t invent it.”
This is not a semantic point. The problem with crying wolf about a supposed “Muslim ban” is that, should an actual prohibition on Muslims entering the United States ever be proposed, people will be less inclined to heed the protests against it. A more accurate label for Trump’s executive action is “temporary refugee ban,” or, more specifically, “Syrian refugee ban,” as it’s only Syrian refugees whose entry into America has been suspended for an indefinite period of time. This is really not that much less shameful than an outright ban on Muslims, and Trump’s critics only play into the crafty hands of his Rasputin, Stephen Bannon, by turning what should be a discrete debate over refugee policy into a broader one about Muslim immigration. The way things are developing, soi-disant Leninist Bannon will cynically frame the controversy as a presidential administration committed to tougher vetting procedures pitted against a raft of ACLU lawyers and crowds shouting, “No borders, no nations, fuck deportations!” Guess who wins that fight.
That Trump happened to sign this measure on Holocaust Memorial Day only added to the frenzy. Countless comparisons were made to the plight of Anne Frank, whose family was also denied entry to the United States. In the self-congratulatory bubbles of social media, the JFK arrivals terminal, and The New York Times op-ed page, the stakes of moral validation are continually being raised such that the tweeting glitterati must outdo one other in expressing their righteous indignation. As there is no greater moral currency than the plight of Jews during the Holocaust, it was naturally the historical analogy upon which everyone settled.
Attempts to obfuscate just who was at fault for the Holocaust and the Syrian civil war derive from a similar, uniquely Western compulsion to blame ourselves for the world’s problems.
Never mind the evident flaws in equating Jews forced to flee Nazi extermination to Syrians voluntarily leaving United Nations-administered refugee camps in Turkey. More galling was the sudden rush for Holocaust analogies from people who in 2015 turned over the Middle East to a Holocaust-denying regime. It has been quite a sight to behold, Obama administration alumni and their sycophants, who, having upended four decades of American foreign policy by emboldening Iran and laying the groundwork for Russia’s return to the region as a military power, guilt-trip the rest of us into seeing Trump—barely a week in office—as being somehow responsible for the upheavals of the Middle East. Yet there was Sen. Chris Murphy, one of the most vocal supporters of the last president’s Iran deal and Syria policies, tweeting out a photograph of a dead Syrian boy washed up on a beach. “To my colleagues,” he wrote, “don’t ever again lecture me on American moral leadership if you chose to be silent today.”
That 3-year-old Alan Kurdi died under President Obama’s watch was apparently lost upon the junior senator from Connecticut, who, like most of his Democratic colleagues, would rather demagogue the Syrian crisis than devise a strategy to stop it. Key to this effort is blaming American Republicans for the mess in Syria rather than the actual culprits—that is, the Assad regime and its Russian and Iranian patrons, who laid waste to the country while Barack Obama did nothing. It was, after all, President Obama, not President Trump, who declared a “red line” over the use of chemical weapons in Syria, refused to enforce it, then derided the Syrian opposition he had coldly abandoned as not worth supporting anyway because they were just a bunch of “former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth.” None of this history has inhibited Susan Rice and Samantha Power from delivering moral lectures in condemnation of Trump’s heavy-handed response to foreign-policy disasters they facilitated. In similar fashion do the tweeting historical revisionists use Anne Frank as their political prop, faulting past American immigration restrictions (and not, say, Nazi genocide) for her fate, the better to defame their domestic political adversaries as modern-day incarnations of Charles Lindbergh. One representative, widely circulated tweet in this regard showed a photograph of the Dutch Jewish girl, captioned “Today is #HolocaustMemorialDay, a good time to remember those who died because the U.S. wouldn’t take in refugees.”
Today is #HolocaustMemorialDay, a good time to remember those who died because the U.S. wouldn’t take in refugees. pic.twitter.com/K7Nrm9n783 — Helen Kennedy (@HelenKennedy) January 27, 2017
According to this interpretation, Anne Frank “died” not because Nazis killed her, but because America wouldn’t accept her family’s asylum claim. Even the word choice of “died” betrays a sly attempt at depriving the perpetrators of moral agency. For Anne Frank didn’t simply “die.” She was murdered. And she was murdered by Nazis, not Franklin Roosevelt.
Likewise, Alan Kurdi and the half a million Syrians who have perished over the past five years are not dead because of nativist American conservatives or Frauke Petry, Nigel Farage, or Marine Le Pen, odious as they all are. They were murdered by Bashar al-Assad’s barrel bombs, his chemical weapons attacks, and in his torture chambers, with the connivance of the regimes in Tehran and Moscow. Attempts to obfuscate just who was at fault for the Holocaust and the Syrian civil war derive from a similar, uniquely Western compulsion to blame ourselves—anyone but the actual perpetrators—for the world’s problems. Syrian refugees, then, are suffering not because al-Assad and Vladimir Putin and the Iranian mullahs are pulverizing their homes and mutilating the genitals of their teenage sons, but because Westerners won’t let them into their countries. Anne Frank “died” not because Nazis killed her but because America wouldn’t take more Jewish refugees. Please understand: America’s WWII-era refugee policy was shameful, just as Trump’s executive order is shameful. But acting as if Syrian refugees just appeared out of nowhere under President Trump, or that the Holocaust wouldn’t have happened absent a more generous American refugee intake, completely ignores the geopolitical conditions that created these catastrophes in the first place.
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Shoddy associations to the Syrian refugee crisis weren’t the only abuse of Holocaust memory witnessed last week. Also on Friday, the White House released a statement by President Trump commemorating International Holocaust Remembrance Day containing not a single reference to Jews or anti-Semitism. At first, it seemed like a thoughtless oversight, akin to last year’s blunder by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who also neglected to mention Jews in remarks about the genocide that killed 6 million of them. But when CNN’s Jake Tapper asked White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks for clarification, the administration doubled-down on what I’ve previously termed “The Holocaust without Jews” narrative, stating that, “despite what the media reports, we are an incredibly inclusive group and we took into account all of those who suffered.” In her response to Tapper, Hicks provided a link to a Huffington Post story noting that Jews were not the only victims of the Nazis, but also “priests, gypsies, people with mental or physical disabilities, Communists, trade unionists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, anarchists, Poles and other Slavic peoples, and resistance fighters.”
No one seriously disputes that these groups also suffered under the Nazis. But it was the Jews—and only the Jews—who were the primary targets for wholesale extermination simply by virtue of their ethnic composition. De-emphasizing the unique ways Jews were pursued by the Nazis for eradication—both in nature and degree—has long been a feature of right-wing Eastern European nationalist historiography, which, wanting to highlight Soviet atrocities in WWII (and seeing Jews as accomplices to these crimes), minimizes or erases Jewish suffering from the history books. But reading Hicks’ statement, as well as White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus’ weasel-worded exchange with NBC’s Chuck Todd in which he stated that “everyone’s suffering [in] the Holocaust, including, obviously, all of the Jewish people affected and miserable genocide that occurs—it’s something that we consider to be extraordinarily sad,” the language of the Trump White House sounds more like progressive campus activists blandly describing the Holocaust as “white-on-white crime” than it does the exculpatory revisionism of Hungarian nationalists.
With Jews seeing their history exploited or distorted by both sides of the political spectrum, one might expect them to circle the wagons. Not Peter Beinart (Rhodes Scholar, Marshall “declined”), whose compulsion to cast himself as the lone hero willing to question the pieties of “the Jewish establishment” regularly overrules his critical faculties. Responding to the White House statement, Beinart found a way to blame his fellow Jews, castigating them for not condemning Trump’s executive order (which he falsely labeled a “Muslim ban”) in the language of Holocaust remembrance. Leading Jewish organizations did, of course, denounce the refugee ban; the Anti-Defamation League called it “cruel and contrary to the values of our country.” Nonetheless, this imaginary oversight by Jewish groups, Beinart said, adding emphatic insult to fact-less injury, was “much worse” than the Trump administration’s refusal to acknowledge the Jewish specificity of the Holocaust:
Trump not mentioning Jews in Holocaust statement: Bad. Jewish orgs commemorating Holocaust w/out mentioning Muslim ban: Much worse — Peter Beinart (@PeterBeinart) January 29, 2017
Even after this disgusting act of Holocaust obfuscation and erasure of Jewish history on the part of the Trump White House, there will be right-wing Jews who continue to defend the administration because Trump says he wants to move the American embassy to Jerusalem, or because he allegedly opposes Obama’s Iran deal, or because Ivanka has Jewish children and that mensch Jared Kushner has the president’s ear. Neither side would ever admit it, but in their partisan blindness these Trump-defending Jews are no different than their co-religionists on the other side of the aisle, who endlessly excused their party’s president no matter how many times he and his administration isolated Israel or insisted that an Islamist slaughter at a kosher supermarket in Paris was a “random” crime whose victims were targeted “not because of who they were but because of where they randomly happened to be.” If the Obamians, having empowered Tehran’s murderously anti-Semitic regime, are engaging in purposeful, gaslighting malevolence by analogizing a humanitarian catastrophe over which they presided to the Holocaust and blaming their domestic political adversaries for its atrocities, the Trumpkins are merely perpetrating malevolent revanchist incompetence.
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James Kirchick, a visiting fellow with the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution, is a columnist at Tablet magazine and the author of The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues and the Coming Dark Age. His Twitter feed is @jkirchick.We’ve been playing the Elite Dangerous Roleplaying Game (EDRPG) and we’ve produced it as a podcast series, of which is this part number FOUR, the FINAL EPISODE!
This podcast is a RPG game enhanced with music, sound effects and an all-round fiction treatment, plus some great rolepaying from the Lave Radio crew and excellent content planning by Oliver Hulme, our Game Master and Lead Writer of the Elite Dangerous RPG.
In episode four of INCIDENT AT BAIJANGU – recorded LIVE at Lavecon 2017 – a blinded and injured Thane hangs from the monorail car, Fozza has disappeared, Psykokow and Eid LeWeise have to deal with a ticking bomb – and what is that strange thumping coming from the cargo elevator?
Download the episode here and it’s available in all the usual RSS/iTunes-y places as well.Two years ago, I wrote about the virtues of monitoring. A lot has changed, a lot has improved, and I've certainly learned a lot since I wrote that initial overview on monitoring as a whole.
There have been a lot of improvements to existing tools, and new players entered the market of monitoring. Infrastructure as a whole got more and more interesting for service business around them.
On the other hand, awareness for monitoring, good metrics, logging and the like has been rising significantly.
At the same time #monitoringsucks raised awareness that a lot of monitoring tools are still stuck in the late nineties when it comes to user interface and the way they work.
Independent of new and old tools, I've had the pleasure of learning a lot more about the real virtues of monitoring, about how it affects daily work and how it evolves over time. This post is about discussing some of these insights.
Monitoring all the way down
When you start monitoring even just small parts of an application, the need for more detail and for information about what's going on in a system arises quickly. You start with an innocent number of application level metrics, add metrics for database and external API latencies, start tracking system level and business metrics.
As you add monitoring to one layer of the system, the need to get more insight into the layer below comes up sooner or later.
One layer has just been tackled recently in a way that's accessible for anyone: communication between services on the network. Boundary has built some pretty cool monitoring stuff that gives you incredibly detailed insight into how services talk to each other, by way of their protocol, how network traffic from inside and outside a network develops over time, and all that down to the second.
The real time view is pretty spectacular to behold.
If you go down even further on a single host, you get to the level where you can monitor disk latencies.
Or you could measure the effect of screaming at a disk array of a running system. dtrace is a pretty incredible tool, and I hope to see it spread and become widely available on Linux systems. It allows you to inject instrumentation into arbitrary parts of the host system, making it possible measure any system call without a lot of overhead.
Heck, even our customer support tool allows us to track metrics for response times, how many tickets and for how long each staff member handled.
It's easy to start obsessing about monitoring and metrics, but there comes a time, when you either realize that you've obsessed for all the right reasons, or you add more monitoring.
Mo' monitoring, mo' problems
The crux of monitoring more layers of a system is that with more monitoring, you can and will detect more issues.
Consider Boundary, for example. It gives you insight into a layer you haven't had insight before, at least not at that granular level. For example, round trip times of liveness traffic in a RabbitMQ cluster.
This gives you a whole new pile of data to obsess about. It's good because that insight is very valuable. But it requires more attention, and more issues require investigation.
You also need to learn how a system behaving normally is reflected in those new systems, and what constitutes unusual behaviour. It takes time to learn and to interpret the data correctly.
In the long run though, that investment is well worth it.
Monitoring is an ongoing process
When we started adding monitoring to Travis CI, we started small. But we quickly realized what metrics really matter and what parts of the application and the infrastructure around it needs more insight, more metrics, more logging.
With every new component deployed to production, new metrics need to be maintained, more logging and new alerting need to be put in place.
The same is true for new parts of the infrastructure. With every new system or service added, new data needs to be collected to ensure the service is running smoothly.
A lot of the experience of what metrics are important there and which aren't, it's something that develops over time. Metrics can come and go, the requirements for metrics are subject to change, just as they are for code.
As you add new metrics, old metrics might become less useful, or you need more metrics in other parts of the setup to make sense of the new ones.
It's a constant process of refining the data you need to have the best possible insight into a running system.
Monitoring can affect production systems
The more data you collect, with higher and higher resolution, the more you run the risk of affecting a running system. Business metrics regularly pulled from the database can become a burden on the database that's supposed to serve your customers.
Pulling data out of running systems is a traditional approach to monitoring, one that's unlikely to go away any time soon. However, it's an approach that's less and less feasible as you increase resolution of your data.
Guaranteeing that this collection process is low on resources is hard. It's even harder to get a system up and running that can handle high-resolution data from a lot of services sent concurrently.
So new approaches have started to pop up to tackle this problem. Instead of pulling data from running processes, the processes themselves collect data and regularly push it to aggregation services which in turn send the data to a system for further aggregation, graphing, and the like.
StatsD is without a doubt the most popular one, and it has sparked a ton of forks in different languages
Instead of relying on TCP with its long connection handshakes and timeouts, StatsD uses UDP. The processes sending data to it stuff short messages into a UDP socket without worrying about whether or not the data arrives.
If some data doesn't make it because of network issues, that only leaves a small dent. It's more important for the system to serve customers than for it to wait around for the aggregation service to become available again.
While StatsD solves the problem of easily collecting and aggregating data without affecting production systems, there's now the problem of being able to inspect the high-resolution data in meaningful ways. Historical analysis and alerting on high-resolution data becomes a whole new challenge.
Riemann has popularized looking at monitoring data as a stream, to which you can apply queries, and form reactions based on those queries. You can move the data window inside the stream back and forth, so you can compare data in a historical context before deciding on whether it's worth an alert or not.
Systems like StatsD and Riemann make it a lot easier for systems to aggregate data without having to rely on polling. Services can just transmit their data without worrying much about how and where they're used for other purposes like log aggregation, graphing or alerting.
The important realization is that with increasing need for scalability and distributed systems, software needs to be built with monitoring in mind.
Imagine RabbitMQ that instead of you having to poll the data from it, sends its metrics as a message at a configurable interval to a configurable fanout. You can choose to consume the data and submit it to a system like StatsD or Riemann, or you can ignore it and the broker will just discard the data.
Who's monitoring the monitoring?
Another fallacy of monitoring is that it needs to be reliable. For it to be fully reliable it needs to be monitored. Wait, what?
Every process that is required to aggregate metrics, to trigger alerts, to analyze logs needs to be running for the system to work properly.
So monitoring in turns needs its own supervision to make sure it's working at all times. As monitoring grows it requires maintenance and operations to take care of it.
Which makes it a bit of a burden for small teams.
Lots of new companies have sprung into life serving this need. Instead of having to worry about running services for logs, metrics and alerting by themselves, it can be left to companies who are more experienced in running them.
Librato Metrics, Papertrail, OpsGenie, LogEntries, Instrumental, NewRelic, DataDog, to name a few. Other companies take the burden of having to run your own Graphite system away from you.
It's been interesting to see new companies pop up in this field, and I'm looking forward to seeing this space develop. The competition from the commercial space is bound to trigger innovation and improvements on the open source front as well.
We're heavy users of external services for log aggregation, collecting metrics and alerting. Simply put, they know better how to run that platform than we do, and it allows us to focus on delivering the best possible customer value.
Monitoring is getting better
Lots of new tools have sprung up in the last two years. While development on it started earlier than that, the most prominent tools are probably Graphite and Logstash. Cubism brings new ideas on how to visualize time series data, one of the several dozens of dashboards that Graphite's existence and flexibility by offering an API has sparked. Tasseo is another one of them, a successful experiment of having an at-a-glance dashboard with the most important metrics in one convenient overview.
It'll still be a while until we see the ancient tools like Nagios, Icinga and others improve, but the competition is ramping up. Sensu is one open source alternative to keep an eye on.
I'm looking forward to seeing how the monitoring space evolves over the next two years.Russia's Energy Minister Alexander Novak addresses a news conference after a meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in Vienna, Austria, December 10, 2016. REUTERS/Heinz-Peter Bader
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Global oil markets will reach a supply-demand balance in late 2017 or early 2018 if a pact to cut output is extended, Russia’s energy minister was quoted by local news agencies as saying.
“Judging from the current dynamics in the decline of the oil and oil products inventories, the markets will see such decline in inventories by the end of 2017 - early 2018, which will lead to cuts in inventories to a five-year average,” Alexander Novak was quoted as saying.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other producers including Russia pledged to cut output by 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) in the first half of the year to lift oil prices.
But global inventories remain high, pulling crude back below $50 per barrel earlier this month and putting pressure on OPEC to extend the cuts to the rest of the year.
Novak told the agencies that OPEC countries and other leading oil producers would discuss extending the deal in the second half of the year or “maybe further than that”.
He also said that he expected the parameters of the deal to be unchanged, meaning deeper cuts were unlikely.
OPEC and industry sources said there had been discussions about extending curbs until the end of the first quarter 2018, when crude demand is seasonally at its weakest.
Novak added that Russia would keep output cuts of 300,000 barrels per day from the level of October 2016 as stipulated by the December 2016 deal, he added.
He said that Russia’s oil output forecast of 549-551 million tonnes for this year remained the same but could change depending on the outcome of oil producer nation talks in Vienna later this month.A Republican senator gave his colleagues a lesson in the birds and the bees on Wednesday as he pressed them to keep maternity benefits in all health care plans.
Some GOP lawmakers have insisted that men shouldn’t have to foot the bill for such services since men don’t get pregnant. But Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who is a gastroenterologist, has a different take.
“Yes, you want cheaper plans, absolutely,” Cassidy said, per the Washington Post. “Unless you have a common risk pool, you end up with policies that don’t cover maternity. As best I can tell, women don’t get pregnant without sperm.”
Tom Williams via Getty Images Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) is urging his colleagues to keep maternity benefits in all health care plans.
The Hill reported that Cassidy also said:
“You know, I’m a doctor, and I know that might be med school. So, do you want a coverage that doesn’t include maternity that obviously would be principally appealing to young men, when it doesn’t include maternity?”
Cassidy, who said he was undecided on the Obamacare repeal currently before the Senate, drew praise for what some consider his moderate views on health care, including his vow to make sure any legislation passes the “Jimmy Kimmel test.” That refers to Kimmel’s viral plea for government-assured care for babies with pre |
after coming to office.
"If I were in charge," Mrs Palin said last weekend rally for the pro-gun National Rifle Association lobby, "[our enemies] would know that waterboarding is how we'd baptize terrorists." The White House had failed to put "the fear of God in our enemies", she added, before taunting Mr Obama for not being tough enough on al Qa'eda suspects.
"Enemies, who would utterly annihilate America, they who'd obviously have information on plots, to carry out jihad," Palin said. "Oh, but you can't offend them, can't make them feel uncomfortable, not even a smidgen."
Her remarks come as the White House deliberates over the publication of an exhaustive report by the US Senate intelligence committee into the use of torture by the CIA in the years after the September 11 attacks.
Earlier this month the committee voted to declassify a 500-page summary of its report which, according to leaks of its findings, accuses the CIA of exceeding its remit on torture while exaggerating its effectiveness.
Mrs Palin's views also chime with the finding that some 47 per cent of Americans believe that torture is sometimes justified, according to a YouGov survey of December 2011.
Her remarks directly contradict the position of Senator John McCain, who ran for the presidency in 2008 with Mrs Palin, and who is vehemently opposed to the use of torture following his experience as a POW in the Vietnam War.
During that campaign Mr McCain clashed fiercely in primary debates with Mitt Romney, who would go on to be the candidate in 2012 and refused to rule out using torture.
According to leaked internal memos during the Romney 2012 campaign, he was being advised to "rescind" Mr Obama's executive order banning torture if he won the White House.
Amrit Singh, senior lawyer with the New York-based Open Society Justice Initiative and the author of the report Globalizing Torture, the most comprehensive open-source account of the CIA's rendition programme, said Mrs Palin's speech was "deplorable".
"The fact that torture even remains on the table, or at least in the minds of some politicians, shows that until there is a full-scale accounting for the torture that was committed in the name of the American people this issue will continue to haunt us.
"It is also why it is absolutely essential that the White House releases the Senate committee report into the use of torture as quickly and fully as possible."Photo Credit:
Officially, the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS are critical of each other and have not been known to collaborate. But Majid al-Dabbas, reporting for Ammon News Wednesday, claims the Brotherhood is involved in running a training camp for “underage children” that teaches them “semi-ISIS” activities in Jordan.
The camp is allegedly located on the outskirts of Amman, and photographs on Ammon News show a group of young boys in the camp jumping over fire, doing pushups and crawling on the ground. Apparently the term “Semi-ISIS training” refers to combat training inspired by ISIS’ YouTube videos.
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A Muslim Brotherhood leader named Zaki Bani Rushaid has denied the report affiliating his organization with the camp. He told Saraya News, “We stand to gain nothing from establishing such camps and it’s impossible that our group would carry out such actions.”
The Muslim Brotherhood is illegal in Jordan, having failed to renew their operating license as a party in keeping with a 2014 law regulating political parties in the kingdom. Earlier this year, the Jordanian government closed down the Brotherhood’s Amman offices. But the movement continues to enjoy a wide support in the dense refugee camps in the cities, and the Islamic Action Front (IAF), the Brotherhood’s political wing, is still legal and constitutes Jordan’s largest opposition party. In fact, after a six-year absence from parliamentary politics, the IAF plans to run in the country’s September elections.
Jordanian security forces have been employing harsh measures to locate and arrest what they believe are sleeper ISIS cells in the country’s refugee camps. Jordan is also engaged in ongoing monitoring and confronting ISIS forces across the Syrian border.
Blogger Eman Nabih points out that the link between the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS is no longer a speculation, as different Arab and Egyptian sources have revealed that the link between MB and ISIS is a reality. The two groups may focus on different Arab countries for the time being, but the ideological connection between them is clear, and, apparently, the operational ties are starting to be revealed.The Pakistani army has denied accusations that the military is trying to oust the nation’s government following a secret memo sent to Washington earlier this year regarding an alleged coup, the Associated Press reported.
An army statement, released by military chief General Ashfaq Kayani, told troops the military will continue to support democracy in Pakistan and that any talk of an army take over was “speculation,” Reuters reported.
Read more at GlobalPost: Pakistani military rejects NATO strike inquiry report
The military’s denial comes one day after Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani told youth party members in Islamabad that the country risked the return of military rule, the Financial Times reported.
“I want to tell you clearly that conspiracies are under way to remove this elected government,” said Gilani, the FT reported. “Now people have to decide whether you want elected people or dictatorship.”
Pakistan’s Supreme Court is currently investigating claims that President Asif Ali Zardari’s envoy to the United States sought American help to prevent a possible coup following the killing of Osama bin Laden in May, according to Bloomberg BusinessWeek. The court’s investigation was started by opposition leader Nawaz Sharif and has been supported by Kayani. The president’s government opposed the investigation because it said it already announced a parliamentary inquiry, Bloomberg BusinessWeek reported.
Read more at GlobalPost: Islamists protest US in Pakistan, rally behind military
The controversy surrounding the memo that Zadari allegedly authorized led to Husain Haqqani, one of Zardari’s closest allies, resigning as ambassador to Washington soon after the existence of the memo became public, the FT reported.
Pakistan’s president resumed his duties on Friday after returning from medical treatment in Dubai and has no intention of leaving over the scandal, Reuters reported. Zardari is still one of Pakistan’s most unpopular figures. The army, Pakistan’s strongest institution, has ruled the country for most of the last 64 years after carrying out a series of coups, the AP reported.
Read more at GlobalPost: Is Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan's president, about to resign?close
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Framing, background & dialogue direct action in Moon Knight (2014) by Ellis, Shalvey & Bellaire
“A lot of artists and writers in comics are often working with invisible tools,” explains Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou. In his ongoing video series Strip Panel Naked, Hassan breaks down and analyzes visual and textual design choices. His videos illustrate how artists control “eyelines, reading speed, the way you understand character relationships and action,” deconstructing everything from panel density to color choices. Like a good comic book: they are carefully paced and expertly crafted.
Panel density and shot reverse shots set the pace in Hawkeye (2012) by David Aja
A lifelong comic book fan, Hassan says that “it’s a very unique art form, because like cinema it’s entirely visuals-based, but unlike cinema, you don’t have as much direct control on your audience.” Instead, “you have to utilize a lot of clever tricks to get your audience to do what you want them to, without it ever really feeling forced.”
Panel design creates a page-turner in All-Star Superman by Morrison, Quitely & Grant
Strip Panel Naked zooms in on specific series and issues, using these as foils for explaining different layout and design strategies. Through enthusiastic narration, Hassan explains what the viewer is seeing while helpful graphic overlays show what he means in specific sequences.
Art and text facilitate narrative distance in a final issue of Hellboy in Hell by Mignola & Stewart
The video series is wonderful for all kinds of reasons, including its versatile appeal. It is a great resource for aspiring artists aiming to learn the trade as well as comic fans looking for the stories behind the stories. Hassan’s selection of what to feature is also helpful to comic newcomers surveying the field of options — some picks include new iterations of classic Marvel and DC characters, but he also highlights fresh series like Saga (from Image, viewer discretion advised). The videos are also helpfully categorized by publisher as well as topics like color, movement, layouts, subtext and narrative techniques.
Framing, eyelines and motion lines support movement in Black Widow by Waid & Samnee
Hassan’s are not just casual observations, either — his experience in both the comic and film industries shines throughout the series. Outside references are peppered in, too, including quotes from industry experts and scientific studies to reinforce particular claims.
For those interested in supporting the series, Hassan has a Patreon page. On it, he explains the inspiration behind Strip Panel Naked: “This started because I wanted to have these kind of discussions about comic art with other people. I want to help showcase these great things that artists and writers are doing in books, and have an open discussion about understanding the medium. Hopefully, together, we can help people move from enjoying an issue of a comic, to really understanding why they did.” Check out Hassan’s YouTube channel for more, and read up on his latest project: PanelxPanel, a digital magazine about comics.Wildlife experts have been warning about the alarming decline in insects for decades.
But the fall in numbers of bugs in Britain has now reached such a troubling extent that even motorists are noticing that their windscreens are clear of squashed flies, gnats, moths and wasps.
Where a trip in high summer would once have necessitated taking a squeegee to the front window, now the glass is largely clear, drivers are reporting.
Writing in The Telegraph letters page earlier this week, Michael Groom of Teffont Evias, Wiltshire asked: “Where have all the insects gone? My windscreen remains clear whatever the speed.”
Reader Richard Acland, of Chepstow, in Monmouthshire, also noticed the vanishing bugs, and said he believed insecticides on crops were wiping out insect life, adding: “This is why cars are not bug-splattered anymore.”
Insects have suffered worrying declines in Britain
And they are not alone in noting the change. Entomologists actually call it ‘the windscreen phenomenon,’ and it is has been noticed across Europe.
An amateur German group called the Krefeld Entomological Society has been monitoring insect numbers at 100 nature reserves in Western Europe since the 1980s. Although there were the annual fluctuations they discovered that by 2013 numbers began to plummet by nearly 80 per cent.
Experts mostly blame intensive agriculture and the use of pesticides over the past 50 years.
Since 2006, beekeepers in Britain have lost about a third of their managed bee colonies each year largely due to the loss of flower-rich grassland which has declined by 97 per cent from the 1930s, and the increased use of insecticides on crops.
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Speaking about the lack of insects on windscreens, Matt Shadlow, Chief Executive of British insect conservation charity Buglife said: “Yes, indeed this is a well recognised phenomenon.
“Just today we had a member of the public phone up and say, unprompted, that ‘the front of my car is now devoid of insects, and there are virtually no moths in the headlights’.
“This is part of the wholesale loss of small animals in recent decades. The public know about bees and butterflies, but these are just the tips of the iceberg. Moths, hoverflies, wasps, beetles and many other groups are now sparse where once they were abundant.”
Beetles may be being killed by cars
Rothamsted Research in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, has also monitored insect populations using traps across the country for more than 50 years. Chris Shortall, an entomologist from Rothamsted said they had found evidence that the number of flying insects is falling, but said ‘the windscreen phenomenon’ was difficult to prove.
“The loss of insects from our windscreens is a well-noted anecdote, however actually demonstrating it is very tricky, if not impossible,” said Mr Shortall.
A Rothamsted study showed that in the West of England, around Hereford, the amount of ‘aerial biomass’ - or flying insects - has fallen significantly since the 1970s. Other sites around Britain failed to capture declines, although the experts believe recording may have started too late to capture the impact of increased agricultural intensification.
A second report into the State of Britain’s Larger Moths, published in collaboration with the charity Butterfly Conservation, showed a fall of insects by 40 per cent in the South of England over the past 40 years.
The most recent RSPB State of Nature report, which brings together findings from 50 organisations, suggests there has been a 59 per cent decline in insects in the UK since 1970.
In 2004 the RSPB asked motorists to attach a ‘splatometer’ to the front of their cars - a piece of PVC film to collect insects, to see if they were declining. They recorded 324,814 ‘splats’, an average of only one squashed insect every five miles.
However the survey was only carried out once so it was impossible to see whether bug numbers had fallen over time.
It has also been suggested that cars have changed shape over time, and are now far more aerodynamic, meaning fewer insects are hit.
And a recent paper by Canadian scientists suggests the upsurge in traffic could itself be responsible for the fall in insect numbers. After extrapolating data from a mile of highway in Ontario, researcher from Laurentian University calculated that hundreds of billions of pollinating insects were probably being killed by vehicles each year in North America.
Colin Lawes, from Royal Holloway University of London, found that a large number of stag beetles are killed by road traffic each year in Britain, with three times as many females killed as males.By Vinnie Santana, ironguides.net
Nutrition has always had a special place for us at ironguides; it’s a way to improve our athletes’ performance and health. In addition to our training approach, The Method—which is based on hormonal balance—all our coaches had always understood that a diet low on carbohydrates, especially when well timed, is the ticket to improving both performance and health with our athletes.
However, we took this approach to another level when I personally was forced to train, live and race under a LCHF (Low-Carb High-Fat) Ketogenic diet for health reasons. The article below is an introduction to my personal experience on this topic, triathlon training on a “keto” diet.
Background
Back in 2000, I was diagnosed with Diabetes Type 1 at the age of 15. People around me wanted to make me feel better and said, “You can still do whatever you want.” With that motto in mind, I continued on my journey to becoming a professional triathlete.
I was managing diabetes as well as I could back then but, due to the lack of adequate information, my diet consisted of the recommended one for high-performance athletes and I tried to cover all that carbohydrate intake with insulin. That did not work so well and my blood glucose levels were running chronically high.
Despite all the challenges, I still managed to turn pro after winning my first Ironman race in 2004. It came full circle when in 2007 I had a PB of 8h50 at Ironman Brazil, which qualified me—as the youngest professional triathlete—for the Ironman World Championships in Kona. My PB also still stands as the fastest time by a Type-1 Diabetic over the Ironman distance.
Then at the end of 2012 I came across a book named “Diabetes Solution” by Dr. Bernstein and he recommended a diet with no more than 30g of carbohydrate per day. The impact on my health was amazing; after only a couple weeks I was seeing blood glucose levels that until that point had been a distant dream. This result created hope that I was now given a second chance with my health and I could carry on with all my other goals in life, as I felt diabetes wouldn’t be a threat anymore.
While I felt great overall, my new diet killed any physical performance I still had—even going up the steps of the local subway station became a challenge. While I didn’t have major plans of racing again, I still exercised on a daily basis and enjoy pushing the intensity here and there, but on that diet, forget it—there were several times I had to walk home from a run, even a slow run.
My work also requires that I train some of my clients in a one-on-one situation. On several occasions I almost got to the point of telling them I couldn’t keep up—and these were beginner athletes, we were running slower than 1-hour 10km pace, a pace I would previously consider slower than a warm-up jog.
To me the message was clear: I had regained my health, but lost my sport. It was a trade-off I could live with but preferred to change. So I kept researching until I finally discovered the world of endurance training on a Ketogenic diet—low in carbohydrates and protein, but high in fat. There was hope again I could continue with triathlon training lifestyle I love.
While there are some resources out there, none of them offered information about a higher-performance racing approach and high intensity training. In theory, Ketosis allows your body to tap into this endless resource of energy stored in your body, named FAT. But it was not clear how well you could perform, at a high level, within this approach.
While I got adapted well enough to get back into doing some exercise, I started to wonder if the athletes I coach could benefit from this diet. So I began to do some experiments in my own racing and training, since my diabetes was now very stable and as an athlete I—unlike my athletes—no longer have pressure to deliver results.
I decided to become my own guinea pig to test what was possible in terms of sports performance on a Ketogenic diet.
While we don’t believe in the magical solution, preferring consistent hard work as the winning formula, a small improvement in performance could make a big difference to some of the athletes we coach—from a more high-performance athlete who is winning smaller ironman races but is not as close to being a threat at the world championships, to the very beginner, but busy, athlete that wants to break a certain time at the next 10km race but has maxed out on his training load.
The theory
There are several books and reputable blogs out there that will cover the benefits of a low carbohydrate diet. I will try to keep this article to the unique information that I can provide based on my experience. But just as a quick intro to sports performance: in theory, being “fat adapted” will provide you the opportunity to use fat as your primary energy source while training and racing, which means that even the leanest athlete still carries dozens of thousands of calories from stored fat and would be able to access to it.
I’ve seen the following analogy that makes things easy to visualize:
Non-Fat-Adapted Athlete (on a high-carb diet): Is a Petrol Truck that runs out of fuel and has to stop by the side of the road, since he can’t have access to the huge tank of fuel he is carrying. That would be a non-fat-adapted athlete bonking during an endurance event.
Fat-Adapted Athlete (on a LCHF diet): You develop access to the big petrol container that you carry. The same Petrol Truck won’t run out of fuel since you can now access a close-to-unlimited amount of fuel. Or in the athletic world, you won’t bonk anymore in your next endurance events.
On race day your muscle glycogen will also be used better and reserved only for very glycolytic parts of the race.
There are other benefits too in health—especially addressing the metabolic syndrome issues such as lower blood pressure, improved blood fat levels, weight loss. The other very positive benefits of a Ketogenic diet aren’t necessarily to sports performance: brain function and energy levels. Once both body and mind start to work on a consistent flow of energy, there are no dips. My productivity at work, for example, has improved drastically, but we will save this topic for another article and stick to sports performance for now.
Getting adapted
The term “low carb” comprises a relatively flexible range: less than 150 grams per day is technically low carb, but I went straight into what is considered the lowest, a VLC (very low carb) or Ketogenic, diet, and aimed to keep my carb intake below 30g per day as per the book’s recommendation.
As mentioned, the blood glucose results were nothing short of a miracle and that was the single reason why I didn’t quit this way of eating. While working and other daily activities were fine, exercise was a nightmare: I was feeling horrible for everything from easy jogs to higher intensity workouts, but reading that it would take between two and six weeks to adapt, I stuck with it. In fact, I HAD to stick with it FOR LIFE, so there was nothing to lose. I would just stay on the plan, hoping to feel a bit better in a few weeks down the road.
Six weeks into it, I definitely started to feel better, there were still some off-days on which I would feel completely empty in training, when slowing down wasn’t enough and I had to stop the workout completely. But after about three months, those days wouldn’t appear as often. While there was a slower session here and there, I got back onto a “training plan” and started to do several time trials to track progress in which I tried to keep variables for conditions very stable:
5km run on the treadmill
400m swim at a 50m pool
20km bike in the velodrome
With the above scenario I had the opportunity to track the benefits of several aspects that are supposed to help on a LCHF diet, such as adding electrolytes to the diet to increase blood plasma, Generation UCAN superstarch that releases a very slow carbohydrate into your system, and other general experiments with carbohydrate intake, such as what’s the difference in performance when eating 20g of carbs per day versus 60g of carbs per day.
Fuelling in Training
The whole theory is that you don’t need to fuel in training. However, on the very long sessions fuelling does help to protect muscle mass, keep hunger away after training to avoid overeating and being kicked out of Ketosis, since during training and most of the day you won’t feel very hungry anyway.
At first is difficult to find the appropriate fuel to take in training. I remember I used to make a shake of avocado, coconut milk, nuts, coconut oil, and take it on a bike ride in one of my bottles—right there I had more than 500kcal with very few carbs and would keep the flat flowing through my system.
As you get more experienced and just want to keep things simple, you end up finding your own favourite fuels. These days I enjoy the convenience of UCAN superstarch, packets of nuts, and individually wrapped cheese. I must admit that recipes aren’t my thing, I tend to eat similar things every day and I may need to outsource a recipe book for the LCHF diet. Once you understand the core concept, be creative.
Changes in Body Composition
A nice benefit of a low carb diet, both as an athlete and as an active individual, is the convenience of losing body fat relatively easy.
My whole family is carb intolerant, my father is obese, my mother is borderline pre-diabetic and I have a 2-year-old nephew who has Type 1 diabetes—carbohydrates aren’t our family’s best friend and as an athlete I’ve always struggled to maintain my race weight. I would always train relatively heavy and diet very hard (calorie restriction) in the build-up to my races to lose weight and increase my power-to-weight ratio.
While on Ketosis my weight has been oscillating a lot less, and it has been slowly changing to a leaner and healthier looking body type.
Special attention to high performance training
This part of this article may not apply to 98 percent of the readers; however, there may be two downsides of a LCHF diet for high-performance training that I’m still working on to improve.
Lack of Glycogen for high intensity training
If you are an elite athlete, a 10km runner for example, you will need to run faster than your race pace at several moments during your race. This is a very glycogen-oriented activity and being on Ketosis may make this type of work relatively difficult.
There are two solutions for this problem: 1. fast running on the treadmill because that biomechanically teaches you how to run faster without the extra aerobic load, and 2. sprint runs on a downhill because that has a similar stimulus.
The same challenge also applies to the swim and bike, for which there are also training methods and tools that can be used to mitigate the downsides.
Train Low VS Race Higher
Even though your training performance will be very good once you are adjusted, if you go to a high intensity, you will still have the perception fatigue is coming faster and stronger compared with when you are on a high carbohydrate diet. Training tired is hard enough, training tired and low on glycogen can be mentally very draining; it takes a lot of confidence in this approach to know that once race day comes you will be feeling way stronger.
By pulling back your training load (rather than by carboloading), you will get more rest, your muscles will feel fresh and remember that your body is in carbohydrate starvation mode; it will spare every possible gram of glycogen into your muscles, even while you maintain a low-carb diet leading into the race. The result is that on race day you will have a much higher energy level and speed than you are used to in training.
My experience, for example: I could barely break 5:40 on my 400m time trials, then on race day I managed a 5:08—both were done in a pool, that’s a considerable difference!
Racing
There is no substitute for testing your training, equipment, strategy or anything else, than doing the real thing—a real race. After being away from the start line for two years, I decided to put the whole theory to the test and entered several local races.
All were sprint distance that would take me about one hour, mostly in similar conditions in terms of course elevation and weather. So I now had now the opportunity to test the famous carbo-loading theory! In fact there is a little race here in Bangkok that is almost like doing a triathlon inside a gym since it happens in a pool, but you still get the adrenalin boost and the challenge of competition. Below are the things I’ve tested while doing these events:
Carbohydrate Loading both the day before and race morning
Protein Loading (to achieve gluconeogenesis, i.e. the body’s generation of glucose from non-carb sources)
Electrolytes Loading
I wanted to find out how a fat-adapted body could perform on fat only, Ketosis, but with ‘some’ muscle glycogen via protein intake; I also did a relatively high carbo-load (200g on the day before the race). It was also interesting to see the result all those tests had on my diabetes control and blood glucose. Of course I was limited to some of the carbo-load protocol, for example 10g of carbohydrate per kg of body weight, but I’m testing some of these on athletes I coach.
While most of these tests are already done, the more I study and try things, the closer I get to bring out the ideal racing protocol to people on a LCHF. I’m also testing all this on a few of my athletes who are getting ready for Ironman triathlons and marathons. I am aiming to provide an update on the results in about a year.
For now I can say that the difference is very, very small between most of the above scenarios and one can perform very, very fast racing on a Ketogenic diet. I have broken 1 hour in the sprint distance triathlons on Ketosis—while this isn’t a world class time, it’s faster than most triathletes out there.
So, who is this for? Is this for all athletes of all levels?
Everyone can benefit somehow. Some athletes will benefit a lot more, while others need to be very careful with the way they apply the LCHF in their training, otherwise they may be worse off.
This is NOT the magical ticket to success. I remember researching this topic—the message sold was that this was the real deal, rocket fuel that would provide unlimited amount of energy and that I would be able to cruise at my race pace very efficiently without eating any carbs.
You come across testimonials of athletes improving 20 to 40 minutes on their half marathon times and more than an hour on their marathon times. The problem was that this only happened with athletes who were overweight (in relative terms); after losing weight with the LCHF, they went faster mostly due to being lighter, NOT only due to being able to burn fat more efficiently.
So who and how should each specific group use the LCHF? The answer depends on the combination of the length of your event, your performance level and body fat percentage. Below a quick summary of the benefits for each group:
Recreational Athletes – Unless you are very young or part of the lucky ones who won the carb-tolerant DNA ticket, a low-carb approach would bring several benefits, starting at a rapid weight loss, to increasing the ability to burn fat as your primary fuel while training and racing. Since you are also a recreational athlete, your health and wellbeing may also be very high on the priority list; both are two other big reasons to go low carb.
High Performance Age Groupers – It depends on the distance you are training for and competing at, but you certainly want to go to a low carb diet and may time your carbohydrate consumption too during, and straight after, your training. If you are a long-distance athlete, spending a lot of time in Ketosis will definitely bring you benefits on your race day.
Professional Athletes – Can definitely benefit from training periods in a lower carb range, but this should also be timed with the type of work they are doing in each period of the week. The biggest difference to the amateur athlete is the very high intensity training and importance of that on race day, especially from a strategic point of view. At that level, athletes aren’t racing against themselves or against the clock, they are racing their competition. There are times they may be forced to dig deep into their glycogen stores to match attacks and stick to the front group. A fast swim start, for example, can cost an athlete the whole race if they miss the pack, or if an athlete is training low on carbs year around, they may find it more difficult to achieve certain speeds and biomechanical efficiencies that come with it.
Special Groups – These are usually health related. Diabetics including me are part of this group. Also, if you have any of the conditions listed as metabolic syndrome, you will have huge health benefits (and subsequent performance benefits) of going to a lower carb range.
Conclusion
Do you fit in any of the above categories? Do you think the LCHF approach is for you? Before you make the switch, I suggest you study the topic a bit more and also understand the other health benefits that come with it. In the end this is a change that can improve your performance, health and wellbeing.
Vinnie Santana, ironguides Head Coach
Disclaimer: This article is for information only and should not be used for the diagnosis or treatment of medical conditions. Information on www.ironguides.net is not intended as a substitute for the advice provided by your physician or other healthcare professional.
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Running Plans (10k, 21k and 42k – starting at USD40)The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol today unveiled its first billboard, located at 1660 Federal Blvd., just up the hill from Sports Authority Field at Mile High and towering over a liquor store.
The billboard features a woman stating: “For many reasons, I prefer marijuana over alcohol. Does that make me a bad person?”
“Every day, hundreds of thousands of Colorado adults make decisions about whether to use marijuana or alcohol,” said Betty Aldworth, advocacy director for the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol. “We are not suggesting that one is better than the other, but we are asserting that marijuana is objectively less harmful than alcohol.
“We want people to consider why they are opposed to allowing adults to legally use the less harmful of the two substances,” Aldworth said. “We are not telling people what to think. We are simply asking them to think.”
The group also handed out flyers promoting Amendment 64 that they will distribute to voters over the next seven months. Among the claims made by the flyers:
“It’s less harmful. Alcohol is highly toxic, which is why it produces hangovers and long-term damage to users. Marijuana, on the other hand, is non-toxic and even has therapeutic benefits.”
Another claim on the flyer, this one attributed to the U.S. Department of Justice:
“Alcohol use is linked to about 5,000,000 violent crimes in the U.S. each year. Studies find no link between marijuana use and violent behavior.”
Recent polls in Colorado show support for the ballot measure. Even Denver Republicans recently voted in favor of legalization.In recent years, there's been no shortage of media hype touting Pittsburgh as a haven for artists and young people. But back in the '90s, when Justin Strong was just starting at the University of Pittsburgh, the city didn't seem quite so attractive.
"When I graduated from Allderdice [High School] in '96, the majority of my friends left," Strong remembers. "They went to Atlanta, D.C. and New York."
But while his friends were going off to bigger cities, Strong was beginning to envision the idea of Shadow Lounge, the East Liberty venue that opened in 2000 and would become legendary for its role in Pittsburgh hip hop and art in general.
The idea first took root in a crappy South Oakland apartment.
"My house growing up was always the place where everybody gathered," says Strong. "So it's kind of like you're a product of your environment." When Strong went to Pitt, he recalls, he and his roommates "were just throwing parties. The first one we did was our sophomore year, in our apartment in Oakland."
Strong always wanted to make sure there was something to do — and in the process, he involved friends who would become important parts of the Pittsburgh music scene.
But just as that scene is gaining new traction, Shadow Lounge itself is closing. A combination of factors — business disagreements, the headaches of owning a liquor license, the pressures of neighborhood development — have led Strong to shutter the club. It will close this weekend, with a pair of send-off shows that will feature many of the artists who've called the venue home.
"It definitely was a learning experience for the last 13 years," says Strong.
"I'm just glad I started when I was 21... at least one of my knees is still good," he adds with a laugh.
Not that anyone should count Strong out in the future. The adjoining AVA dance club will remain open, and Strong plans to open a new Shadow space elsewhere, though not immediately.
"That place took a good 10 to 12 years to build up what it's built up," says Akil Esoon, a regular Shadow Lounge performer. "I think Justin himself is a brilliant businessman, and I think that his team [knows] what they're doing. They've been doing this long enough to know that all they need to do is get another venue, and once that happens, I think they'll pick up right where we left off — probably even better because the talent in this city is evolving."
click to enlarge Photo courtesy of Vaughn Wallace
Knowledge and Jon Quest at Rhyme Calisthenics
"I remember all the way back to 1998 when Justin would hold parties at his house," says Emmai Alaquiva. "‘The 305 Spot,' he ended up calling it," because of its location at 305 Meyran Ave. Alaquiva, owner of YaMomzHouse Recording Studio, located above Shadow Lounge, was Strong's first doorman when Shadow opened in East Liberty. He's since become a well-known producer, directing videos for Questlove's company Okayplayer, and winning a regional Emmy award for his work on a WQED documentary.
"Working for Justin always felt like working with Justin," Alaquiva says. "That did a lot for my self-esteem and that did a lot for me wanting to go out after my dream."
Nate Mitchell, known as Nate da Phat Barber — he's both a DJ and a barber, in addition to co-owning 720 Music, Clothing and Cafe in Lawrenceville — was involved with Strong's events back in the 305 Spot days.
"I was putting together events with him," Mitchell says. "When the Shadow Lounge opened, it wasn't long after they first opened the doors that I hosted my first event. Now I've had, I don't know, 30 or 40 or 50 events at |
itches) – I have been unable to find anything down that route bar the fact that one of Fuseli’s lectures was on The Last Supper. If Fuseli had painted this, there would at the very least be some record of it, either in his own letters or Knowles’s biography on the artist, or from another source. A painting like this is a colossal undertaking – for a start you’d need a massive room (the painting is 17 x 10 feet), quite a lot of money for the materials (which aren’t cheap now let alone then), a giant easel and an awful lot of time on your hands. My guess is that the painting may have originated from the Royal Academy Schools while Fuseli was professor of painting – the Academy had purchased the Giampietrino copy of The Last Supper in 1821 and according to the council were ‘of the opinion that the possession of such a work would be of essential benefit to the Schools of the Academy’. Logistically, the artist of this picture would have needed a space like the Academy in order to execute the work. The Royal Academy encouraged students to copy from the work of the Old Masters and the painting is also closer to the Giampietrino than it is to Leonardo’s original (Leonardo’s being a fresco is site specific). It seems logical to me that the painting may be the work of Academy student(s) (it would explain how Fuseli’s name became attached), and a date of 1820-30 is, I would say, fitting for the St. Barnabas version. However, I can see flaws in my logic – the painting for me is cohesive and conveys the ideas of one very proficient painter, rather than many inexperienced hands.
The painting is quite high up on the wall so you’d need a ladder and decent eye-sight to try finding a signature – I couldn’t find anything. Annoyingly, I expect some clues are verso, but the painting hasn’t been off the wall since 1914 and the task would be a logistical nightmare. It frustrates me that I haven’t been able to find any reference of this painting, and there must be one (maybe in the Witt) but now I live in the sticks my resources are basic at best, so if anyone has any ideas I’d love to hear them – I also highly recommend a visit to the church to see it.
AdvertisementsRichard Fidler and Kari Gislason's radio documentary on the Icelandic sagas.
Last year Richard took some time off to go to Iceland and make a radio series with his friend, writer, Kari Gislason.
The series, Saga Land, is available now as a four-episode podcast, through ABC RN's Earshot program.
Richard and Kari's trip to Iceland was a twofold mission: the first, to tell some of the stories from the sagas of Iceland.
These are the true tales of the early Viking settlers of that remote island: stories of blood feuds, of dangerous women and doomed warriors; and men and women, brothers and sisters, forced to kill the ones they love the most.
Richard and Kari travelled into Iceland's fields, streams and fjords, to tell some of these stories in the places where they unfolded a thousand years ago.
The other thing they set out to do, was to solve a family mystery involving a possible bloodline connection Kari might have to the greatest of the saga authors.
How to listen
Find the Saga Land podcast on the ABC RN website
Saga Land is also available on iTunes and other podcast platforms. Search for the ABC RN Earshot podcast.
Listen to a preview of Saga Land at the top of this page.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Aerial footage showed the extent of the bad weather
A cold snap sweeping across East Asia has killed at least 85 people in Taiwan and stranded 60,000 tourists in South Korea.
Taiwanese media reported deaths from hypothermia and cardiac disease following a sudden drop in temperature over the weekend.
Meanwhile heavy snow forced the closure of the airport on the Korean holiday island of Jeju, cancelling flights.
The cold spell has also hit Hong Kong, southern China and Japan.
Image copyright AFP Image caption This highway in Guangdong province was closed because of heavy snow
'Sudden drop'
Many of those who died in Taiwan were elderly people living in northern regions such as Taipei and Taoyuan. Those areas accounted for 66 of the deaths.
Another 16 were confirmed dead in the southern city of Kaohsiung.
The temperature in Taipei city fell to a 44-year low of 4C (39F) on Sunday, and many homes in Taiwan lack central heating.
Many victims reportedly had heart trouble and shortness of breath.
"In our experience, it's not the actual temperature but the sudden drop that's too sudden for people's circulatory systems,'' said a city official quoted by AP news agency.
Image copyright Getty Images
The risks in the cold
Most excess winter deaths and illnesses are not caused by hypothermia or extremes of cold, but by heart and breathing problems. Frail elderly people are particularly at risk.
Cold weather makes your heart work harder to keep your body warm. It increases your heart rate and blood pressure and can cause changes to your blood that increase the risk of developing blood clots that may lead to heart attacks and strokes.
Low temperatures can make it harder to breathe and can make existing chest problems, such as asthma, worse. There is also more flu circulating during the winter.
If you have reduced mobility, are 65 or over, or have a health condition such as heart or lung disease, experts say it is a good idea to heat your home to at least 18C.
A 56-year-old man surnamed Chen was found dead on the street Sunday morning, reported Focus Taiwan, but most of the victims in the city and its surrounding region, known as New Taipei City, were found indoors.
Authorities have warned people, especially senior citizens, to keep warm and stay out of the cold.
In South Korea, more than 500 domestic and international flights have been cancelled in Jeju as the island, known for balmy weather and beaches, saw -6C weather. The airport was due to reopen on Monday night.
Thousands of tourists were left stranded over the weekend. Yonhap news agency reported that local officials were scrambling to find transport and accommodation.
Image copyright EPA Image caption On Monday morning hundreds of passengers were still stranded in Jeju airport
Image copyright AFP/Getty Images Image caption The airport was blanketed in snow over the weekend leading to flight cancellations
In Hong Kong, residents shivered in 3C, the lowest temperature there in nearly 60 years.
Parts of Guangzhou and Shenzhen in southern China have also seen the rare appearance of snow, while the southern Japanese island of Okinawa has seen sleet for the first time ever, report Chinese and Japanese media.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption East Asia cold snap: Why is it freezing in the region?
Snowstorms have hit large parts of Japan as well, with more than 600 domestic flights cancelled across the country on Sunday and Monday, reported NHK news.
At least five people have died so far and more than 100 have been injured in Japan.
Temperatures have dropped in some parts of South East Asia as well, including Vietnam and Thailand.
In Bangkok, which rarely sees temperatures below 20C, temperatures dropped to around 16C on Sunday, while Vietnam saw the coldest weather in about two decades over the weekend, with Hanoi experiencing 6C.
Are you in East Asia? Have you been affected by the cold weather? You can email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk with your experiences.
Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways:Xherdan Shaqiri: Limited game time at Bayern Munich
The talented Switzerland international forward has spent the last two seasons at the Allianz Arena, with Bayern having prevailed in the scramble for his signature back in 2012.
The 22-year-old faces stiff competition for places at the German champions, though, and was restricted to just 10 Bundesliga starts in the 2013/14 campaign.
Shaqiri acknowledges that he now has a big decision to make, with it possible that he may have to look elsewhere for regular game time.
A man who has been heavily linked with a switch to the Premier League in the past told 20 Minuten: "It's clear that I cannot continue like this. If nothing changes, I will have to make some changes myself.
"I want to play in the important games as well and not just in the Bundesliga. I don't want to go through another year like this.
"I only want to play for a major club. The Champions League is important to me. We will see what happens.
"England would be an option. If I were to leave Bayern, it will be for a foreign club. But it will have to be a club challenging for the title."Although Dwyane Wade is under contract for another season with the Chicago Bulls rumors of a buyout persist. Contending teams take precedence on the stars priority list, but before he jumps to rejoin a former teammate the star should consider Wade was made for this OKC Thunder squad.
David Aldridge of NBA TV interviewed Dwayne Wade who is in Springfield Massachusetts attending the NBA Hall of Fame events. At the top of NBA fans (and teams) minds is whether Wade’s contract will be bought out or if he’ll return to the windy city. The interview gave little insight into the situation other than not much interaction is occurring between the star and his team.
The Interview:
The following is condensed excepts from the Aldridge – Wade interview:
Aldridge:Who are you going to be playing for in November?
Wade: You know I’m under contract with the Bulls right now and that’s what I’m preparing for. The future, I don’t worry about it too much. You got other people who do that. For me, my job is to prepare and be the best Dwayne Wade at the age of 35 that I can be.
Aldridge: What’s your preference?
Wade: First of all, everyone wants to compete (for a title). It’s no secret, At the end of my career, that is one thing I would love to do. I’m not in a position right now to do that. So, I can’t talk about what that preference is.
Aldridge: There’s been a lot of talk about buy-outs and things like that. Is that something that is going on, or that you want to do right now?
Wade: What’s funny, is I haven’t said anything. And there’s a reason for that. I’m not about the going back and forth. A lot of people make it that way, but I’m not about going back and forth. When the time is right for me and the Chicago Bulls organization to sit down and talk about the future. we will do that. The timing hasn’t been right to this point, but I’ll be in Chicago soon enough. Hopefully, we get an opportunity to sit down to talk about the future and direction and go from there. I’m 35 years old, I’m a grown man. I can definitely sit across the room from you and listen to your truth, and go from there.
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Takeaways from interview:
First, kudos to D Wade for being a star who understands tampering and didn’t bite on that opportunity from Aldridge to plant seeds.
The overriding takeaway was, there is a disconnect between the player and the franchise. This isn’t news given how Jimmy Butler was treated upon his exit. Nor was it surprising Wade opted into his final contract year. After succumbing to take less in each of his contract negotiations with the Big 3 in Miami, Wade was due at least one contract repayment from somewhere. The crazy trivia answer you may one day find use for is Dwyane Wade was never the highest paid player on the Miami Heat – never!
Moving forward, the Chicago Bulls are a team who is expected to plummet in the East this season, despite it being a less competitive conference. Gone is the Bulls cornerstone star Jimmy Butler and core contributors like Taj Gibson. Doug McDermott who the Bulls made big shifts to acquire is now on the OKC Thunder. Most pundits believe the team won’t just regress, but they’ll vie for the basement position in the league as they chase the top lottery pick. In other words, pull out your thesaurus and search for Chicago’s “process’ equivalent.
Reading between the lines:
That fact alone seems to point to a redundancy of keeping Wade on the Bulls. Many assume a buy-out will occur given the Bulls mandate. The question is how much the notoriously spend thrift organization will be willing to eat (or use the stretch provision for) in a buy-out. Or if they will stubbornly cling to refusing that direction.
If Wade and the Bulls do come to a mutually satisfying agreement the next question becomes which teams would enter the conversation. Wade himself made it clear in his interview with Aldridge he wants to compete for a title.
Logical teams Wade would consider:
Everyone assumes the most logical landing spot would be a one year minimum deal with his former teammate and fellow banana boat buddy LeBron in Cleveland. Don’t get me started on why LeBron’s Cavs continually get afforded these types of economical contracts yearly. Rather, let’s consider some options for Wade.
Miami is Dwyane Wade:
A reasonable assumption would be enough time has passed since Wade left Miami for Pat Riley and Wade to have put aside their last contract negotiation guffaw. But, will Wade envision Goran Dragic, Hassan Whiteside and the ancillary roster as an ample fit for his talents still.
TimberPups taking next step with buddy Butler:
Certainly, his recent teammates departure to Minnesota may appeal to him. Butler has been vocal about how solid the pair’s relationship is. This past summer the duo were witnessed spending time at Paris Fashion Week, so the buddy bond off the court exists.
The issue with Minnesota is the lack of floor spacing in terms of perimeter scoring. Plus with Wiggins and Butler already filling the majority of wing minutes and Jamal Crawford coming off the bench this feels like an improper use of Wade’s talents.
Cavaliers East contenders:
Other potential clubs vying to become contenders are either heavy at the guard position, don’t seem like a proper fit or are illogical for Wade to join. Of those the Celtics, Raptors and Wizards are all solid in the backcourt.
Warriors Western contenders:
In the west the Rockets and Nuggets are also wing dominant and the Spurs seems like an illogical fit.
For Sam Presti’s consideration :
This brings me to the OKC Thunder, who could utilize Wade in a manner most of his other suitors won’t consider. First of all, let’s recall the same Paris trip Wade was at with Butler also included the reigning MVP who was pictured at the same events. Furthermore, George is extremely familiar with Wade having played him copious times when the Pacers were the top contenders to the Heat.
The questions topping a pursuit of Wade would be:
With Andre Roberson cemented as the starting shooting guard where precisely would Wade fit on the OKC Thunder?
Moreover, would Wade consider a reserve role for a contender?
And, should the OKC Thunder aggressively pursue Wade to fulfill that roster position?
If I’m Sam Presti, I’m keeping a keen eye on what happens with Wade in Chicago with this view in mind. Then I’m selling Wade how he could be the one piece which would push the OKC Thunder over the top. Wade isn’t immune to playing defense, but at age 35 he’s not pining for nightly top defensive assignments. Conversely, this is a player who averaged 29.9 minutes over 60 games last season while producing 18.3 points, 4.5 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 1.4 steals per game. Notably, Wades points, assists and steals would have ranked second best on last years Thunder squad behind only Westbrook.
OKC offers perfect fit:
Bringing Wade off the bench in a role similar to how the Spurs utilize Manu Ginobili would be ideal. Coach Billy Donovan could keep his minutes down to preserve his health and Roberson would have the top defensive assignment and start. But, Wade would offer another ball handler to pair with Raymond Felton and a proven scoring option.
Consider for a moment what his presence would do to Donovan’s options. At any given time two of Westbrook, George and Wade could be on the floor with Adams, Kanter or Patterson. Those six back and front court players alone offer offensive and defensive spectrum options.
Depending on game situations Donovan could utilize Roberson more or opt for Wade to increase offense. And to reiterate, Wade played the almost a decade (8 years) under Spoelstra’s defensive system.
Assuming Wade is bought out, Presti should be planting the seed with Wade that he could have the equivalent effect Andre Iguodala does for the Warriors in Golden State or Ginobili for the Spurs.
And, if Wade wants a bigger role there’s no reason why Roberson and George both can’t shift up a spot. Besides, Patterson has always excelled in coming off the bench. Therefore utilizing a small ball lineup with either Patterson or Adams at the center also works.
Why Cavaliers and LeBron aren’t Wade’s best option:
Joining the Cavaliers might put him with a bestie, but would it offer the same opportunity? With the addition of Isaiah Thomas the Cavaliers have maintained scoring punch, but even with the loss of the less than defensively stellar Irving have regressed defensively overall, particularly in the backcourt. So, wouldn’t Wade’s role in Cleveland be to pick up the slack of Thomas defensively and once more take a back seat to the stars offensively?
And, does Wade want to be seen as the guy who doesn’t mind playing the role Irving desperately wanted to abandon? That is to say, the player who is comfortable being in LeBron’s shadow. Unquestionably, joining the Cavs will be be seen as Wade needing LeBron and not minding being that shadow guy.
Remember, Wade was the star who had the single ring when the original Big 3 merged. Further, I’ve long lamented it was Wade who was true leader on that Heat squad. Moreover, Wade willingly adapted, taking the less obvious role on the squad so James could remain the alpha.
The one point which could push OKC to the forefront:
Perhaps most importantly, Wade recalls what it felt like to be hungry. Memories of joining forces with Shaquille O’Neal brought his first title, partnering with James and Bosh snagged his second and third titles.
Therefore, this fact can’t be under valued. Presti, should be selling Wade on how hungry Paul George and Russell Westbrook are to win. He should drive home how important Wade’s role would be within the franchise and point to why OKC more than any other squad are best suited to offer him an ideal role where his contributions will be vital, but beneficial to both star and franchise.
And, if all else fails, Presti should ask Wade how satisfying it would be for him to join the squad with the best shot of usurping the Golden State Warriors bid to repeat. Above all, Wade is a competitor – and in this scribe’s opinion is one of the very few NBA stars with the same competitive ilk of Westbrook.
It may all be conjecture as Chicago may elect to ride the wave, but Sam Presti needs to keep an active eye on the situation.
Because, more than any other squad the fit here with the revamped roster has me thinking – Wade was made for OKC, 2017-18.About
facebook.com/playerspawncomic
Player's Pawn is a modern horror graphic novel. It was originally an idea for a film that would resemble thoughtful Kubrick-style horror, but as a comic, creative control and budget will be significantly more achievable. If The Shining meets Silence of the Lambs sounds interesting to you, you'll probably like my book.
It begins with Detective Mark Collins feeling the heavy burden of Edward Solstiaire's recent prison escape. Collins put Solstiaire behind bars a few years earlier, and is now following a new string of cryptic serial killings. Mark knows it has become personal, and every second he wastes another victim perishes.
As the story develops, Edward is brought into a highly advanced facility where his every moment is monitored and analyzed. His therapist, Dr. Isaac Azarov, lives with him twenty-four hours a day to better understand the life and routine of a sociopath.
Edward may be in custody, but not without promising one last victim, which leaves Collins on edge, constantly worrying what Edward may do to Dr. Azarov. Azarov feels the same, and often finds himself fearing for his safety around his infamous patient.
Readers will hopefully find Player's Pawn to be a concise, down-to-earth, and easy to follow graphic novel. It can serve as a great introduction into the world of comics, as well as being an original horror favorite. That said, it's not as heavy or intense as you think. Edward is fun, creepy, and charismatic in his own way. Think "What About Bob?" as a horror.
"Sit down Edward.. And don't look so damn happy to see me!"
We wanted to bring this project to Kickstarter as a way to literally kick-off our careers. After almost 2 years of trial-and-error the creative team behind Player's Pawn was finally assembled because people who wanted to work diligently came together and showed very quickly that this project could happen. And we hope to reward those who believe our efforts are worthy of contributing to, and we will not forget your generosity.
Our mock cover. Designed to replicate the ominous feel of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Many references to some of our favorite stories are made in these pages.
$6,000 is the bare minimum we need to complete the 6 issue run of Player's Pawn and compensate our artistic team for the time they dedicate to this project. Any additional funds will help accelerate any and all future projects we are planning for, and help us take the book into a print medium.
With your help, our first ever project will not be our last. It is our sincere hope that you will be part of the experience as we grow and develop, and bring these stories to greater heights, and we invite you along for the ride. Please get to know us!
STRETCH GOALS:
Apparently the K.S. community likes "stretch goals". Here are the things you can make possible with a little extra funding to Player's Pawn!
7,500 - Accelerate the launch of official website and it's web store where downloading content and keeping updated will become centralized and easier, and we'll have a home-base for future projects. Your name will be listen on the donors page of our website!
13,000 - We will be able to print hard-copies of Player's Pawn that will be available on our website so you can actually hold the book you helped fun!
19,000 - Fully(?) fund the Player's Pawn prequel without us having to start a whole new K.S. Project!
25,000 - Fully(?) Fund the Player's Pawn sequel without us having to start a whole new project!
30,000 - We'll take our book on tour!The world is in danger - floods, droughts, rising sea levels - and needs a superhero to inspire kids to take action on climate change. That superhero is the Green Ninja!
In Spring 2013, production will begin on the “Green Ninja Show” - a 16-episode series hosted on YouTube and aimed at upper elementary to middle school children, their teachers, and parents. The goal of the program is to help educate kids about climate change and give them the tools and inspiration to do something about it.
The Challenge: Over the last year, the Green Ninja has grown in popularity around the San Francisco Bay Area through films, live appearances, and teacher professional development workshops. At present, we have over 500,000 views of Green Ninja educational films on our GreenNinjaTV YouTube channel. However, one of the challenges we face in making the next big jump towards national and international recognition is the ability to produce regular content. Teachers and their students love our content, but they want more.
The Solution: We designed the Green Ninja Show, a variety program hosted by the Green Ninja, which blends existing films and animations with experiments, skits, and interviews. The Green Ninja Show will explore climate and energy topics in a quirky and humorous manner, in the spirit of our hero Bill Nye the Science Guy. This model will allow us to produce content more quickly and thus deliver a weekly program on our YouTube channel. Through existing partnerships with educators, each episode of the Green Ninja Show will have curriculum that teachers can use in their classrooms to teach science and math topics and fulfill the next generation science standards.
The show will build on the great success of previous films such as Footprint Renovation.
The Green Ninja Show will be directed by Professor David Chai (http://www.houseofchai.net/), a superstar animator/educator and twice nominated Annie Award winner for Best Short Subject. San Jose State University (SJSU) students will write and produce the show under David's guidance and in partnership with Spartan Film Studios. Faculty and students from the College of Science and the College of Education will ensure effective science and educational content.
The Green Ninja Show will be developed and written in February 2013, with filming to start in March and the show to launch at the end of May.
The funding we are asking for will enable us to pay for the studio staff and equipment rental, develop the studio set, hire students for specific highly skilled roles, and hire a social media architect to help design the social marketing and publicity campaign to build our subscriber base for the show.The Alabama Supreme Court this morning dismissed petitions by the Alabama Policy Institute, the Alabama Citizens Action Program and Elmore County's probate judge that had sought a landmark ruling declaring the state's prohibition on gay marriage still stands in defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Today's ruling means same-sex marriage is still intact in Alabama and the petitions challenging it are tossed. The petitions had sought to challenge the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling declaring same-sex marriage legal in the Obergefell case.
While dismissing the petitions Alabama justices, particularly Chief Justice Roy Moore, still expressed their strong disagreement with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Moore called it a "lawless act."
Eric Johnston, attorney for API, said the Alabama justices' ruling ends their petitions.
"My initial reading of it is that the (Alabama) justices were bound by Obergefell and they have agreed that Obergefell is controlling and that the opinion from March will not now be in effect," Johnston said. "They (Alabama justices), however, all strongly expressed disagreement with Obergefell but as a matter of the rule of law they had to follow it."
Johnston said that lawyers for the groups and probate judges will be talking but the initial thought is that they can't do anything with that particular case. "It's unfortunate," he said.
API and the others had hoped to get a decision from the Alabama Supreme Court upholding their previous order that told probate judges not to issue the licenses. If that had happened it was then hoped it would lead to an eventual appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. "What they (Alabama justices) did today is they closed that door," he said.
The Alabama Supreme Court issued a one-page order and 169-page opinion with all nine justices concurring, and seven of them writing specially.
Roy Moore
In a concurring opinion that takes up more than half the opinion Moore wrote that despite the dismissal of the petitions, Moore believes the state's ban on gay marriage is still intact.
"Today this Court by order dismisses all pending motions and petitions and issues the certificate of judgment in this case," Moore writes. "That action does not disturb the existing March orders in this case or the Court's holding therein that the Sanctity of Marriage Amendment,... and the Alabama Marriage Protection Act, SS 30-1-9, Ala. Code 1975, are constitutional," he states.
Moore goes on to criticize at length the U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 opinion in Obergefell.
"Based upon arguments of "love," "commitment," and "equal dignity" for same-sex couples, five lawyers, as Chief Justice Roberts so aptly describes the Obergefell majority, have declared a new social policy for the entire country," Moore writes.
"In reality, the Obergefell majority presumes to amend the United States Constitution to create a right stated nowhere therein. That is a lawless act," Moore states.
"The (SCOTUS) opinion appeals more to emotion than law, reminding one of the 1974 song "Feelings" by Morris Albert, which begins: "Feelings, nothing more than feelings....," Moore adds. "Obergefell (the SCOTUS case) is but the latest example of the Court's creation of constitutional rights out of thin air in service of the immorality of the sexual revolution."
Moore also analyzes the arguments made by the four U.S. Supreme Court Justices who voted against the legalization of same-sex marriage.
Moore also writes about the supremacy of U.S. Supreme Court decisions and that it isn't absolute.
"The Supremacy Clause, quite obviously, by this chain of reasoning, does not give the United States Supreme Court or any other agency of the federal government the authority to make its every declaration by that very fact the supreme law of the land," Moore writes. "If the Court's edicts do not arise from powers delegated to the federal government in the Constitution, they are to be treated not as the supreme law of the land but as mere usurpation."
Moore, who graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1969 and served in the U.S. Army as a company commander with the Military Police Corps in Vietnam, wrote about obeying commands.
"Although the United States military depends for its effectiveness on obedience to the chain of command, the principle that a subordinate has a duty to resist illegal orders is also well established. The duty to obey the orders of a superior is absolute "unless the accused knew the orders to be unlawful or a person of ordinary sense and understanding would have known the orders to be unlawful."
"The general principle of blind adherence to United States Supreme Court opinions as 'the law of the land' is a dangerous fallacy that is inconsistent with the United States Constitution," Moore also writes.
"In my legal opinion, Obergefell, like Dred Scott and Roe v. Wade that preceded it, is an immoral, unconstitutional, and tyrannical opinion. Its consequences for our society will be devastating, and its elevation of immorality to a special "right" enforced through civil penalties will be completely destructive of our religious liberty," Moore wrote.
Moore, who had recused himself from voting on the March 3 order and other matters because he had issued earlier orders to probate judges advising them not to issue same-sex licenses, participated in today's order and opinion.
But Moore in today's opinion said he believes he no longer has to recuse himself. "In joining this case to consider the effect of Obergefell, I am not sitting in review of my administrative order, nor have I made any public statement on the effect of Obergefell on this Court's opinion and order of March 3, 2015. My expressed views on the issue of same-sex marriage are also not disqualifying," he writes.
Other justices
Three of the justices, Lyn Stuart, James Allen Main, and Michael Bolin issued a short statement in the opinion.
"Motions and petitions are dismissed without explanation by this Court for numerous reasons as a matter of routine. When a Justice issues a writing concurring in or dissenting from an order summarily dismissing a pending motion or petition the writing expresses the explanation for the vote of only the Justice who issues the writing and of any Justice who joins the writing," according to that statement. "Attributing the reasoning and explanation in a special concurrence or a dissent to a Justice who did not issue or join the writing is erroneous and unjust."
Bolin also issued a concurring opinion. "I do not agree with the majority opinion in Obergefell; however, I do concede that its holding is binding authority on this Court."
"Clearly, the State of Alabama has exercised its sovereign authority to define marriage as being inherently that relationship between a man and a woman by the authority that has exclusively been delegated to the states...," Bolin wrote.
Bolin stated he would not go as far as to defy the U.S. Supreme Court ruling "because to do so would only placate the heart at the expense of the head; and, should anyone do so, our constitutional republic would begin to cease being a nation of laws and not of men.."
Bolin said that if the Alabama justices did issue an order in defiance of the SCOTUS order it could potentially render the probate judges subject to personal civil lawsuits "for following their religious beliefs."
"And it is arguably not hyperbole to further contemplate that it could place those same licensing officials in the middle of an endgame stand-off with federal marshals and/or federalized national guardsmen on one side, with a contempt order from a federal court in hand, and state law-enforcement officers on the other, with a competing and conflicting state court order in hand," Bolin stated. "We have already had one war with kinsmen fighting kinsmen. We do not need another. Rather, we need to see that review of this wrong decision is done the right way--by constitutional means."
Justice Tom Parker criticized the U.S. Supreme Court decision. "Obergefell is the latest example of judicial despotism. It is a decision not based on law, but on the bare majority's philosophy of life. For the states to honor such a decision as legitimate is to bow our knee to the self-established judicial despots of America."
Justice Greg Shaw
Alabama Supreme Court Justice disagreed with some of Moore's arguments, even suggesting that a judge who can't comply with the decision of a higher court should leave the bench.
"If a judge finds that he or she cannot abide by a controlling decision of a higher court, then that judge should resign from office," Shaw stated. "He or she should not indulge in the pretense that rebelling against a superior court's decision is an accepted judicial response."
"Such conduct does not show respect for or comply with the law; it does not promote public confidence in the integrity or impartiality of the judiciary," Shaw wrote. "Instead, I believe that defiance would bring the judicial office into disrepute."
"Additionally, I find curious this idea put forth by Chief Justice Moore that ''the judges in every state' may personally weigh the correctness of any Supreme Court decision and, if they disagree with it, then they may ignore it. If this were indeed the case, the Constitution would in no way be protected; instead, it would mean that there would be a different Constitution for every judge based on varying legal opinions."
Shaw also made a reference in a footnote that he has not conducted himself "in a manner that calls into question my integrity and impartiality, and I have avoided conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice that would bring the judicial office into disrepute, which are barred by (an ethical canon)."
Shaw may have been referencing Justices Moore and Parker who have been outspoken on the issue of gay marriage.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has filed complaints with the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission stating that Moore and Parker had violate judicial canons by their public comments on the issue.
What does ruling mean?
Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, said the Alabama Supreme Court's decision Friday means very little. "It is not likely to have any affect in the world other than to cause confusion," he said.
"Justice Moore's opinion is bizarre and disheartening. It is bizarre because it is completely lawless," he said
"The only justice over there who showed integrity is Justice Shaw. He made it clear that even though he disagrees then he was bound to follow it," Cohen said.
Cohen said that Shaw also was right that judges who won't follow a high court should resign. Cohen said he hopes the Judicial Inquiry Commission acts quickly on their complaints and forwards it to the Alabama Court of the Judiciary. "They (Moore and Parker) are a disgrace to the bench. Alabama deserves better," he said.
In a recent interview with AL.com Parker shot back about the SPLC complaint against him. "A judge, as any citizen, has a first amendment right to political speech and it's no more than an attempt by a leftist organization to intimidate someone into silence," he said.
Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, said the Alabama Supreme Court's decision Friday means very little. "It is not likely to have any affect in the world other than to cause confusion," he said.
"Justice Moore's opinion is bizarre and disheartening. It is bizarre because it is completely lawless," he said
"The only justice over there who showed integrity is Justice Shaw. He made it clear that even though he disagrees then he was bound to follow it," Cohen said.
Cohen said that Shaw also was right that judges who won't follow a high court should resign. Cohen said he hopes the Judicial Inquiry Commission acts quickly on their complaints and forwards it to the Alabama Court of the Judiciary. "They (Moore and Parker) are a disgrace to the bench. Alabama deserves better," he said.
Randall C. Marshall, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, said that Justice Shaw's written concurrence seems to be the clearest explanation of what the opinion means. "All motions/petitions that were filed subsequent to the original mandamus order are dismissed, technically leaving in place the original decision. But that decision (according to Justice Shaw) is a dead letter in light of Obergefell and the Strawser injunction which binds all probate court judges in Alabama," he said.
"Clearly the Alabama Supreme Court - or at least a number of the justices - disagree vehemently with the U.S. Supreme Court's decision. But equally as clear, Alabama is bound by that decision and Alabama law prohibiting same-sex marriage is unconstitutional and unenforceable," Marshall said.
"I don't think that we will see any change going forward. The great majority of counties have simply ignored Chief Justice Moore's administrative order and the Alabama Supreme Court's mandamus order," Marshall said. "There are the counties that have ceased issuing any marriage licenses - any of which could still be subject to potential legal action - but there are no counties that are issuing licenses to opposite-sex couples but not to same-sex couples. Any county probate court judge that did so would find himself or herself in front of (federal) Judge Ginny Granade on a contempt motion."
Granade is the federal judge in January 2015 - six months before the U.S. Supreme Court ruling - who had originally declared Alabama's ban on gay marriage unconstitutional.
One legal group, Liberty Counsel, which also represented API and ALCAP, saw Friday's ruling as an affirmation of the Alabama Supreme Court's own March 3, 2015 ruling. While dismissing the groups' petitions, Friday's order did not erase that ruling, according to a Liberty Counsel statement.
"The ruling last year by the Alabama Supreme Court was historic, and |
looking over scripts and storyboards, can't help but gush. "Seth is a guy who is completely in touch with popular imagination and taste at all times, but at the same time is motivated by very big ideas," she says, noting that without him, the project would not have been possible.
**
To know MacFarlane is to know he has little interest in slowing down -- much less being confined to one medium. "One of the things that I'm enjoying about my career is that it encompasses many different disciplines. Nothing ever really gets dull," he says, noting that his hobbies -- reading (science-related, mostly), watching movies (Jackass, Annie Hall, Star Wars), playing piano, discussing politics, working out with his personal trainer (9 a.m. daily) and spending time with his friends (famous and non-famous) -- are similarly diverse. More recently, he has taken up horseback riding, which like getting onstage for the roasts he finds freeing.
Mark Wahlberg, who stars as a seemingly normal guy who happens to have a walking, talking, skirt-chasing teddy bear (voiced by MacFarlane) in Ted, jokes that he's spent the past six months trying to find flaws in the first-time director. "I'll find something wrong with him eventually, but I haven't yet," Wahlberg says of a man he describes as a "visionary," "creative genius" and "goofball."
Push MacFarlane to define his brand and he'll try to convince you that it can't be done. He'll point to Family Guy and tell you that it's more than just a sophomoric comedy, as many assume. He'll argue it has its share of "character comedy, satirical comedy, dare I say even highbrow comedy?" he says of a mix he enjoys. "Then there are the shit jokes."
What MacFarlane, who counts Woody Allen, George Lucas and occasional lunch date Norman Lear as role models, will add to his plate next depends on what he has time to say yes to. His longtime agent, WME's Greg Hodes, regularly fields calls for him to do everything from directing or starring in films to producing live-action shows or digital series to taking on Broadway. "I need to clone him 10 times over," Hodes says, laughing.
Fittingly, all are things MacFarlane has dabbled in or would consider, but don't expect a theater run to look like Book of Mormon from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. "If I did a Broadway musical, I'd probably want to do something a little bit more old-fashioned," he says, himself a Broadway junkie. "I wouldn't necessarily do something that was as edgy as what they have done. The challenge to me would be more along the lines of, 'Gosh, can somebody write Oklahoma! for 2011?' "
Although he'll say his litmus test for deciding which projects to take on is "Will I have fun doing them?" you get the sense there's more at play here -- the album and concerts, the guest spots on Real Time With Bill Maher, the emcee gigs for Comedy Central. (MacFarlane admits he likes the idea of hosting the Emmys as well but imagines the crude nature of the roasts have likely killed any chance of that happening.) Perhaps it's a desire to achieve the one thing he hasn't yet in his career: recognize-me-on-the-street fame.
Asked if that's appealing, MacFarlane shrugs. "There's not an active, aggressive desire, but it amuses me when that happens," he says, pausing to give the question some thought. Then, with a shrug: "Everybody likes to be credited for work that they've done."Updated Editor’s Note 11/7/2017 – In an effort to further commit to our editorial vision of quality content about nothing but games or the industry, we are leaving this note here to let you know that this article does not meet the standards of that vision as it exists today. This article may be poorly written, or it may be well-written but with charged political content, which we have stepped away from. It’s not the ideas we have a problem with, as we do not discourage any viewpoint, we are just moving away from this sort of content. This article no longer represents TechRaptor’s editorial vision today and into the future. You can read more about why we are doing this here.
The internet is an odd place. Once considered the information superhighway, it is my personal belief that it has begun to turn into a misinformation superhighway if you’re unwilling to read on a topic for more than ten minutes. Even going to aggregation sites will ultimately steer you in the wrong direction if you’re not careful to take in the full story. As it stands, I feel the need to take the time and discuss a couple of issues that have crossed my desk, and I’ve let sit for far too long. I wanted to have a discussion about the importance of ethics in game journalism, #Gamergate, and an accusation lobbied towards me by Zoe Quinn.
Addressing Ms. Quinn.
I wanted to get this bit out of the way because a) it actually leads in well to the other topics and b) has been bugging me for some time. Since word has a tendency to get around on the internet, I’d like to address Zoe Quinn, who in a post on Medium used an image from my article Second Thoughts: Portrait of the Opposition and took it out of context. Since I have my doubts that you watched the video where I criticized internet famous Dan Olson’s video on Gamergate, I’ll just give a condensed version. My Second Thoughts articles are meant to expand on topics that I bring up in my Mind of Micah C videos.
Now, I do want to thank you for placing a link to my article in your post on Medium so that people can read the article and decide for themselves. I don’t know if that was your intention, but ultimately that can be a result of the action. The image that you linked is a photoshopped screen grab from that particular video in which Mr. Olson took the time to call yourself, Brianna Wu, and Anita Sarkeesian “game culture critics” which was a position that I vehemently disagreed with. Beyond that, I also took a short look at some of the pervasive ideas that have been put forward that Gamergate is ideologically opposed to. To shorten it, I discussed the idea that two sides of the political horseshoe (in this case, Libertarians and Far-Left Authoritarians) are beginning a cultural battle that we’ve now seen waged over the internet and in the mainstream press (sans Fox News).
With that said, I cannot speak for the entirety of the TechRaptor staff and any articles they have written in regards to your work or life. They have their own voices and I’ll not speak for them. I will speak for myself, because as someone who has worked in journalism in some capacity since 2009 I feel the need to defend my standards. I don’t care about your personal life, quite frankly. Whom you have sex with, relationships with, or what have you have no bearing on my day to day life. The only time I think about such things is when they cross into the realm of game journalism, such as Ben Kuchera not disclosing that he is contributing to your Patreon account, or your relationship with Nathan Grayson not being disclosed to his audience as he gives you positive press. Even then, you have nothing to do with their decisions. Why people mention you outside of those relations is beyond me.
You see Zoe, I’ve been a longtime critic of the lack of ethics in video game journalism. These critiques of mine go back to 2010, when I wrote rather scathing articles about Ben Kuchera mocking a man’s unemployment status, and Jim Sterling’s rampant sexism on top of his inability to act like an adult. I even confronted both of them about such issues, which ended in an insincere email from Kuchera and Sterling attempting to sic the Destructoid message board on me, only to prove my point further. Now, I don’t expect you or many others to know these things because such things have long since passed, but the point that I’m making is that I have fought for journalism ethics before Gamergate existed, and should it end and I am still involved in journalism, I will continue the fight. I’ll address both Gamergate and journalism ethics in the rest of the article, but let me say this: ethics are important to myself and the audience, no matter who they affiliate with.
To close this section, let me say this: I disagree with La mort de l’auteur almost in its entirety.
Ethics in Game Journalism
Professionally, Video Game Journalism is not my priority. My day job is. Journalism is a second job that I don’t even do for myself. The money that I make from it goes to charity. With that said, there’s a scripture that sticks with me the more I age from the book of Ecclesiastes. Before I quote it, know that I’m not trying to convert the reader here. Just give a part of my thought process so that folks will understand my state of mind as I discuss ethics from here on in. The scripture comes from Ecclesiastes chapter nine, verse ten. This is probably my favorite book in the Bible due to its sobering nature, but this scripture has stuck with me as the book concludes.
“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.”
Essentially, we all have our lot in life, so we should find joy in the work that we do. Work, in and of itself, is often spent servicing another person in some fashion. The same is true of journalism, but what must always be kept in mind is that the duty of someone who serves is to make sure that the served is well taken care of. That’s why journalistic ethics are so important. Your audience is buying your information, whether it be through a direct method or an indirect method. When I interact with my audience, they want to know three things: what the information is, where it came from, and what does the writer have to do with it, if anything. This way they can determine if the information is trustworthy.
This is what makes disclosure so important to the audience. There is always going to be a trust relationship between the publisher, the writer, and the consumer. The publisher trusts the writer to write, the writer trusts the consumer to read, and the consumer trusts that the publisher didn’t hire a hack. Beyond that, we as humans know what it’s like to receive or see others receive preferential treatment. Nepotism can be a negative side effect when you invest yourself into another human being, whether it be via love or friendship. Consumers want to avoid these situations because some friends will sell snake oil for their buddies if asked to.
With just about any human being on the planet, these sorts of disclosures are important. They even cross over to the business realm. In my day job, I have to keep my biases in mind and try to be as objective as humanly possible, or I may invest advertising funds in the wrong area, or have some other kerfluffle happen. So, why would there be a backlash to, say, Tyler Wilde and PC Gamer realizing they made an ethical mistake?
#GamerGate, and am I a part of it?
It’s been rather interesting to discuss and cover the Gamergate controversy since I’ve rejoined the fold as a game journalist. The unique nature of the movement being completely digital has seen a lot of impact, but also a lot of fear and many bold reactions. We’ve seen Gawker lose millions, Gamasutra hit hard as a backlash to Leigh Alexander’s “Gamers are Over” article, on top of sites like IGN and The Escapist revising their ethics policies. Granted, not all of these can be attributed to Gamergate, but it would be a lie to say that the reason ethics have become a talking point is not because of Gamergate.
Reactions to such happenings have been rather mixed. Many of the people who have been calling for an increase in transparency, on top of many regular readers, have largely had a positive reaction to ethical changes. In regards to the impacts on Gawker and Gamasutra, there has largely been a reaction of shock from the average Joe, not expecting what they originally considered a small band of nerds to carry such power. Then, of course, you have the incumbent game journalists. Their reaction has been predictable.
With ad hominem attacks ranging from dismissing proven fact as rumor or flat out calling it terrorism, the incumbent game journalists and their supporters have largely come to see Gamergate as a threat. It seems that Polygon cannot go a month without Ben Kuchera writing an opinion (read: propaganda) piece that denounces Gamergate for whatever reason. Even the mainstream press (who can be tied to some gaming websites either politically or via parent companies) have decided to get in on the action, with MSNBC and ABC taking their time to attack Gamergate. Granted, from a logical perspective such attacks have been laughable, being rife with logical fallacies, one sided research, and stacking the proverbial deck argument wise.
It’s as if those particular outlets think that having a panel about the Virgin Mary featuring Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Stephen Pinker would be “balanced.”
Then again, the foundation of gaming journalism has been shaken a bit, to the point where it seems some have become uncomfortable. When you hear that Intel has pulled advertisements from a site like Gamasutra, or Gawker has lost millions in advertising, it has to be expected that the incumbents would be in a state of fear. Beyond that, their willingness to accept change in ethics was a dead giveaway to their ability to do their jobs honestly. Jim Sterling had a major temper tantrum in regards to The Escapist allowing discussion and writing balanced articles on the subject. Nick Scarpino, Greg Miller, Tim Gettys, and Colin Moriarty (shortly after appearing on Jonathan McIntosh’s video about male privelege in gaming) left IGN, which was also around the same time that IGN updated its ethics policy to be much more audience friendly. I cannot prove that the IGN writers left the site because of the ethics policy, but I do think the timeline skews in the direction of there being an objection to the updated policies.
With all of this going on, it’s hard to find a point where I’m not laughing at the incumbent game journalists in regards to what is happening to them. Since I began writing about games, I’ve despised the bloated, corrupt, and lazy writing from these game journalists who are far too set in their ways to change any time soon. Though there are good apples out there who genuinely care about their audience, there are still plenty of bad apples as well, on top of their supporters. So, when I see their lifestyle shook up, I’m in good spirits because if you can’t do your job well you do not deserve to have the job. In any other industry some of these people would have been fired a long time ago and learned their lesson.
Another thing that I have to note is that among Gamergate supporters, this website has been touted as one of the good ones. My work has been praised by people within the movement, and it’s rather obvious that I’ve mingled with people within it. I’ve been on Gamergate charity streams, have been seen discussing game journalism with people within Gamergate, and joking around with them as well. There have been some accusations thrown my way, by the aforementioned Zoe Quinn and others, that I’m a part of the movement. So, am I secretly a Game Journalist fighting for Gamergate? Am I a part of some leadership cabal that plans to bring down gaming journalism and build something else in its place? Is there a reason that I posted so many triangles on my Twitter? Is Micah Curtis, businessman by day and game journalist by night, a member of Gamergate?!
No.
I do sympathize with the movement though. With that said, I don’t actively participate in boycotts or email advertisers due to the conflict of interests. Am I happy to see corrupt journalists and the far-left authoritarians they support be knocked down a peg? Yes. Most definitely. I’m not going to help them do it though. I outed Jonathan McIntosh as an anti-Semite because I came across the information and it was part of a larger story going on. One that ultimately went nowhere, because no one took the information and ran with it. Were I a part of Gamergate, I would have taken my findings and went to Intel with them before going to Milo Yiannopoulis and putting my writeup on Truthrevolt. Ultimately, I’m a journalist. What the public does with what I write is up to them.
Share Have a tip for us? Awesome! Shoot us an email at [email protected] and we'll take a look!The ray of Teleports rising from the rift, the bait into a choke point, the Lissandra ultimate, the end of Team Vitality's run.
No matter the season, European League Championship Series fans expect Fnatic to win. The boys in orange and black have a long history of success, winning the EU LCS in every season barring the 2014 summer season where they came second to Froggen's Alliance.
But this season was different.
Without shotcaller Bora "YellOwStaR" Kim and most of the familiar faces that made Fnatic an international powerhouse, Rekkles and co. finished the regular season in sixth place — the lowest they've ever placed. H2k-Gaming, G2 Esports and Team Vitality cemented themselves as the region's elite for most of the split. With the exception of a few naysayers who praised Fnatic's recent scrim performances, most said Vitality would make it to Rotterdam with ease.
Fnatic's euphemistic other half, Origen, also made short work of their quarterfinals opponent, the Unicorns of Love. Origen and Fnatic went a combined 6-1 this weekend and both teams advanced to the semifinals where they will face off against H2k-Gaming and G2 Esports respectively.
With all that said, it's somewhat expected to see Origen and Fnatic improve toward the end of the split. Fnatic's 2014 holdouts, Paul "sOAZ" Boyer and Martin "Rekkles" Larsson, know what it means to conserve energy during the regular season and, as Alfonso "mithy" Aguirre Rodriguez put it on the analyst desk, "step up for playoffs."
RELATED: Rekkles talks about facing G2 Esports and reflects on his EU LCS performance
For the remainder of their time as EU LCS teams, Fnatic and Origen will always be the answers you circle on the multiple choice quiz when you're stumped. Against the Unicorns of Love, Origen's win made sense. Unicorns hadn't beat over Origen in a single game this split, and their revolving door of junglers has forced the team's macro play to slip away.
The problem comes out in the Vitality and Fnatic series because this time around, we weren't stumped. We weren't looking for the safe answer, but we got it anyway.
Enervation
"Not saying they are a favorite because they won against us, and we played pretty bad."
— Kévin "Shaunz" Ghanbarzadeh on Fnatic's chances of success in semifinals
Going into the quarterfinals, I had the most trepidation about the way in which Vitality have defined themselves. When coming up with a way to describe Vitality, I invariably went back to referring to them as a counter-drafting team. Rather than ban out an opponent's comfort champions, they've preferred to devise a strategy that counters them and creatively play around them.
This task usually requires a lot of research into the enemy team and time to consider any tweaks or changes. If Fnatic came to the EU LCS with multiple strategies after preparing for two weeks, Vitality would reasonably struggle to adapt and come up with the appropriate counter-strategy between games.
Fnatic haven't been particularly creative with their compositions all split. In fact, this was often why it was easy for Vitality to dismantle them. Fnatic played one composition until another team countered it. Then they would fixate on another, but it would take them time to devise one.
This series was no exception as Fnatic still defaulted to some of their favorite picks, like scaling utility AD carries and Poppy. In the series' first match, Fnatic played a heavy scaling composition that fell in line with what they preferred to do during the regular season, compensating for early game mistakes by waiting for the late game. Vitality's composition should have countered them, as they brought crowd control and champions that could have an earlier impact.
A few flaws came out in Vitality's plan of attack as Lucas "Cabochard " Simon-Meslet over-extended and Vitality chose a jungle pick that was weaker than Fnatic's in the early game despite choosing stronger lanes. Vitality failed to capitalize on any dive or pressure opportunities in the early game, which allowed Fnatic to accomplish the obvious goal of their composition and win out.
Team Vitality didn't alter their approach until Game 3, and more small mistakes cost them in Game 4 after Lee "Spirit" Dayoon reverted to more early aggressive picks. Vitality accepted fights in choke points against Lissandra, and Fnatic pulled through.
Over an extended series, Vitality demonstrated a failure to apply some of their creative drafting techniques to change the game — they opted to ban Spirit's surprise Kindred rather than draft around it. This series demonstrated the importance of the best-of-two format coming to Europe next split that will give teams like Vitality more game-to-game practice.
But it isn't fair to blame everything on slow adaptation. Vitality's Teleports weren't on par with Fnatic's. Fnatic seemed to coordinate vision and side wave pushes better than ever. It's just that their victory is slightly cheapened by Vitality's in-game mistakes. Fnatic could control the pace of most of the games because Vitality simply didn't challenge them early enough.
G2 Esports also lack series experience, and Fnatic may be able to punch through their style in a similar way. Yet G2's identity is less dependent on an ability to adapt a draft. They'll be tougher to crack.
The horns fall from the Unicorns
"We just pick stuff and it works why change it?"
—mithy on Origen's quarterfinal win
The above quote is the best way to describe Origen's playoff bout against the Unicorns of Love. A great deal of mechanical and strategic mistakes plagued the matches, but that didn't stop them from going decidedly in Origen's favor.
Origen's win, as it was more expected, requires slightly less of an explanation than Fnatic's. Tristan "PowerOfEvil" Schrage looked more comfortable within the framework on Origen with Patch 6.6 Orianna buffs and the increased viability of Varus. In Game 3, the opportunity even arose for him to style with Leblanc.
RELATED: PowerOfEvil talks preparing for the playoffs, xPeke, and their prep for their upcoming match against H2K
Following the matches, PowerOfEvil said on the broadcast that the break gave him an opportunity to observe how Enrique "xPeke" Cedeño Martínez plays scrims with Origen and see what the team requires of their mid laner. While Origen were far from a well-oiled machine, they seemed to work better in their defined style of playing around the bottom lane. Whether as a result of increased team play or redoubled efforts, Jesper "Zven" Svenningsen also performed a lot more like he did earlier in the split when I considered him to be Europe's best AD carry.
Similar credit goes to the Unicorns of Love's bottom lane, but overall Zven and mithy seemed to reach a higher level with skillshot timing and positioning. The Unicorns of Love lacked coordination around Baron and in mid lane fights, which ultimately allowed Origen to overcome them and sOAZ's Teleports came through more successfully than those of Tamás "Vizicsacsi" Kiss. While Origen reverted to mid lane comfort picks, Hampus "Fox" Myhre played an awkward Lissandra with inefficient ultimates.
This rush-mid-force-sloppy-fights Origen won't defeat H2K Gaming — unless H2K go for a reckless Baron fight as they've done on occasion. Origen's composition drafting still appears less tight with high priority on Gragas and Leblanc in conjunction with Sivir in Game 3.
Once again, we're entering a round of EU LCS playoffs where we don't need to go with our gut. We don't need a safe answer. G2 and H2K should best Fnatic and Origen to advance to the final in Rotterdam.
But Fnatic are still here, and the nagging feeling that they'll surprise us lingers on.
Kelsey Moser is a staff writer for theScore esports. You can follow her on Twitter.Rich Hickey gave a great talk at Strange Loop entitled Simple Made Easy. I strongly recommend you spend an hour and listen to this talk. It’s worth every second you give it. There will be some things in this talk that you will disagree with. When that happens, stop and think - think real hard - you probably don’t actually disagree. And if you do, you probably shouldn’t.
For instance, Rich says some seemingly disparaging things about TDD and Agile and Refactoring - the sacred cows of the Agile Community. If you are wedded to this community, you might react negatively. Don’t. Rich is not disparaging the practices. He is disparaging the religion - the mindlessness - the thoughtlessness.
Rich compares unit tests to guard rails. Then he makes a very good point. He says, when you have a bug, that bug got past your tests. And now what? Now you have to find the bug. And if the system isn’t simple, that’s not going to be easy. (Note I used the words simple and easy here. The start of Rich’s talk is about the very different definitions that these words have. I suggest you stop at this point and listen to the first ten minutes of his talk and then come back to this paragraph again.)
Rich makes the point that sprinters run fast, but not long. Then he says that Agile “solved” this problem by just firing the starting gun over and over again in quick succession. He grins, and the audience laughs. Then he goes on to say that continuous sprinting does not necessarily makes systems simple, and simplicity is the real key to speed.
He’s right of course. This is the same point that Martin Fowler made in his Flaccid Scrum article. And it’s the point that many of us in the Agile community have been making. That short iterations, without good technical practices, does not lead to fast development. Rather, it leads to a mess.
Rich makes fun of the idea that a suite of tests let’s you change the code. He says that tests are a safety net, nothing more. We TDDers know that a suite of tests is essential if we want to fearlessly change the code. But Rich is right about the safety net. A safety net can help you keep a system simple, if it’s already simple. But a safety net below a big ball of mud is going to be of marginal assistance in detangling the mess. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I want those tests! But the job ain’t gonna be easy. (again, that word).
Here’s another talk from Rich: Hammock Driven Development, in which he encourages us to think instead of just writing gobs and gobs of code.
So here’s the deal. Rich is concerned, and rightly so, that we have a culture of complexity. That when programmers are given a task, they race ahead and write masses of tangled code, using “easy” frameworks and tools, without giving the problem due thought. That we confuse easiness, with simplicity. (e.g. Rails is easy, it is not simple.) His complaint about tests is that we used them to replace thought. That we feel good about ourselves because we’ve written tests, and yet we haven’t actually given the time to the problem that the problem deserves. We haven’t made the problem simple. We’ve just done what was easy.
Now, truth be told, the Agile community, and the entire software community is infected with this disease. All too often we do what’s easy, at the expense of what’s simple. And so we make a mess. But that is not now, nor was it ever, a value of agile development. And it was certainly not a value of software craftsmanship! Indeed, doing what is simple as opposed to what is easy is one of the defining characteristics of a software craftsman.
In the end, I think Rich’s perception of TDD is skewed by what he sees out in the industry. Frankly, I think he’s missing a bet. I imagine he’d find that the practice was as helpful to him as it has been to me. Not as a way to avoid thinking and rushing towards a mess; but rather as a disciplined way of being thorough, careful, and thoughtful.
Now, ask yourself what TDD means to you. Is TDD a discipline you use to make things easy? Or is it a discipline you use in order to be thoughtful, careful, and to keep things simple?It took eight years and nine experiments with more 1,000 participants, but the results offer evidence that humans have some ability to anticipate the future.
"Of the various forms of ESP or psi, as we call it, precognition has always most intrigued me because it's the most magical," said Daryl Bem, professor of psychology emeritus, whose study will be published in the American Psychological Association's Journal of Personality and Social Psychology sometime next year.
"It most violates our notion of how the physical world works. The phenomena of modern quantum physics are just as mind-boggling, but they are so technical that most non-physicists don't know about them," said Bem, who studied physics before becoming a psychologist.
Publishing on this topic has gladdened the hearts of psi researchers but stumped doubting social psychologists, who cannot fault Bem's mainstream and widely accepted methodology. Bem became interested in the scientific study of psi (unexplained processes of information or energy transfer) when he was asked to find methodological flaws in one psi researcher's successful extrasensory perception studies -- and couldn't.
"The research and this article are specifically targeted to my fellow social psychologists," Bem said. "I designed the experiments to be persuasive, simple and transparent enough to encourage them to try replicating these experiments for themselves." Bem's innovation in the experiments reported in the article was to "take well-known phenomena in psychology and reverse their time course."
Rather than present a stimulus and measure a subject's response, Bem measured the subject's response before the stimulus was presented. In some earlier experiments by other psi researchers, participants were hooked up to physiological measuring equipment similar to a lie detector that measured emotional arousal. They sat before a computer and watched randomly selected images; some were erotic or very negative ("like the bloody photos you see on CSI") images.
"Your physiology jumps when you see one of those pictures after watching a series of landscapes or neutral pictures," Bem said. "But the remarkable finding is that your physiology jumps before the provocative picture actually appears on the screen -- even before the computer decides which picture to show you. What it shows is that your physiology can anticipate an upcoming event even though your conscious self might not."
Bem's nine experiments demonstrated similar unconscious influences from future events. For example, in one experiment, participants saw a list of words and were then given a test in which they tried to retype as many of the words as they could remember. Next, a computer randomly selected some of the words from the list and gave the participants practice exercises on them. When their earlier memory test results were checked, it was found that they had remembered more of the words they were to practice later than words they were not going to practice. In other words, the practice exercises had reached back in time to help them on the earlier test.
All but one of the nine experiments confirmed the hypothesis that psi exists. The odds against the combined results being due to chance or statistical flukes are about 74 billion to 1, according to Bem.
Throughout his career Bem has taken paths less traveled. In 1994 he co-authored a series of experiments on telepathy published in another APA journal, the Psychological Bulletin. "In my work, I have always pursued problems or puzzles that strike me as interesting and have not worried about how it might affect my career. I have a maverick approach to many psychological topics, and I consider myself fortunate that Cornell has always given me the freedom to do that."
Bem, who came to Cornell in 1978 and retired in 2007, said it is unusual for him to work on one topic for eight years, "but this one was a biggie and seemed like an appropriate thing to end my career with. The journal in which it will appear is the same journal that published my very first article 50 years ago."
Bem said he conducted the experiments because he believed that existing research strongly implied that precognition is real. "I went in optimistic that I would be able to find it with these experiments," he said. "After I started getting positive results, my undergraduate research team seemed puzzled by my enthusiasm and said, 'But didn't you tell us you thought these would work?'
"I said yes, but when I actually see them work, that's very different."At a stage event on Saturday to thank fans for the success of The Next Generation Patlabor: Shuto Kessen (Capital City Battle) film, director Mamoru Oshii (pictured center in image at right) announced that a director's cut version of the film will open in Japanese theaters on October 10.
To explain the director's cut, Oshii said at the stage event, "Usually with films, when they are completed, things like which scenes to cut and which to keep are decided between the director and producer, but this time a lot happened. Because we wanted to try to save face, we made two versions."
The director's cut will contain 27 minutes of extra footage.
The Next Generation Patlabor: Shuto Kessen film opened in Japan on May 1.
The Next Generation -Patlabor- project is not a remake of the earlier Patlabor anime stories, but a completely new work. The story is set in Tokyo in 2013, and it represents the "third generation" of Patlabor. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police has disbanded its Section 2 Division 1 of police robots, and Section 2 Division 2 barely survived the budget cuts due to the long recession. The film centers on the Section 2 team fighting against a terrorist group that has taken all of the 10 million residents of Tokyo hostage by using a state-of-the-art self defense helicopter.
The project began with a seven-part series, which is composed of the "episode 0" and 12 full episodes helmed by chief director Mamoru Oshii and other directors. Each full episode is about 48 minutes long. Oshii directed and wrote the feature-length film, which runs about 100 minutes long.
Former Hello! Project singer and actress Erina Mano stars as pilot Akira Izumino (as opposed to the earlier anime's heroine Noa Izumi). The cast also includes Seiji Fukushi as Yūma Shiobara, Rina Oota as Ekaterina Krachevna Kankaeva ("Kasha") from Russia, Shigeru Chiba reprising his anime role as maintenance crew chief Shigeo Shiba, and Toshio Kakei as Captain Keiji Gotōda (the successor to the anime's Captain Kiichi Gotō).
The Patlabor franchise's original concept of police officers piloting robotic mecha (patrol labors or "Patlabors") was developed by HEADGEAR, a group consisting of director Oshii ( Ghost in the Shell, Sky Crawlers ), script writer Kazunori Ito (.hack, Dirty Pair ), mecha designer Yutaka Izubuchi ( Eureka Seven, Mobile Suit Gundam franchise), character designer Akemi Takada ( Kimagure Orange Road, Urusei Yatsura, Fancy Lala ), and manga creator Masami Yuuki ( Birdy the Mighty ). The franchise spawned two original video anime, a television anime series, and three anime films. The last anime film, Patlabor WXIII, was released in theaters in Japan in 2002.
Oshii commented that the seven-part series would have a "slapstick" ambiance, while the feature film will be serious. Oshii and Kei Yamamura wrote the scripts for the series, and Kenji Kawai returned to the franchise to compose the music for both the series and the feature film.
Source: Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web via Hachima KikōOver the course of Formula One’s grand 65 year history numerous manufacturers have been and gone after numerous visits to the grid over the years—BMW, Mercedes and Ford have all come and gone over the years, but Honda in particular have dipped in and out of the sport with, generally speaking, plenty of success.
Honda’s love affair with Formula One began in 1964 only four years after they began as a car company. The RA271 began development in 1962 and when it arrived in the paddock in 1964, Honda caught everyone’s attention by being one of the only teams to create their own chassis and engine together; only BRM and Ferrari were doing this at the time.
Only a year after their first F1 venture they got their first win with American driver Richie Ginther; the RA272 helped him to victory in the 1965 Mexican Grand Prix. New rules in 1966 came in with regards to engine capacity. Honda built the RA273 with a V12, but it turned out to be horribly unreliable.
Honda returned to the top step of the podium in 1967 with John Surtees at the wheel and in only its first race the RA300 was a success, winning the Italian Grand Prix. The chassis was partly developed by Lola and was given the nickname ‘Hondola’. The year after, only two podiums came their way and in the 1968 French Grand Prix Jo Schlesser was driving the new RA302, but after only a handful of laps he had a massive crash and lost his life, prompting Honda to leave Formula One after the 1968 season.
Honda returned to Formula One in 1983 with the Spirit team, but only lasted the solitary |
(The chemicals are also used in agriculture, but staff noted within city limits their primary use is on turf grass.)
The change, which comes into effect later this month, means neonicotinoids will no longer be allowed in the city, even in cases of an infestation. The change comes in the middle of the season when the chemical is generally used.
Reimer said there had been "intense media interest in adding this to our health bylaw," including growing public awareness on the importance of pollinators and a CBC News story on the chafer beetle concerns.
"That really spurred us," she said. "[Staff] were quite excited to... work with the industry and with individuals to make sure that we're not having an undue, or any impact on bees if we can avoid it."
A portion of the flyer distributed by landscaping company Cutting Edge Vancouver to homes on the city's West Side, comparing Merit insecticide to the nematode treatment of chafer beetles. (CBC)
600 landscapers notified
City staff have been discussing the change with the B.C. Landscape and Nursery Association and others, according to a staff report.
"We think this ban has a significant benefit by taking one of the toxins out of our system," said Doug Smith, acting director of sustainability for the City of Vancouver, at council on Tuesday.
The city plans to send information about the change to the approximately 600 landscapers and retail businesses registered in the city.
It has also extended the exemption to watering restrictions available for homeowners who use nematodes to control chafer beetles — so they can use extra water for three weeks, rather than just two.
NPA Counc. Elizabeth Ball said that was key, since nematodes require a moist lawn.
"I think it's really important that we don't have poison but do have an alternative that is allowed to work."[easyazon_image add_to_cart=”yes” align=”center” asin=”0425272311″ cloaking=”default” height=”500″ localization=”yes” locale=”US” nofollow=”default” new_window=”default” src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51luChvxTXL.jpg” tag=”gimmethatbook-20″ width=”333″]
The Cost of Cutting was a book I picked up for a pleasure read from the library. Ruggieri also wrote Confessions of a Surgeon, which I enjoyed very much. The difference between the two books is that Cost is mostly about the money, and directly blames healthcare/insurance/government for the woes of doctors, and Confessions is mostly about activity in the hospital; more medicine oriented.
Cost will preface each chapter with a medical case and then peel away layers, explaining what the patient needs, how he is supposed to pay for it, how much profit the hospital will make (or not), and then Ruggieri ultimately rails against the system. I found this style of writing to be both good and bad.
I’ll admit, I picked this book up to gain some insight into hospitals and learn more about medical billing. There were a lot more facts and figures about healthcare than surgery, and this made for a rather flat book at times. That being said, I did learn a lot of interesting and scary things, such as: medical equipment sales reps may be INSIDE the surgery suite, guiding the surgeon as he uses robotic arms or the DaVinci system for the first time! Also: Medicare and Medicaid pays such small amounts for hospital stays that doctors can “cherry pick” which cases they will take…or not. The needs of the patient fall by the wayside if that person has no insurance at all, and with the passing of the Obamacare /Affordable Health Act, hospitals are forced to give up profits to handle cases, thereby forcing doctors in turn to take cases regardless of patient needs or wants.
For example: A woman needs surgery, and her doctor sends her to a specialist. The specialist has operating privileges at 2 hospitals. The hospital accountants/powers that be are pushing more surgeries towards Hospital One for profit. thus the surgeon tells the patient she will be going to Hospital One. This woman is upset because she heard bad things about the place, a friend of hers got awful care, and refuses to go there. The surgeon is caught in the middle between his patient’s wish and his boss. In the book, the patient wants to go to her preferred place, Hospital Two, and the surgeon gets upbraided for it. He strongly advises the woman to choose Hospital One, and she does, reluctantly. I’ll let you read how things work out yourself…no spoilers!
This is not how I’d like my surgery/medical care to be handled–would you? And let’s not even get started on hospital billing–how obscure codes control how things are handled by the insurance. Medical billing is a lucrative practice, a long cry from the “old days” when a doctor would give you a handwritten bill. We have all heard about the $300 aspirin or $1000 bandage billed to someone who has been in the hospital.
Ruggieri offers up solutions on how to make things better, and explains why hospitals are all about profits instead of medicine. Even if you have no interest in medical stories, I urge you to read this, simply to gain more awareness of how to protect yourself should you need surgery. Leave everything in the doctor’s hands? The implications are truly frightening.
[easyazon_link asin=”0425272311″ locale=”US” new_window=”default” nofollow=”default” tag=”gimmethatbook-20″ add_to_cart=”yes” cloaking=”default” localization=”yes” popups=”yes”]Want your own copy? Pick it up here.[/easyazon_link]
Also, if you haven’t already, download the Kindle reading app here.1 Vincent Janssen in action for the Netherlands
Borussia Monchengladbach are putting together a formal offer of £12m for Tottenham striker Vincent Janssen.
The German club’s interest in the Dutchman has been reported in recent days and they are ready to provide him with a route out of London.
Gladbach are fans of the 23-year-old and believe he could thrive in the Bundesliga if given time to settle.
The German side are ready to firm up their interest now too with an offer that, according to Bild, will be around £12m.
That amount may well prove too low for Tottenham, though, who coughed up £17m only a year ago to sign Janssen from AZ Alkmaar.
However, Gladbach will argue the player’s value has dropped over the past year after he managed just two Premier League goals last season.QuotaFactory recently published an article about the best ways to improve the performance of sales reps, which is something many B2B companies currently underscore. Applying the proper sales techniques determines the success not only of individual callers but the whole company as well. And we’re sure that these techniques can provide a good starting point for the two parties to reach those numbers before the year ends.
Tip #1: Plan and Share a Vision with your Sales Reps.
This may be one of the single most motivating factors for sales reps, especially those new to the field. Many reps do not realize how many times they need to hear “no” before they hear a “yes” and that can be defeated, leading them to lose faith in themselves and their abilities. Creating and sharing a vision with your reps allows them to see the end goal. This should not only pertain to their sales process but should also incorporate into their career aspirations and even life goals.
If people can envision themselves as successful, and have a written plan to do so, then the likelihood of success is heightened greatly. Let this be your marketing guide in your planning out your campaign.
Tip #2: Your Sales Meetings are not Effective.
How many times have you sat in a weekly or daily meeting droning over the same action items over and over? Now think about how useful you find these meetings or how much you’re actually paying attention. if your answer was very little, your sales reps are likely thinking the same.
Rather than just going over the same KPIs, quotas and announcements, use your meetings as time to train. Rather than three half-hour meetings a week, have one hour-and-a-half meeting and use this as an opportunity to foster an effective environment of peer coaching and collaboration. Have reps do mock calls, handle objections, and brainstorm new unique ways to approach prospects in this time
Tip #3: Share Best Practices.
Now this one may seem so basic that it probably shouldn’t belong here. However, the funny thing about salespeople is that, by nature, we do not like sharing tricks of the trade with our colleagues because — as we’re all familiar with — in sales, one day a technique will work, and three weeks later, your prospects will turn numb to them.
Once a sales rep uncovers a trick of the trade, they usually want to keep it to themselves and utilize it for as long as possible. If they share their tip, they think it will circulate and sooner or later will no longer work.
During your weekly meeting that I outlined above, encourage each of your sales reps to share at least one best practice. They may be hesitant at first, however, they will soon find that their numbers will rise.
While they may be giving up a “trade secret” of their own, they’re gaining much more to apply to their call plans and will be excited to continue to share and learn from their peers.
Here’s our share, case studies on How to Run a Marketing Campaign Successfully:
Singaporean Research and Consulting Company Strides into US Market with Callbox
Australian Software Vendor Taps Callbox to Fast-track Sales in Asia-Pacific
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Grab a copy of our FREE EBOOK, The Ultimate Lead Generation Kit Ebook! Updated with links to the best and latest techniques that will help generate quality sales leads for your businessMedia playback is unsupported on your device Media caption As Jonathan Beale reports, the last troops left by air
The last UK combat troops have left Afghanistan, as polls suggest more than half of UK and US respondents do not think the operation was "worthwhile".
The BBC polls found that 68% in the UK said involvement was not worthwhile, while in the US, 51% said it was not.
The end of British combat operations was announced on Sunday with Camp Bastion handed over to Afghan control. The final UK troops left on Monday.
PM David Cameron said Britain should be "incredibly proud".
Image copyright PA Image caption Wing Cdr Matt Radnall, of the RAF, carried the union jack as he boarded a helicopter to leave Camp Bastion
The BBC telephone poll of 1,000 UK adults, carried out from 24-26 October, found 42% thought Britain was "less safe" as a result of the 13-year campaign.
Responses showed 14% thought the UK was safer as a result of the international intervention in Afghanistan, and 39% thought there was "no real difference".
The telephone poll in the US surveyed 1,002 adults. Asked the same question about whether or not their country was safer, 28% said it was, while 25% said it was "less safe".
The largest percentage in the US, 43%, felt there was no difference.
In the UK, 24% said they thought Britain's involvement was worthwhile, while in the US, 45% said their own involvement was worthwhile.
In addition, 24% in the UK said the deployment of troops had left Afghanistan "better off", 25% said the country was "worse off" and 44% said there was no real difference.
BBC opinion poll UK questions
The US poll found that 34% thought Afghanistan was "better off", with 20% saying it was "worse off" and 43% saying there was no real difference.
In answer to another question, 31% in the UK said they were somewhat or very confident Afghanistan could "protect its citizens without the help of UK forces", while 64% said they were not so confident or not confident at all.
In the US, 31% also said they were confident of that, with 66% not confident.
'Brighter future'
The final UK troops left by air, with the last holding the union jack.
The government has said they will not return to fight in Afghanistan "under any circumstances".
The UK's most senior officer in Helmand, Brig Rob Thomson, said: "We can be proud of what we have achieved here. There is no doubt that we have contributed to a brighter future for Afghanistan."
Mr Cameron said: "When al-Qaeda attacked the twin towers in 2001, they planned that attack from Afghanistan, operating freely under the Taliban regime.
"Our incredible servicemen and women have driven al-Qaeda out and they have built up and trained the Afghan forces, none of which even existed in 2001, so that the Afghans can take control of their own security."
He added: "We should be incredibly proud of all they have done to keep our country safe."
Analysis
By Jonathan Beale, BBC defence correspondent
The last UK forces in Camp Bastion began their pull-out in the early hours of Monday morning.
Once their main base in Helmand housing thousands of troops, it was, in the final hours, occupied by just a few hundred UK soldiers and US marines.
It was a carefully rehearsed manoeuvre that had taken months to plan.
As British forces left their watchtowers they were replaced by Afghan soldiers who will now be left to guard Bastion and fight the Taliban on their own.
At just before midday the final wave of UK and US helicopters took off.
In less than an hour they had landed back in Kandahar, their final staging post before the long journey home.
The last UK commander in Helmand, Brig Rob Thomson, expressed his pride and relief when they'd all arrived safely.
It marks not just the end of their mission but the end of Britain's 13-year war in Afghanistan - and British forces have been told they will not be returning.
'No guarantee'
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon told the BBC that troops were coming home with their "heads held high", having helped make Afghanistan a "much better place".
He said the country was no longer a "safe haven" for extremist group al-Qaeda and Afghans now had a "chance of a better future".
He said there was "no guarantee" Afghanistan would "be safe and stable forever", but the Afghan government now had 300,000 soldiers and police officers.
Image copyright PA Image caption The union jack was lowered at a ceremony on Sunday
Image copyright AFP Image caption US Marines have left their part of the site, known as Camp Leatherneck
Asked if the Afghan army might collapse, as parts of the Iraqi army did in the face of Islamic State militants, Mr Fallon said Iraq's forces were "seen as sectarian" while the Afghan army had the "support of the whole population".
He said the UK was not "walking away entirely" and would continue to give help and support, including financial aid and military training.
The Taliban insurgency continues, and Afghan police said four of its officers had been killed and at least 10 were taken hostage when militants attacked a compound in the northern Badakhshan Province on Sunday.
Elsewhere, Maj Gen Richard Nugee, one of Britain's highest-ranking commanders in Afghanistan, said Afghan forces had proved they could "hold their ground" and defeat the Taliban.
At the scene
Robert Hall in Royal Wootton Bassett
It's a busy Monday on Wootton Bassett High Street, but pride in the past burns brightly here.
More than three years after the last repatriation cortege passed through, residents still talk of the days when the town fell silent and the bell tolled for the fallen.
Town councillor Chris Wannall told me there was never any formal organisation, just a spontaneous desire to show support, which drew thousands from every corner of the UK.
Today, this is Royal Wootton Bassett, but this community never sought honour or media attention. Just the quiet satisfaction that it had done its duty.
Asked about the UK's 13-year military operation, he added: "Was it worth it? It's always difficult to say for those who have lost people here, but actually this country is a far better place and I believe we're safer in Britain."
General Sir Mike Jackson, former Chief of the General Staff of the British army, told BBC News that Afghanistan "without doubt is a better place than it was in the aftermath of 9/11."
He added: "Things are not perfect, of course, and there is a security problem, which has not yet been resolved, but I am not going to stand here and say I don't believe Afghanistan is not the better for the blood and the treasure… that's been expended."
Labour leader Ed Miliband said: "All those who served did so to help ensure Afghanistan could no longer be used as a safe haven for terrorists."
But former Labour Deputy Prime Minister Lord Prescott has questioned whether the results "justified" the 453 UK deaths.
Writing in the Daily Mirror, Lord Prescott, who was in the cabinet that sent British troops to Afghanistan in 2001, said: "I respect the thousands of gallant men and women who went to Afghanistan and Iraq to save lives and restore peace.
UK troops in Afghanistan 140,000 UK troops served £21.5bn Total operational cost 453 UK troops killed
108 died in 2009 - the worst year
470 mentors staying on MOD
"But they teach us that being the world's policeman carries a heavy price and does not justify the heavy loss of lives."
Ian Sadler, of the Military Families Support Group, said UK troops "could've come out a lot sooner".
Mr Sadler, whose son Jack was killed in Afghanistan in 2007, said Britain should not have tried to "construct a new nation" in Afghanistan, and UK forces should have left after driving al-Qaeda out of its training areas.
UK forces were part of a US-led coalition which toppled the ruling Taliban in 2001, following the 9/11 attacks in the US.
After 9/11, US President George W Bush demanded the Taliban hand over any leaders of al-Qaeda - the militant group which later claimed responsibility for the attacks - in Afghanistan, but the Taliban did not immediately comply.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Defence Secretary Michael Fallon hails the "tremendous sacrifice" made by British troops
Taliban leaders called for talks, but President Bush said there would be "no negotiations" and military action started on 7 October.
Camp Bastion, in Helmand province, was the UK's main Afghan base from 2006.
At the time it opened, the UK said its forces would be there to protect the reconstruction of the country, but they got caught up in the struggle against the Taliban.“Naturally, we must clean out the paragraphs enacted due to the directive. We will gladly adhere to this decision,” Kiuru comments.
Krista Kiuru (SDP), the Minister of Education, Science and Communications, has welcomed the decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CURIA) to prohibit telecommunications service providers from retaining subscriber data. Finns' confidence in the secrecy of correspondence, she underlines, has always been strong.
The CURIA on Tuesday stated that the Data Retention Directive, adopted in 2006, interferes in a “particularly serious manner with the fundamental rights to respect for private life and to the protection of personal data”. Such data indicate with whom subscribers have communicated and where such communications have taken place.
“Those data, taken as a whole, may provide very precise information on the private lives of the persons whose data are retained, such as the habits of everyday life, permanent or temporary places of residence, daily or other movements, activities carried out, social relationships and the social environments frequented,” the CURIA explains.
In addition, the fact that no prior notice is required for the retention of the data, subscribers may at present feel that their private lives are under constant surveillance, the court highlights.
The decision of the court is significant, says Reijo Aarnio, the Data Protection Ombudsman of Finland. “The decision is significant, and it may widely encourage improvements in the protection of citizens' privacy. The decision […] reflects European values in a beautiful way.”
Tuomas Ojanen, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Helsinki, agrees, pointing out that European courts have seldom deemed a prior EU statute invalid on grounds of violations of fundamental and human rights.
“This demonstrates that not everything is acceptable with respect to fundamental rights, not even in matters as significant as combating and preventing terrorism and serious crime.”
For Finland, Ojanen adds, the ruling is an apt reminder that the rights should be taken into account in similar legislative projects. “Finland has for its part been needlessly eager to advocate such projects,” he says.
In addition, the ruling may have an impact on other legislative projects, such as the ongoing preparatory work on the online surveillance law. “The decision is a fateful statement by a court of justice that the unlimited mass processing, retention and surveillance of the communications of people is not acceptable with respect to fundamental and human rights – even for an acceptable reason. A noble or important end does not justify the means,” interprets Ojanen.
Kalle Koponen, Susanna Reinboth, Petri Sajari – HS
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
© HELSINGIN SANOMAT
Photo: Jarno Mela / LehtikuvaThe chairman of D.C.'s police union says the diversion of officers to watch over protesters in Freedom Plaza, McPherson Square, and elsewhere in the city have resulted in more crime than last year.
The union representing D.C. police claims crime in the District is up, in part because officers are being pulled from neighborhood patrols and reassigned to monitor the Occupy D.C. protests.
Kristopher Baumann, chairman of D.C.'s Fraternal Order of Police wrote a letter to Mayor Vincent Gray stating violent crime is up by 17% and overall crime is up by 14% since protesters moved into the city 3 months ago.
The letter scolded Mayor Gray saying, “Your failure to warn District residents about a double digit spike in violent crime is inexcusable. The public has a right to know when crime is increasing and public awareness can facilitate crime prevention."
Baumann referenced Mayor Gray's December 15 interview with NewsTalk's Bruce Depuyt in the letter, saying the mayor's comments about the number of MPD officers redeployed to police the Occupy protesters was misleading. According to Baumann, crime has risen around the city because neighborhood police officers have been diverted to the political protests.
Gray did say during the interview that he'd like the federal government to chip in to pay for the cost of added security surrounding the political protests that have been encamped in the city since October. In an interview with News4's Tom Sherwood, he also acknowledged that the public has been "losing patience" with the movement.
In a strongly-worded conclusion, the police union chairman called for Mayor Gray to apologize for making misleading statements about the city's crime numbers.
On Wednesday, the National Park Service confirmed that protesters in Freedom Plaza have been issued a permit to stay in downtown D.C. until February 28.Full disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.?
It's time for another guest post from Fi3M's most frequent guest contributor, Idahosa, of The Mimic Method.
Since I'm currently working on improving (among other things) my accent in various languages, this post is very timely for myself! I'll get into using Soundcloud too for feedback on the specific problems I need to fix (such as what I say in my next video on Monday) and see if I can help others too. Over to Idahosa again:
In my first guest post on this blog – The Flow of Fluency: How to Freestyle Rap in a Foreign Language – I discussed my approach of learning language through rapping and mimicry. In my second guest post – How I learned to rap in Four languages I don't speak in one night using Free Application “Audacity”– I go into detail about my techniques for entraining the acoustic patterns, or “Flow”, of a foreign language through song training. In both of these posts, I repeatedly harp on one central theme: Language is about sound.
As obvious a statement this may be, I find myself repeating it often, as the adult language learning conversation seems to focus on everything but sound. The forums are overrun with posts discussing the best ways to learn grammar and memorize vocabulary and characters, but rarely does anyone go into any useful detail about how things sound.
Of course, part of the problem is that most of the conversation is written, and clearly communicating how something sounds through writing alone can be tricky, if not impossible. After all, we are talking about sound, and sound needs to be heard.
Fortunately, The Social Web Revolution has enabled us to more easily generate, share and engage multimedia content. In this post, I will discuss what I consider to be the best tool for building conversations around sound – Soundcloud. I will describe in detail how you can use Soundcloud to:
Get valuable feedback on your language abilities from anyone for free.
Teach over 100 students for profit with less than 4 hours of work/week.
Get ready for the Sound Education Revolution….
An Introduction to Soundcloud
Soundcloud is a webservice for sharing sounds, and their stated mission is to “unmute the web”. It's mostly used by musicians to upload, manage, and share their original works. There is also a large social element to the service, as musicians can nurture their fan-base by encouraging people to “follow” their profiles.
What really sets Soundcloud apart, however, is its timed-comments feature. The elegant and customizable Soundcloud player displays a visual waveform of the audio signal and allows you to easily comment at a precise moment within the track by clicking on the waveform. Other users can then respond inline to your comment and build a conversation around a that sound.
Below is a Soundcloud track for my “Flow Anthem,” where I rap in eight different languages. Click on the little profile pictures on the bottom to see the conversations that are taking place around this song.
As far as I know, people only really use Soundcloud to share music like this, but you've probably already begun imagining its language-learning potential. To give you a better idea of how I personally use Soundcloud to learn and teach languages, I have made this post interactive and embedded it with several soundcloud tracks for you to comment on, so please take a moment to create your free Soundcloud account (you can login with facebook too) or login if you already have an account.
Sign into Soundcloud with Facebook
Seriously, don't blow this off. You'll get much more out of this post if you login and join the conversation.
Why You Should Be Recording Yourself Speaking Your Target Language All the Time
Remember your shock and self-disgust the first time you heard your voice on an answering machine “Oh my God, that's how I sound?” Personally, I felt betrayed. Here I was, spending my entire life calling all these people around me “Friends” and “loved ones”, yet apparently none of them ever cared about me enough to let me know that I sounded like a complete goober moron.
Of course, this is a normal reaction. We hear our own voices differently from others due to the fact that our ears and vocal chords are attached to the same physical body. Also, our thoughts are always clearer inside of our own heads than they are when we voice them to the outside, hence the existence of speech impediments like mumbling and slurring.
This being the case, you cannot trust your own sense of hearing for feedback on your language ability.
If you are serious about learning a new way to communicate with others through sound, you need to figure out what other people are actually hearing when you talk to them, and the only way to do that is to record yourself.
When was the last time you recorded yourself speaking your target language? Have you ever recorded yourself speaking another language? If you're like most people, you probably never have.
Let's change that now.
Using Soundcloud to Solicit Feedback on Your Language Skills
Especially if you're learning a foreign language from a book, you never quite know whether your saying something correctly or not. You absolutely NEED an outside opinion, but who will you ask?
You might have some friends or acquaintances who know the language or speak it fluently, but you're not going to call them up every ten minutes to ask them if your pronouncing a word properly. You could record yourself and send an email, but if you're sending anything more than 30 seconds long, the person will have to go through the trouble of:
Downloading your file and opening it in your desktop media player
Noting your errors and their respective time-stamps
Typing everything up in a well-formatted email report.
It would take a really good friend to go through all that trouble on a regular basis, and trust me – good friends are hard to come by these days (I still can't believe you guys never told me I had a lisp!)
Compared to this old-timey way of doing things through email, giving feedback on Soundcloud is supersonically fast. All the other person has to do is press play to listen, then click on the point in the waveform where he or she wants to give feedback and type it out.
Here are some examples of how I have personally used to Soundcloud to receive feedback on my language ability. I've left the tracks open to comments, so please feel free to leave your own feedback.
Pronunciation
I'm currently learning French, and in accordance with The Mimic Method Language Approach, my first step was to learn a few rap songs. Here's a recording of one of the first songs I learned: “La Vie est Brutale” by Kery James. I asked my native French speaking friend to point out the parts that “didn't sound authentic” to him and to explain why if he could.
Grammar
I am currently in Montreal learning French. I'm experimenting to see if I can rely entirely on mimicry to learn the language and not explicitly study any grammar or writing. Instead, I just ask people in English how to say stuff (most people here are bilingual) and mimic the sounds they make. Two weeks in, I did a recording of myself describing my current progress and difficulties learning French. I then shared it with a friend to correct my grammar and suggest better ways of saying things.
Meaning
I teach this Beijing rap song – 北京晚报 – in my Flow of Mandarin course (Note: Flow courses are currently discontinued, you can learn about my new courses here), but since it's pretty underground (like most Chinese rap), I couldn't find the lyrics anywhere online. So I transcribed what I knew and sent it to my brother who knows more Mandarin than me to fill in the blanks. To save him time, I commented in track on the words I didn't know.
These are just a few examples of how the simple functionality of centering conversations around sound can be extremely useful for the language-learning process. Remember, you are running a huge risk if you are learning a language in a vacuum. As an adult learner coming from a completely different linguistic system, it is inevitable that you will mishear and misspeak. To prevent the development of bad habits, an efficient, sound-based feedback system is absolutely vital.
How to Get Feedback On Your Language Skills From Anyone For Free
Another great feature of Soundcloud is its privacy options. If you want to share with a friend privately, you have the options to limit access to the file only to him or her. If, however, you wanted to crowdsource your language education, you can make your track public and share it with anyone you wish.
To get feedback from anyone for free, do the following:
Upload your recording and include written instructions for what you want feedback on in the track description (include the language as a tag too).
Click the share button and use any of the quick links to promote your track to your personal blog or social networks like Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest. Soundcloud integrates with these services, so for example, a Facebook friend can comment on your track without having to leave Facebook.
Because Soundcloud's design is so elegant, people actually like to give feedback because it makes them feel slick. Also, when people know about something, they like to give advice on it, as long as the actual act of giving advice is convenient.
Spread your sounds, and people will comment. Make sure to “follow” and maintain contact with anyone who gives you really helpful feedback. If they have their own tracks, comment on theirs to return the favor. By the way, if any haters or trolls want to rain on your parade, just click the “mute” button.
How To Privately Tutor Over 100 Students in less than 4 hours a Week
The traditional means of teaching language are becoming obsolete. Given the current technologies for recordings, manipulating, sharing and engaging sound, there is no reason to rely on the old and inefficient ways of doing things.
Between the four courses in my Flow Series (Spanish, French, Mandarin, Portuguese), I have over 100 students, and I spend less that 4 hours per week managing them (Note: Flow courses are currently discontinued, you can learn about my new courses here). I offer a 100% money-back-guarantee on all my courses, and so far I've only had one refund request, so it's certainly not negligence that allows me do this. On the contrary, I make a point to be as attentive as possible to all of my students, and they have been extremely satisfied.
How do I do it? Soundclound baby!
Private tutoring, whether via Skype or in person, has many disadvantages. Some deal-breakers for me are that it is:
Time-Consuming : Aside from the time you spend actually meeting with the person, you also have to spend time preparing lessons interesting enough to keep the student entertained for the entire session.
: Aside from the time you spend actually meeting with the person, you also have to spend time preparing lessons interesting enough to keep the student entertained for the entire session. Time/Space-Inflexible : You often lose students because your schedules don't match up or because you can't physically make it to a meeting location or computer.
: You often lose students because your schedules don't match up or because you can't physically make it to a meeting location or computer. Not Scalable : due to these time limitations, you can only manage so many students at once. You can do group classes, but each person you add greatly reduces from the experience for the others.
: due to these time limitations, you can only manage so many students at once. You can do group classes, but each person you add greatly reduces from the experience for the others. Expensive for the student (thus unstable income source for you): Since you can't manage more than a handful of students at a time, you're going to have to charge high rates to make any real money. People are willing to pay $20-40/hr for private instruction at the beginning, but over time the money adds up. Pretty soon, people will start looking at you like a very non-essential utility charge.
The root to all these problems is the fact that you have to meet with the student in person. Remove the face-to-face factor from the equation and all of a sudden everything is infinitely more flexible.
In my Flow Series Courses, for example, all my learning materials are hosted online for the student to work through at his or her own pace. At the end of each lesson, they record themselves performing an activity per my instructions and submit the recording to my Soundcloud Dropbox. Then at least once a day, I go through my dropbox and provide feedback.
Here's an example “Sound Primer” submission from a Flow of Spanish student. The Sound Primer Unit goes into detail about the articulation of every possible Spanish phoneme, and for the final exercise, I have the student record him or herself saying each of the vowels as well as the consonant sounds that most English speakers struggle with. I then pinpoint each sound they personally struggle with and provide instructions on how to correct their mistakes.
With the exception of the Sound Primer, the rest of my submissions are of people singing or rapping in their target language. In the lesson materials, I include reduced tempo version of the songs and phonetically break down each syllable exactly as it is articulated by the original artist. Having corrected over 1,000 submissions of the same songs already, I can pinpoint each and every syllable error and give step-by-step instructions on how to fix it.
Take these examples from The Flow of Spanish students. As useful as this feedback was to the student, it only took me a few minutes to complete (Note: I reposted these tracks and feedback anonymously to protect the identity of my students).
How to Build Automation into your Language Teaching Business Through Soundcloud
One major reason my courses are centered around song-instruction is because it has so many controls. Since everyone is learning the same songs, and most students come from an English speaking background, I can predict most of the mistakes people are going to make.
In fact, I've created sections in my courses that list all the “English Speaker Tendencies” and provides tips for correcting them, so when a student commits one of these errors, I bring up my cheat sheet.txt file and copy/paste the link to save myself the time of writing out the instructions each time.
Here's an example of a Flow of Spanish student committing two of the most common English speaker tendencies in Spanish – reducing the /a/ vowel on an unstressed syllable (saying “uh” instead of “ah”) and diphthongizing the /e/ vowel to add an /i/ to the end of it. My tips were copy/pasted from previous submissions from students making the exact same error.
Here's another example of automation at work: I am currently beta testing The Flow of Mandarin, and in my own analysis of Mandarin speech, I concluded that all speech can be broken down into natural groups of 1,2, or 3 syllables. In the course, I review each possible permutation and helps the student identify which ones he struggles with most.
The techniques are still experimental, so to gather more data I'm having my students send in recordings of themselves reading anything they are unsure about in Mandarin so that I can give them feedback on their tonal pronunciation. Here's an example submission:
Take note of all the lingo. It may not make sense to you, but it makes sense to the student because all these terms were covered at the beginning of the course. Incorporate as much automation as you can without making things confusing for the student. Also, encourage asking questions on the tracks to keep the conversation in one place, and make sure to always provide positive encourage along with constructive criticism.
Language and Music Educators, Step Up Your Game!
I use a series of other web tools in concert with Soundcloud to automate private language instruction as much as I can without taking away from the student's experience. In stark contrast to the traditional face-to-face model of instruction, my |
the construction of TCF Bank Stadium, and has been given the go-ahead to borrow as much as $89 million to complete the Athletes Village project.
Completion of the recreation facilities is planned for November 2017. The track’s opening is set for August 2018.Piercings convey low intelligence and greater creativity, according to research
You’ll have had this experience – you meet a new person and within moments you feel good or bad vibes about them. This is you performing “thin slicing” – deducing information about a person based on “tells”, some more obvious than others.
Psychologists have studied this process in detail. For example, they’ve shown that we form a sense of whether a stranger is trustworthy in less than one tenth of a second. With some accuracy, we can also deduce rapidly more specific information such as their intelligence and sexual orientation.
This post delves into our archive and beyond to digest the science of first impressions:
People who make more eye contact are perceived as more intelligent
Psychologists at Northeastern University asked participants to watch five-minute videos of strangers chatting to each other in pairs, and then to rate the strangers’ intelligence. People in the videos who made more eye contact with their conversational partner, especially while talking, and to a lesser extent while listening, tended to be perceived as more intelligent. Other research has found that people who avoid eye contact are judged to be insincere and lacking in conscientiousness (this last result was found for women, but not men). Don’t go too far with the eye contact though – if you lock on and don’t let go, people will likely assume you’re psychopathic.
Men with brown eyes are perceived as more dominant, but it’s not because their eyes are brown
White men with brown eyes are perceived to be more dominant than their blue-eyed counterparts, according to a 2010 study. However, a blue-eyed man looking to make himself appear more dominant would be wasting his time investing in brown-coloured contact lenses. The study by Karel Kleisner and colleagues at Charles University in the Czech Republic found that brown iris colour seems to co-occur with some other aspect of facial appearance that triggers in others the perception of dominance.
Faster speakers are judged to be more competent
Back in the 70s, researchers created over fifty synthetic voices and played them to participants at various speeds. Increasing speech rate led participants to assume the owner of the voice was more competent. Similarly, in another study conducted during the same decade, researchers played their participants recordings of male interviewees, either slowed down by 30 per cent or at the normal rate. The participants who were played the slowed-down tapes rated the interviewees as less truthful, less fluent, and less persuasive. Other research has shown that people who “um” and “ah” a lot are assumed to not know what they’re talking about.
Dressing smartly communicates success
Last year researchers asked participants to rate the same man who was shown either wearing an off-the-peg suit or a bespoke suit. When seen wearing the bespoke suit, the man was rated as more confident and successful. Other research has shown that people assume that the same job candidate in formal wear will be more likely to earn a higher salary and win promotion, as compared to when he looks more scruffy.
Smartness and the appearance of wealth brings influence
A study at Tilburg University showed that people wearing a luxury branded shirt (Tommy Hilfiger or Lacoste) were perceived as wealthier and higher status (than people wearing a non-branded or non-luxury shirt); more successful at getting passers-by to complete a questionnaire; more likely to be given a job; and more successful at soliciting money for a charity. But crucially, all these effects depended on the assumption that the shirt wearer owned the clothing.
People make assumptions about others based on their choice of shoe
In this research observers discerned correctly that more agreeable people tended to wear shoes that were practical and affordable (pointy toes, price and brand visibility were negatively correlated with agreeableness); that anxiously attached people tended to wear shoes that look brand new and in good repair (perhaps in an attempt to make a good impression and avoid rejection); that wealthier people wear more stylish shoes; and that women wear more expensive-looking, branded shoes.
People who have multiple facial piercings are assumed to be less intelligent
Research in 2012 involved observers rating pictures of men and women who were depicted with various numbers of facial piercings. As the number of piercings went up, the ratings of intelligence went down. On the other hand, a 2008 study found that a woman was judged to be more artistic and creative when she was shown with more piercings.
Women with more tattoos are assumed to be more promiscuous
Researchers at the University of Liverpool presented undergrads with line drawings of women that varied in the number of visible tattoos. “Results showed that tattooed women were rated as less physically attractive, more sexually promiscuous and heavier drinkers than untattooed women, with more negative ratings with increasing number of tattoos.” A more recent study found that men were more likely to approach a woman lying on a beach when she bore a tattoo on her back, and to do so more quickly. Men also estimated they would have more chance of dating or having sex with a woman when she had a tattoo on her back.
Men with shaved heads are seen as more dominant
When researchers at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, photoshopped pictures of men, so that they appeared to have shaven heads, the men were judged to be “more dominant, taller, and stronger than their authentic selves.”
People who walk with a loose, expansive gait are seen as more adventurous
In 2012, researchers analysed point-light videos to identify what cues participants used to make judgments about a walker’s personality. This led to the identification of two main factors – one was related to an expansive, loose walking style, which participants tended to interpret as a sign of adventurousness, extraversion, trustworthiness and warmth; the other was a slow, relaxed style, which the participants interpreted as a sign of low neuroticism. Although linked with these observer perceptions, the two walking styles were not in fact associated with walkers’ actual personalities.
Handshakes can be used to determine a man’s conscientiousness
A 2011 study found that participants made many assumptions about people based on their style of handshake, but that the only accurate judgments concerned conscientiousness. The researchers’ explanation was that conscientiousness is a trait that reflects how successfully a person can learn any complex behaviour, be that a musical instrument or a handshake. “The ubiquitous handshake may not be as ritualized or as precise as the Japanese tea ceremony,” they said, “but it certainly requires some knowledge of the prevailing social norms and some interpersonal coordination.”
This post is the first in a new series in which we attempt to digest the research on a given topic, or pertaining to a particular question. If there are any topics or questions you’d like us to digest, please let us know by commenting on this post or contacting the Digest editor.
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Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.Do your Web searches prove whether you’re racist? Photo by antb/Shutterstock
Can Google diagnose racism? In a recent study published in the journal PLOS ONE, researchers claimed to have found a link between a geographic area’s black mortality rate and the frequency of Google searches for the racial epithet nigger. Since few people would say outright that they’re racist, the authors of the study suggest that Google search statistics could be a valuable metric for gauging the actual level of racist sentiment in an area—and even be an indicator of systemic racial oppression. Like many excursions into big data—the mining of gigantic, Google-size data sets for insights—this one is messy, raising more questions than it answers. But it’s also unusually powerful, because a statistical approach to racial issues confronts us with uncomfortable facts, even if it’s sometimes hard to know what to make of them.
These sorts of big-data studies are leading indicators of our era. While our culture still exalts the freedom and moral autonomy of the individual, macro-level studies, whether economic or sociological, increasingly provide us with evidence of a far more predetermined world. Google Flu Trends, which tracked Google searches for flu symptoms and flu questions by geographical area, purports to be as good or better a leading indicator of flu outbreaks as reports from doctors. As I wrote last year, the secrecy of Google’s methodology and the poorness of some of its results had called Flu Trends’ success somewhat into question, but the underlying correlation between flu-related searches and cases of the flu remains. (Disclosure: I used to work for Google, and my wife still does.) Just as economic studies can show flattening pay and a growing income divide even though no single action created those circumstances, a single person can deny being racist and be difficult to challenge, yet statistics can prove that our society en masse remains racist. And so we have to ask what we can do about it. And we have to accept that the macro-world is increasingly part of our everyday micro-lives.
Racism can’t be quantified like dollars and cents, however, so when it comes to studies measuring it or other sentiments, we should be very careful in coding and interpreting the factors. In this new study, there are two correlative links that require explanation. The first is the inferred link between the searches themselves and the presence of racist attitudes. The study, led by University of Maryland epidemiologist David Chae, builds on Google search data collected by data scientist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, which he used to show a correlation between racial animus and lower presidential vote percentages for Barack Obama in a 2014 study. Stephens-Davidowitz used Google Trends (as well as some clever tricks that pulled finer-grain data from Google’s interface) to identify the search volume for the N-word by U.S. media market. (He screened out variant spellings commonly used in rap lyrics, such as nigga, though false positives may remain in the data, like a search for certain comedy albums by Richard Pryor.) What caused people to type in the epithet? Frequently, jokes: “A huge proportion of the searches I looked at were for jokes about African-Americans.” The data found the highest volume of such searches in nearly all of Appalachia, parts of the Deep South, and isolated other areas. Notably, the Utica, New York, region had the second-highest search volume, topped only by the Bluefield-Beckley-Oak Hill region of West Virginia. The study couldn’t say why Utica appeared to be so fond of racist jokes, but such statistical results point to potential problem spots in a way that interviewing people on the street might not.
But while the increased presence of racially charged searches intuitively suggests racial animosity in an area, the reverse isn’t necessarily true. Stephens-Davidowitz’s data could well provide a sufficient condition for racial animus, but it is not a necessary one. Obviously, you don’t need to use racist language to be racist. This point bears on Chae, et al.’s study, which goes one step further in attempting to establish a correlation between racist Google searches and black mortality from 2004 to 2009. According to the researchers, the study suggests that “racism shapes patterns in mortality and generates racial disparities in health.”
Proportion of Google queries containing the “N-word” by designated market area, 2004–2007. c/o Chae DH, Clouston S, Hatzenbuehler ML, Kramer MR, Cooper HLF, et al. (2015) Association between an Internet-Based Measure of Area Racism and Black Mortality. PLoS ONE 10(4): e0122963. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0122963
Chae, et al.’s study goes on step further, finding a correlation between Stephens-Davidowitz’s Google-driven “area racism” results and black mortality rates in the same area. The study concludes that “living in an area characterized by a one standard deviation greater proportion of racist Google searches is associated with an 8.2% increase in the all-cause mortality rate among Blacks. This effect estimate amounts to over 30,000 deaths among Blacks annually nationwide.” That is a notable finding, but it is a broad correlation that lumps together some disparate data. When controlling for white mortality rates, the 8.2 percent increase drops to 3.6 percent, suggesting that area racism as the study defines it is correlated with higher mortality rates across the board. (Thus I disagree with the authors’ choice to promote the 8.2 percent number in the press release.) The study generalizes across all causes of death, but the authors do break down specific causes, finding that while area racism does correlate with an increase in blacks’ deaths by heart disease, stroke, and cancer, it does not correlate with an increase in deaths by diabetes. The study suggests that these deaths may owe to increased “psychosocial stress” stemming from racial discrimination. But without controlling for other variables like quality of health care, occupation, diet, and the level of social services—all of which can also reflect the racial biases of an area—it is highly speculative to identify psychosocial stress as a major determining factor. While studies have shown that experiencing racial discrimination does cause notable increases in stress levels, the large-scale impact of that stress by itself has yet to be measured.
As a result the study is more suggestive than it is convincing. It is indicative of a serious problem, but it can’t quite identify what that problem is due to the generality of the variables. And it again raises the question of whether such Google searches are sufficiently reliable indicators. The area-racism results broadly match up with conventional wisdom—Appalachia and the Deep South have especially troubled racial histories—but that shouldn’t exonerate other areas that just happen not to look up racist jokes with racial epithets in them. In the future, I’d like to see researchers correlate mortality rates with other indicators of area racism to see if the Google searches are better or worse indicators.
For now, as an exemplar of careful statistical research I would instead point to “An Analysis of the New York City Police Department’s ‘Stop-and-Frisk’ Policy in the Context of Claims of Racial Bias,” Andrew Gelman, Jeffrey Fagan, and Alex Kiss’s meticulous study that identified real racial differences in the enforcement of New York City’s stop-and-frisk policy. Because they obtained exact data on 125,000 pedestrian stops, the authors could report that blacks and Hispanics were stopped roughly twice as often as whites, even after controlling for different crime rates among populations, and thus conclude that “the police are disproportionately stopping minorities.” In contrast, Chae, et al.’s study posits a troubling correlation without pinning down a specific agent of that correlation.
Chae, et al. write, “Using ‘big data’ and aggregating millions of Internet searches yields a high signal-to-noise ratio despite potential sources of measurement error.” This is true to a point. The results are meaningful, but the interpretation of search results is always going to be dicey, owing to the sheer lack of context surrounding a Google search. This study appears to pick out a search term that has more fixed implications regardless of context because of how charged it is, yet even here, it cannot be taken as a strong measure of racism, only as a weak indicator. I may have driven up Brooklyn’s score just in the course of researching this article, despite having no racist intent.
For anyone who seeks to understand the world, the danger lies not in big data but in how we code that data. To draw the conclusions they do, Chae and his colleagues code “people searching for racial epithets” as “evidence of area racism.” Generalizing typical sentiment from a group of heterogeneous sentiments shouldn’t be done haphazardly; in this case it might have been warranted, but in many it would not be. Sociologist Richard Biernacki discussed these sorts of problems in his 2012 book Reinventing Evidence in Social Inquiry, taking apart a 1987 study by Wendy Griswold that purported to link the popularity of George Lamming’s novels with various literary characteristics mentioned in reviews of those books. He found that the coding was highly dubious, as when Griswold interpreted mentions of “ambiguity” as a positive assessment in reviews and an indicator of popularity, when in fact reviewers tended to mention it as a negative quality, a distinction Griswold never discussed. (Ambiguity, it turns out, is ambiguous.) Combined with automated sentiment analysis, studies can become totally worthless. None of the big-data analyses of Gamergate showed much of anything about harassment, positive or negative, despite attempts on both sides to spin the results. Newsweek’s Taylor Wofford claimed that a Brandwatch study of Gamergate tweets showed that Gamergate was mostly about harassment, except that Brandwatch’s classifier wasn’t able to determine whether 90 percent of the tweets were positive or negative. The study showed nothing, but Newsweek wrote it up anyway. Another study coded @ tweets that didn’t provoke responses as “harassment” regardless of their content, which means we’re all harassers now. Fancy charts and scientific dressing can too easily obscure sloppy coding, creating the sort of rushes to judgment we’re seeing in the embrace of quantitative metrics of teacher and school performance and the highly dubious field of automated essay grading.
On the other hand, such “anecdata”—what one can call imprecise big data—can serve as a useful synecdoche. We live now in a world where individual stories, even terrible ones, can be explained away as aberrations. It’s taken an unfortunate number of high-profile incidents like the deaths of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray to suggest that law enforcement may have a serious racial bias problem. Studies like Gelman’s in particular are useful in suggesting that these incidents are not aberrations but are in fact representative of a systemic problem. Studies like Chae’s aren’t as powerful, but they do provide additional data points for arguing that racism remains present and harmful. This will probably not come as a shock to most Slate readers, but there are those to whom this case must still be made, and it’s worth making that case. The danger is only in taking these studies’ conclusions as proof rather than evidence.
This article is part of Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, visit the Future Tense blog and the Future Tense home page. You can also follow us on Twitter.The Raptors have a top-five defense since the Rudy Gay trade. This installment breaks down why that is.
In the 16 games since the Rudy Gay trade (last night’s match against Milwaukee notwithstanding), the Toronto Raptors boast the NBA’s fourth best defense, allowing a mere 97.4 points per 100 possessions. This latest installment looks at why the Raptors defense has been successful by perusing over shot-location data. The next installment will address the how, and focus on detailing the success of the Raptors defensive schemes.
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For some reason, the word “analytics” is taboo for certain sports fans. These fans cringe at the thought of some MBA grad in a three-piece suit supplanting a former player or coach because it trivializes the core tenets of the game. It’s seen as pig-headed and wrong-spirited. It’s a cold, calculated approach that champions science over art. “The numbers” dehumanize the game and overlooks the intangibles — leadership, toughness, grit, compete-level.
In reality, “analytics” isn’t about numbers or graphs — it simply refers to approaching the game of basketball like a science. It’s about creating a hypothesis, collecting observations, testing your hypothesis and making conclusions if there are any to be made. In short, it’s a process of finding your way out of the unknown with rationality as your guiding light. It’s done in almost every industry and every walk of life. It’s neither good, nor bad. It simply is.
I don’t have any issues with analytics playing a factor in the modern NBA because it’s just another manifestation of competition. In a competitive industry, every marginal advantage is coveted. This is especially true for a industry like sports, where the product itself is competition. If crunching some numbers pushes the needle from 40 to 41 wins, go nuts. If increasing the video scouting staff helps you win, do it. If hiring the best physicians can elongate careers and minimize injuries, spend the money. It’s all the same.
Thanks to the proliferation of the analytics crowd, the word “midrange” has also become taboo. One of the most prevalent analytical axioms of NBA basketball (and quite possibly basketball as a whole) is that the mid-range shot is “inefficient” — and surprise, surpise — that doesn’t jive too well with many people. In reality, there simply isn’t a debate to be had on this issue — midrange shots are inefficient, as in on average, one would expect less points per shot from a midrange jumper as compared to a layup or three. Shown below are the average expected points per shot values from different areas of the floor over the last 36 days.
Now that’s not to say that all mid-range shots are bad. If you’re wide open and you can knock it down (think Patrick Patterson), you take it. It also doesn’t mean that you should never game-plan for it — Rip Hamilton made a career out of curling around down-screens and spotting up from 15-20 feet. It can be done, and it can be done well, but it’s simply not ideal in the aggregate.
So why has the Raptors defense been so good of late? Well, a lot of their success comes from forcing their opponents to shoot the relatively inefficient shots as opposed to threes and shots in the restricted area.
First off, the Raptors are doing a great job running their opponents off the three-point line. How they manage execute this will be covered in an upcoming post, but for the time being, all you need to know is that the Raptors don’t allow their opponents to shoot threes. Three-pointers are broken down into corner threes (the areas of the arc parallel to the sideline, and above the break threes (the area in-between). The Raptors allow the 9th fewest corner threes and the fewest above-the-break attempts, which equates to the fourth fewest three-point attempts allowed overall. Their opponents actually shoot a pretty decent percentage on the threes that they do shoot, but studies conducted on the matter suggest that consistently suppressing opponents’ 3FG% isn’t sustainable in either college, nor the NBA. Either way, limiting the number of attempts is a good thing.
In addition to defending the three, the Raptors also do a good job defending at the rim. Again, how they manage to pull this off will be discussed in an upcoming post, but the result is that the Raptors hold their opponents to the second lowest shooting percentage at the rim at 53.2% (ironically, the lowly Bucks are first). The Raptors will allow opponents to shoot at the rim (10th most opponent FGA in the restricted area), but they contest effectively thanks in large part to “The Doctor of Denial”.
In addition to defending the three and the basket, the Raptors also do a good job defending before and after the shot. The Raptors are approximately league average in collecting defensive rebounds and conceding free-throw attempts, but they manage to make their hay by forcing turnovers (7th in the NBA at 16.0 opponent turnovers per game). Kyle Lowry’s charge-taking, steal-nabbing ways serve as an effective first line of defense.
In conclusion, the Raptors have a top-five defense because they don’t allow opponents to shoot threes and they do a great job contesting shots at the rim, which is key in the modern NBA. Throw in the fact that the Raptors aren’t weak in the other defensive categories (FT, rebounding, forcing turnovers, blocks), and voila, you have a the makings of a great defense. Or rather, that’s according to the analytics. I’ll have to get back to you on the “toughness” and “grittiness” another time.
However, the more interesting question is how are the Raptors managing to limit threes, challenge shots and force turnovers? For the answer to that question, we’ll dive into the video and break down some plays, so tune in for the next installment in “Really?! The Raptors have a top-five defense?”By Alex Rindler, EWG Policy Associate
Forbes Fat Cats Collect Taxpayer-Funded Farm Subsidies
The federal government paid out $11.3 million in taxpayer-funded farm subsidies to 50 billionaires or farm businesses in which they had an interest between 1995 and 2012, and changes to the farm bill being weighed by Congress could well increase their take. The billionaires profiting from farm subsidies were identified by matching EWG’s Farm Subsidy Database with the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans.
The billionaires who received farm subsidies between 1995 and 2012 have a collective net worth of $316 billion, based on the Forbes magazine estimates. They include:
Paul Allen (Net worth: $15.8 billion) Co-founder of Microsoft
Charles Ergen (Net worth: $12.5 billion) Co-founder of DISH Network
Philip Anschutz (Net worth: $10.3 billion) Owner of Anschutz Entertainment Group and co-founder of Major League Soccer
Leonard Lauder (Net worth: $7.6 billion) Son of Estee Lauder and former CEO of the Estee Lauder Companies Inc.
Jim Kennedy (Net worth: $6.7 billion) Chairman of Cox Enterprises
S. Truett Cathy (Net worth: $6 billion) Founder of Chick-fil-A
Leslie Wexner (Net worth: $5.7 billion) CEO of L Brands Inc., which owns Victoria's Secret
Charles Schwab (Net worth: $5.1 billion) Founder of brokerage firm Charles Schwab Corporation
Stewart & Lynda Resnick (Net worth: $3.5 billion) Owners of POM Wonderful, Fiji Water and Teleflora
David Rockefeller, Sr. (Net worth: $2.8 billion) Former chairman and chief executive of Chase Manhattan Bank
Penny Pritzker (Net worth: $2.2 billion) U.S. Secretary of Commerce
Click here to see the full list of billionaires who have received farm subsidies.
Many of these same billionaires may have also received crop insurance subsidies, but taxpayers have no way of knowing because current law prohibits the disclosure of the identities of crop insurance policyholders.
According to EWG’s analysis, more than 40 billionaires own properties that grow crops that are among the most likely to be insured through the federal crop insurance program, including corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton and sorghum. From 1995 to 2012, these five crops account for nearly $44 billion in premium subsidies - about 82 percent of total crop insurance subsidies and more than two-thirds of all acres enrolled in the crop insurance program.
A congressional conference committee is currently meeting to come up with a new farm bill, and proposed changes adopted in both the House and Senate versions of the bill will likely allow these billionaires to bank millions more in premium subsidies. Both bills would shift subsidies from programs currently subject to means testing to the more generous crop insurance program. Unlike traditional farm subsidies, crop insurance premium subsidies are not currently subject to means testing, payment limits or conservation requirements.
In 2008, Congress created a means test that was designed to deny some subsidies to individuals with annual off-farm income of more than $500,000. The year before, Bloomberg News published a report highlighting some of the billionaires who had been receiving subsidies. But, lawmakers specifically declined to apply it to crop insurance, which has become the primary government support for farm business income.
The farm bill conference committee is debating whether to include a modest crop insurance means test that would reduce premium subsidies for the largest one percent of farm businesses – a provision that twice passed the Senate and was endorsed last month by a non-binding resolution in the House.
On average, taxpayers cover 62 percent of the cost of crop insurance premiums. In 2011 alone, some 26 policyholders received more than $1 million each in premium support, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data analyzed by EWG. More than 10,000 policyholders received more than $100,000 each in premium support that year. In 2012, the USDA's Risk Managment Agency reported the crop insurance program cost taxpayers $14.1 billion.
Like other farm subsidies, crop insurance subsidies overwhelmingly flow to the largest and most successful farm businesses. According to data EWG compiled from USDA, the largest one percent of farm businesses received about $227,000 a year in crop insurance premium support in 2011 – while the bottom 80 percent received only about $5,000 apiece.On Tuesday, Kansas Representative Tim Huelskamp became the first victim of this revenge of the Republican establishment, losing his primary to a physician and political newcomer named Roger Marshall. Huelskamp, a Freedom Caucus firebrand who has been a thorn in the side of House leadership throughout his three terms in Congress, was targeted by the Chamber, the Farm Bureau, and an array of other agricultural interests; he was backed by Heritage, the Club for Growth, and Ted Cruz. Former House Speaker John Boehner kicked Huelskamp off the House Agriculture Committee to punish him for his votes against leadership, but the move merely made Huelskamp more of a hero to the right, and he helped engineer Boehner’s ouster last September.
The Chamber’s political strategist, Scott Reed, exulted in victory as the results came in Tuesday night, saying he hoped other hardline conservatives would take Huelskamp’s loss as a rebuke. “I think it is fair to say this is a wake up call for folks,” Reed told me. “Governing was on the ballot in Kansas, and the voters spoke with a loud voice.” An agribusiness lobbyist added: “Boehner definitely raised his glass tonight”; this turned out to be literally true. John Feehery, a lobbyist and former House leadership staffer, told me in an email: “Huelskamp is an ideologue who has refused to represent the interests of his constituents. He deserved to lose.”
Huelskamp represented Kansas’s “Big First,” a massive rural district previously represented by Bob Dole that contains more farmers than any other congressional district in the country. But farming interests were dismayed when, in 2012, Tea Partiers like Huelskamp turned against the farm bill, the decades-old bipartisan tradition of combining food stamps and agriculture subsidies. To ideological conservatives, the hundreds of billions of dollars of agriculture spending represented wasteful corporate welfare. But farmers in rural America—one of the GOP’s most reliable voting blocs—rely on the farm bill for their livelihood.
The farm bill debate, which I wrote about in 2014, was a perfect encapsulation of the Tea Party-establishment divide in the GOP. Should the party embrace the pure, libertarian-tinged ideological conservatism of Heritage and other D.C. think tanks? Or does it represent the interests of its traditional constituents, from Big Business to (largely older and white) rural residents? Are Republicans about stopping government spending—or spending government money on their favored recipients?
Huelskamp’s loss shows that, largely under the radar this year, the Republican establishment is enjoying something of a comeback against its Tea Party antagonists. The only incumbent GOP congressman to lose a primary not brought about by redistricting in 2016 is a conservative taken down by business interests—a stark reversal from the narrative of the last few cycles, in which establishment Republicans have been repeatedly felled by insurgent challengers. Across the country this year, incumbent and establishment-oriented Republicans have won congressional and Senate primaries, and Tea Party-style conservatives have lost.Do you like internal combustion engines?
Thank a few white men. (Jean Lenoir, Nikolaus Otto, Karl Benz, Rudolf Diesel, Gottlieb Daimler, Emil Jellinek, Henry Ford among others.)
Are you a fan of flush toilets and indoor plumbing?
Thank white males Alexander Cumming, Thomas Twyford, and Isaiah Rogers
Toilet paper?
Thank Joseph Gayetty, W.M.
How about washing machines and dryers?
Thank white males Alva Fisher and J. Ross Moore.
“When you’ve got your health, you’ve got just about everything” ran the tag-line in a famous Geritol commercial from the 1970s, and the guys we most have reason to be grateful for are undoubtedly those who’ve developed the medical practices and the drugs and devices that have transformed our lives over the past hundred fifty years.
Before the turkey gets carved, it’s worth taking a moment to remember a few of these brilliant, persistent, and lucky men, and recall their accomplishments. Even when they’ve won Nobel Prizes in Medicine, their names are virtually unknown. They’re not mentioned in the Core Curriculum or celebrated by Google on their birthdays.
Pain
If you ever had surgery, did you opt for anesthesia?
If so, thank a few more white males, beginning with William Clarke in New York and Crawford Long in Georgia who both used chloroform in minor surgeries in 1842. A paper published four years later by William Morton, after his own work in Boston, spread the word. Ether replaced chloroform during the next decade. There are now scores of general and regional anesthetics and sedatives and muscle relaxants, administered in tandem. The first local anesthetic has also been superseded. It was cocaine, pioneered by a Viennese ophthalmologist, Carl Koller, in 1884.
Ever take an analgesic?
Next time you pop an aspirin, remember Felix Hoffmann of Bayer. In 1897, he converted salicylic acid to acetylsalicylic acid, much easier on the stomach. Aspirin remains the most popular and arguably the most effective drug on the market. In 1948 two New York biochemists, Bernard Brodie and Julius Axelrod, documented the effect that acetaminophen (Tylenol), synthesized by Harmon Morse in 1878, had on pain and fever. Gastroenterologist James Roth persuaded McNeil Labs to market the analgesic in 1953.
Infectious Diseases
Most Americans today die of heart disease or cancer, but before the twentieth century, it was infectious diseases that struck people down, and children were the primary victims. In pre-industrial England, still with the most developed economy in the world in the late 17th century, 50% of all children didn’t survive the age of 15. With the phenomenal growth of cities during the 19th century, cholera, typhoid fever, and tuberculosis became the leading killers.
In 1854, a London medical inspector, John Snow, proved that a cholera epidemic in Soho was caused by infected sewage seeping into the water supply. Until then it was thought the disease spread through the air. The sanitary disposal of sewage and the provision of clean water, possible thanks to mostly anonymous metallurgists and engineers–an exception is the famous Thomas Crapper, who pioneered the u-shaped trap and improved, though he didn’t invent, the flush toilet–has saved more lives than any drug or surgical innovation.
Dramatic improvements in food supply have also had an incalculable effect on health. Agricultural innovations, beginning with those introduced in England in the 18th century, were disseminated globally by the end of the 20th century–the “Green Revolution.” Famines struck Europe as recently as the late 1860s. (The man-made famines of the 20th century are another story.) A transportation revolution made possible the provision of more than sufficient protein, calories, and nutrients worldwide. Needless to say, it was white males who designed and built the roads, canals, railroads, and ports and airports, and the ships, trains, planes, and trucks that used them, and the mines, and then wells, pipelines, and tankers that supplied the fuel they ran on.
Whatever the merits of taking vitamins and supplements today, no one has to take vitamin C to prevent scurvy, or vitamin B to prevent pellagra, or vitamin D and calcium to prevent rickets. And, for the time being, we all live in a post-Malthusian world. The global population was about 800 million to 1 billion when the gloomy parson wrote his famous book in 1798. It’s now over 7 billion.
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Dr. Snow had no idea what was actually causing cholera. It was Louis Pasteur who gave the world the germ theory of disease, as every schoolchild once knew. Studying the fermentation of wine, he concluded that this was caused by the metabolic activity of microorganisms, as was the souring of milk. The critters were responsible for disease, too, he recognized, and identified three killer bacteria: staphylococcus, streptococcus, and pneumococcus. Nasty microorganisms could be killed or rendered harmless by heat and oxygenation, Pasteur discovered, and would then prevent the disease in those who were inoculated. He went on to develop vaccines for chicken cholera, anthrax, and rabies. Edward Jenner had demonstrated in in the late 1790s that the dreaded smallpox could be prevented by injecting patients with material from the pustules of cowpox victims, a much milder disease. (The word vaccine comes from vaca, one of the Latin words for cow.) Pasteur, however, was the first to immunize patients by modifying bacteria rather than through cross-vaccination.
A parade of vaccines followed. People in their mid-60s and older can remember two of the most famous: the Salk and Sabin vaccines against poliomyelitis, a paralyzing disease that had panicked American parents in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s. Children preferred Albert Sabin’s 1962 version: the attenuated virus was administered on a sugar cube. Jonas Salk’s inactivated vaccine, available in 1955, was injected.
In 1847, more than a decade before Pasteur disclosed his germ theory, the Viennese obstetrician Ignaz Semmelweis documented the effectiveness of hand washing with chlorinated water before entering a maternity ward. He brought mortality rates from puerperal fever down from 8% to 1.3%. Two decades later, having read a paper by Pasteur, Joseph Lister demonstrated the effectiveness of carbolic acid to sterilize wounds and surgical instruments. Mortality rates fell from around 50% to about 15%. The efforts of both men, especially Semmelweis, were met with ridicule and disdain.
Pasteur’s German rivals Robert Koch and Paul Ehrlich made monumental contributions to biochemistry, bacteriology, and hematology, but left the world no “magic bullet” (Ehrlich’s term). Koch identified the organism causing tuberculosis, the leading |
deal that would have fused his love of business with his passion for hockey. It was the first of three doomed attempts to bring an NHL team back to Canada against the league’s wishes (the Penguins deal fell through amid accusations that Balsillie secretly plotted to move the team to southern Ontario). His odyssey led through Nashville, where a deal died amid similar recrimination, and ended in Phoenix, where a ferocious court battle for control of the Coyotes pitted him against the NHL’s unloved commissioner, Gary Bettman.
Without doubt, these gambits burnished Balsillie’s public image—the institute because it suggested hidden depths; the NHL offers because it appealed to Canadian patriotism.
But was it good for business? It didn’t escape analysts that Balsillie was chasing hockey teams in the summer of 2007 while Apple was debuting its iPhone—the device that would ultimately topple RIM from the zenith of the smartphone mountain. The court proceedings in Arizona, meanwhile, raised questions about Balsillie’s character. “He’s untrustworthy. He’s deceiving. He’s arrogant,” said Craig Leipold, the former owner of the Nashville Predators, in a scorching deposition. “When there is someone that you have dealt with and that has lied to you continually, that has deceived you—knowing that he was going to deceive you at the end—that is a pretty good reason to dislike him. Yes, it is true. I do dislike the man.”
To John Pliniussen, a business professor at Queen’s University, the exchanges spoke to an unknown side of RIM’s leadership. “Up to that point, I’d called [Balsillie and Lazaridis] stealth executives,” he said from his home in Kingston. “We didn’t get any insight into their personalities, so most of us assumed they were sort of staid. When Balsillie got into the sports arena, we got a glimpse of personality and the reaction was, ‘Omigosh, he’s a fiend!’ ”
Fiend or no, Balsillie and Lazaridis had by that point earned a reputation for doing things their way, so much so that some now wonder if they were operating in a bubble as the seeds of their future problems were being sown. When the iPhone debuted, the pair were publicly dismissive. Even as analysts were predicting the device would transform the consumer smartphone market, Balsillie was calling it “one more entrant into an already busy space.” Lazaridis, meanwhile, dismissed the phone in an interview with the Guardian. “How much presence does Apple have in business?” he asked. “It’s vanishingly small.” Even last spring, with the problems in the company growing clearer, Lazaridis gave a rare interview to the New York Times. He seemed utterly baffled—not by RIM’s problems, but by the idea that people didn’t recognize how truly great a company it was. “Why is it that people don’t appreciate our profits? Why is it that people don’t appreciate our growth? Why is it that people don’t appreciate the fact that we spent the last four years going global?” he asked. “I don’t fully understand why there’s this negative sentiment, and I just don’t have the time to battle it. Because in the end, what I’ve learned is you’ve just got to prove it over and over and over.”
Now the task of picking up the pieces falls to Thorsten Heins, 54, a man that few people outside of the company had even heard of before this week. And he must turn around RIM while facing all the same challenges and obstacles that had flummoxed his two predecessors. Described by former employees as someone who shares some personality traits with Lazaridis, but “couldn’t be more different than Jim,” Heins arrived at RIM in 2007 after working at Germany’s Siemens AG and was promoted to chief operating officer of product engineering last summer, giving him oversight of all hardware and software at RIM, in addition to sales.
On the positive side, Heins is taking over a company that remains profitable with nearly $1 billion of cash on its balance sheet. But the needle isn’t moving in the right direction. In December, RIM reported sales of US$5.2 billion in its fiscal third recent quarter, a six per cent drop from a year earlier, and warned that sales and profits will be squeezed in the fourth quarter, which is scheduled to be reported in late March.
The BlackBerry once dominated the North American market for smartphones, boasting more than a 50 per cent share of the market. But RIM’s position has steadily slipped and now sits just under 15 per cent in the United States, according to the most recent numbers from market research firm Neilsen. By contrast, Apple’s share of the U.S. market is now at 30 per cent while phones running on Google’s Android software now command more than 46 per cent of U.S. smartphone users.
While the BlackBerry still sells briskly in several emerging markets where wireless networks are less capable of handling data-hungry devices like the iPhone, investors are concerned that the beating RIM is currently taking at the hands of U.S. consumers will eventually migrate to other countries. At the same time, there are signs that RIM’s core customer base of government and corporate users—people told to use a BlackBerry by their IT departments because of RIM’s industry-leading network security—are beginning to shift allegiances as CEOs and other senior executives demand iPhones. “It was the first time a piece of technology mattered to an executive,” says Anthony LeBlanc, RIM’s former vice-president of global sales. “And when the IT department lost power, it had a hugely adverse affect on RIM. The moment that happened, you saw RIM’s stronghold start to evaporate.”
Indeed, the origins of many of RIM’s current troubles can be traced back nearly half a decade to its response—or lack thereof—to the 2007 launch of Apple’s now iconic handset. Those familiar with RIM and the thinking of upper management at the time say the company made a strategic blunder by initially focusing on the iPhone’s limitations, as opposed to its promise. Whereas consumers were marvelling at a sensitive touchscreen and intuitive user interface, RIM’s engineering-minded team only saw an underpowered device with short battery life, a host of data-hungry applications that threatened to bog down wireless networks and a high price tag. “Four years ago, our focus from a threat perspective was purely Microsoft,” says a former executive, who spoke on the condition his name wasn’t used. “We did not believe Apple had a chance.”
Yet, even after the iPhone began to take off and Google entered the market with Android, RIM was slow to shift its strategic direction. Run by engineers and overseen by accountants, RIM’s senior management and board of directors had traditionally viewed RIM as a company whose core product was selling wireless services—namely secure email—and handsets to wireless carriers, corporate IT managers and big government departments. They were slow to realize that, as the BlackBerry caught on with texting teenagers and busy soccer moms, they were increasingly in the consumer electronics business too. Balsillie and Lazaridis initially downplayed the potential appeal of touchscreen devices because they believed, correctly, that they would prove difficult to type on. Similarly, Balsillie dismissed the importance of mobile applications, or “apps,” pointing out that the mini-programs merely replicated services that were already available over the Web. That was until Apple began selling the iPhone with its now famous “There’s an app for that” campaign.
After purchasing Ottawa-based QNX Software Systems Ltd. in 2010, Balsillie and Lazaridis embarked on a bold plan to transform the company. They proposed to migrate the BlackBerry operating system to a platform based on QNX technology, which was already being used to run nuclear power plants. It was a massive undertaking fraught with complexity and risk. “It’s a pivot on a massive scale that most people can’t comprehend,” said a former executive. “And it’s being bankrolled on a scale that most people can’t comprehend either.” But as risky as the plan was, doing nothing was not an option. That’s because RIM’s existing operating system was never designed to do the types of things that people now expect of their smartphones. “The cost to build on the current OS are too high for them to be competitive,” the former executive says. “It takes too long to build things, there’s too much debugging and too much development work to build the same corresponding solution that their competitors would build.”
Despite the high stakes involved, a controversial decision by senior management nearly cratered the effort before it got off the ground. In a bid to replicate the feel of an innovative start-up, it was decided that the employees working on the platform that held the keys to RIM’s future would be hived off from the rest of the company—a strategy that has been successfully employed by other high-tech firms, including Apple. “The problem is that it didn’t work, which is why they abandoned the strategy,” the former executive says. “At RIM, all the employees knew that the run-rate product needed to be transitioned, and if they got left out in the cold, they were essentially going to be maintaining a skill set that would be completely gone in a couple of years.”
Still, Balsillie and Lazaridis pressed ahead despite employee protests. “They started splitting development teams, which led to the defection of developers, not surprisingly,” the executive says.
There were also missteps on the marketing front. In late 2009, RIM hired Keith Pardy, a former Coca-Cola marketing executive, to help launch a branding campaign, marking the first time in RIM’s history that it would invest significant cash in an ad campaign. The result was a series of bland, feel-good advertisements that riffed on the famous Beatles song All You Need is Love. “I remember the first time I saw it,” says LeBlanc. “I though it was a MasterCard commercial.” Pardy left the company last year for personal reasons.
Not surprisingly, one of the first things new CEO Heins says he needs to do is hire a chief marketing officer. He told analysts during a conference call Monday that one of the reasons RIM has lost market share in the U.S. is because consumers aren’t as familiar as they should be with BlackBerry, which is still largely viewed as a business tool south of the border. “We need to be more marketing driven and more consumer oriented,” Heins said. At the same time, he pledged to improve the company’s track record in bringing new products to market. “You’ve got to understand that RIM has gone through a tremendous growth phase and scaled really fast, and really successfully, I would say,” Heins said. “But we innovated while we were developing the product and that needs to stop. We need to innovate—don’t get me wrong—but we need to do it with much more emphasis on prototyping. Once we say a product is defined and a product is a product, the execution has to be really precise and decisive.”
The words had barely tumbled out of his mouth before critics emerged. “While we think this is a small step in the right direction, we are surprised RIM has decided to go with an operations-minded insider, especially since we consider the challenges tied more to strategy,” wrote UBS Investment Research analyst Phillip Huang in a note to clients. Others, like J. Richard Finlay, the director of the Centre for Corporate and Public Governance in Toronto, were more blunt. “The fact that RIM’s top management and board could take so long to come up with so little just shows how out of touch they remain,” he says. “It’s obvious that Balsillie and Lazaridis wanted their guy in the top slot and do not grasp why shareholders were looking for more than a marionette whose strings they can pull any time.” Investors, too, don’t appear convinced that he’s the right man for the job. RIM’s shares fell nine per cent after the markets opened on Monday, and another three per cent on Tuesday.
RIM’s first chance to prove its doubters wrong will come next month when it unveils its second crack at a tablet. After a nine-month delay, RIM’s PlayBook will be relaunched with updated software that will finally allow users to read their email and check their calendars without having to tether the device to a BlackBerry. But the real test will be delivering a lineup of BlackBerry phones running the same software. “I think what everyone’s really waiting for are the new products to come out, hopefully some time by the end of this year,” says Len Racioppo, the president of investment firm Jarislowsky Fraser Ltd., which began selling its sizable stake in RIM in 2011. “But with every day that goes by, it becomes more difficult. Others are taking market share.”
Clearly, RIM can ill afford any further delays. But significant risks remain. Unlike its rivals, RIM doesn’t just make handsets and the software that runs them. It also handles email for wireless carriers and sells BlackBerry Enterprise Servers around the world. Everything is interconnected. A change to one piece of the puzzle threatens to throw everything into disarray. “Once you pull at one string, the whole thing becomes a big Pandora’s box of crazy,” said one recently departed employee, who didn’t want his name used. “That’s why it takes nearly 10 months to build an email client for PlayBook.”
In the meantime, Balsillie and Lazaridis will be forced to watch from the sidelines the ending of a remarkable story they co-authored: a Canadian start-up’s rise to global superstardom, followed by a long fall and now, if things go as they plan, an improbable comeback. “It could be a great home run, or it could be a massive flop,” says Racioppo, who stresses that his firm has no plans to buy more RIM shares because of the huge risks now involved. “You just don’t know.”During the Miss America Pageant, When asked by judge Perez Hilton, an openly gay gossip blogger, whether she believed in gay marriage, Miss California, Carrie Prejean, said "We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite. And you know what, I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised."Carrie Prejean was sneered and booed at by the audience and confronted with such abject hate and intolerance by the audience and many liberals for her opinion that many of the gay men at the eventwondered aloud why the judges did not discriminate against her for her beliefs. The question came up as to why Carrie Prejean was not thrown out of the competition for her stand on gay marriage.The MPAA and RIAA are backing a new copyright curriculum showing kids how to become "Ethical Digital Citizens." After public pressure the curriculum was edited to include fair use principles, but a leaked MPAA email shows that there's more fair use in the lesson plans than Hollywood wanted.
During the summer of 2013 we voiced our doubts about an initiative from the Center for Copyright Information (CCI).
The group, which has the MPAA and RIAA as key members, had just started piloting a kindergarten through sixth grade curriculum on copyright in California schools.
The curriculum was drafted in collaboration with iKeepSafe and aims to teach kids the basics of copyright. Unfortunately, the lesson materials were rather one-sided and mostly ignored fair use and the more flexible copyright licences Creative Commons provides.
These concerns were picked up by the mainstream press, creating a massive backlash. The CCI and other partners emphasized that the pilot was tested with an early draft and promised that the final curriculum would be more balanced.
In the months that followed the lesson plans indeed got a major overhaul and last summer the “Copyright and Creativity for Ethical Digital Citizens” curriculum was finalized.
As reported previously, the new and improved version was indeed expanded to discuss fair use principles and Creative Commons licenses. However, as far as Hollywood is concerned it now includes too much discussion on fair use.
TorrentFreak received a copy of a leaked email the MPAA’s Howard Gantman sent to various insiders last summer, explaining what happened. It starts off by mentioning the negative response to the leak and states that the MPAA and RIAA will try to keep a low profile in future, probably to prevent another wave of critique.
“After there was serious negative commentary on twitter, blogs and by news columnists who are not strong supporters of copyright last fall when a draft version of the curriculum was leaked accidentally by iKeepSafe – a determination was made to try to release this in a way that would keep a low profile for any MPAA or RIAA involvement,” Gantman writes.
The copyright holder groups and CCI decided to let iKeepSafe and its PR firm handle the media, something which eventually came to pass. Continuing the conversation Gantman explains that the lesson materials were heavily edited to include a broader and more diverse perspective on copyright.
“The curriculum that has been produced also went through numerous rounds of edits and debate involving a wide range of organizations with differing views on copyright,” Gantman writes.
According to the MPAA, the end result is a compromise that includes more fair use than they had wanted, but still good enough to teach kids how to behave ethically on the Internet.
“So the end result contains sections on fair use that are more extensive than we would use if we drafted the curriculum ourselves. But overall, the effort will hopefully lead to an active program within our schools to help get kids to understand what it means to behave ethically on the Internet,” Gantman adds.
By comparing the first pilot materials with the final curriculum it becomes clear that nearly all additions are about fair use.
Grade 4 lesson handout
For example, where children were initially warned against using copyrighted images and music from the Internet in Powerpoint presentations, they are now told that this is totally fine, as long as the material is only shown in class.
Similar changes have been made throughout the entire curriculum, as we documented in our earlier coverage.
The question that remains is whether these extensive changes would have been made if the pilot materials hadn’t leaked in advance. That will probably remain a secret, but at least it’s clear that Hollywood got more fair use than they hoped for.As Election Day draws closer, that assessment is even more true now. As Rachel noted on last night’s show, the Washington Post published A couple of weeks ago, the Republican Party faced crisis conditions. Donald Trump was reeling after a tape emerged of boasting about sexual assault; GOP lawmakers were distancing themselves from their party’s presidential nominee; Trump backers held protests outside Republican National Committee headquarters; and party officials were generally at each other’s throats. A former GOP senator noted, “It’s every person for himself or herself right now.”As Election Day draws closer, that assessment is even more true now. As Rachel noted on last night’s show, the Washington Post published a scoop that’s almost hard to believe.
Donald Trump’s campaign said Tuesday that it has scheduled no more big-money fundraising events to benefit the Republican Party, another sign of the GOP nominee’s struggling campaign and a serious blow to the party’s get-out-the-vote operations with less than two weeks to go until Election Day.
The consequences of halting major fundraisers will compound the challenges facing a candidate and a party already straining to match Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s much larger and better-financed operation. Unlike Clinton, who has an extensive turnout operation of her own, Trump and many other GOP candidates down the ballot are relying heavily on the Republican National Committee to bring voters to the polls.
Meanwhile, Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s national finance chairman, told the Post that Trump Victory, a joint fundraising operation intended to benefit the candidate and the party, held its last formal fundraising event
Mnuchin added that while online donations continue to come in, “We’ve kind of wound down.”
It’s an astonishing strategy, adopted by a Republican presidential nominee who appears increasingly indifferent to his party’s needs.
And with that in mind, Politico With two weeks remaining, Clinton and Democrats are still trying to build as large a financial advantage as possible, not just for the presidential ticket, but to help Democratic candidates up and down the ballot. Vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine didn’t have any major rallies scheduled yesterday, but when he sat down with Rachel last night, the interview was scheduled in between five separate fundraisers the senator was headlining just yesterday.Meanwhile, Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s national finance chairman, told the Post that Trump Victory, a joint fundraising operation intended to benefit the candidate and the party, held its last formal fundraising event on Oct. 19 – three weeks ahead of Election Day – and no additional events are on the calendar.Mnuchin added that while online donations continue to come in, “We’ve kind of wound down.”It’s an astonishing strategy, adopted by a Republican presidential nominee who appears increasingly indifferent to his party’s needs.And with that in mind, Politico reports that others are scrambling to fill the void left by Team Trump’s negligence.
Republicans, on the verge of losing the Senate, are plowing a mammoth $25 million into six races in a last-ditch attempt to stop Donald Trump from dragging the entire GOP down with him.
The investment from Senate Leadership Fund, a powerful super PAC with ties to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, comes as Democrats shift resources from Hillary Clinton’s now almost certain victory to down-ballot contests in hopes of delivering her a congressional majority.Kevin Milligan and I had a little back and forth a couple weeks ago about the use of privately owned corporations by the wealthy to reduce their tax liabilities (in the comments here). This provoked a few thoughts, which I was going to write up. I was inspired to move them back to the front burner today, while reading Andrew Coyne’s provocatively titled column, “If we really want to soak the rich, we should abolish the corporate income tax.” He wrote this, it would appear, after having read the recent Mowat Centre working paper, Corporate Tax Reform, by Robin Boadway and Jean-François Tremblay.
First a bit of housecleaning. Not only is the headline misleading, but Coyne mucks things up when stating their central thesis:
If you want to soak the rich, in other words, abolish the corporate income tax — and with it the tax break on dividends and capital gains. That in a nutshell is what the economists Robin Boadway and Jean-Francois Tremblay have proposed in a recent paper for the Toronto-based Mowat Centre.
This is actually not what they propose — in or out of a nutshell. In the section titled “Abolish the Corporate Tax?” this is what Boadway and Tremblay write:
This efficiency benefit would come at a substantial cost in terms of tax revenue forgone. The same efficiency gains can be achieved without sacrificing all revenues by designing the corporate tax to be a tax on rents. We would therefore rule it out as a desirable tax reform (p. 47).
If you’re willing to use the term “abolish” quite loosely, e.g. the way that Jean Chretien “abolished” the GST, then you might say that they want to “abolish” corporate taxes. But what they really want to do is replace the tax on profits with a tax on rents, or supra-normal profits. Later on in the column Coyne explains it correctly. One can think of this as a different sort of tax, but I think it’s easier just to think of it as giving a deduction to corporations for payment of the normal rate of return on capital, to be applied to both debt and equity. So in the same way that the interest the firm pays on debt is deductible, the firm would also be able to deduct a portion of the dividends it pays to shareholders, and it would only have to declare as “profit,” for tax purposes, earnings that exceed this normal rate of return. The details are complicated, but I think that instead of thinking of this as “abolishing” corporate tax, it’s actually closer to the truth to describe it as giving corporations something like the “personal deduction” that individuals enjoy. Also, it is worth noting that Boadway and Tremblay recommend that a shift to a tax on rent be accompanied by an increase in the rate of corporate tax.
Finally, Coyne slips it in a bit sideways, but a crucial part of the Boadway and Tremblay proposal is to increase the personal income tax rate on dividends and capital gains. That’s where the “soak the rich” part comes in. The argument — and it is an interesting argument — is that dividends are currently taxed at a lower rate in the hands of individuals, in order to avoid “double taxation,” once in the hands of the firm, again in the hands of the beneficiary. However, if the corporation is able to shift the tax on profits to other constituencies, then the tax paid by corporations isn’t really being paid by shareholders. So by taxing corporations less, and taxing individual investment income more, the Boadway/Tremblay policy makes it more difficult for the rich to shift their tax liabilities onto others.
I can see the argument for this. However, there always the danger of equivocation when talking about “the rich” or “inequality.” There is broad-based economic inequality, of the sort captured by a GINI coefficient, and then there is the specific problem of the very rich (whom we can refer to, for simplicity, as the 1%). While it is true that most Canadians are already able to exempt the entirety of their investment income from taxation (through home ownership, RRSPs, TFSAs), this is manifestly not the case with the 1%, who continue to use corporate ownership as a vehicle for tax avoidance.
Shortly after writing about this, I came across the following working paper, by Michael Wolfson, Mike Veall and Neil Brooks, “Piercing the Veil – Private Corporations and the Income of the Affluent.” It seems to me that before we talk about “soaking the rich,” or about the distributive effect of corporate taxes generally, the issues raised by this paper need to be addressed.
Finally, it may be just me, since I don’t talk to a lot of quantitative analysis people, but it seems me the way that Wolfson, Veall & Brooks got their data (described on p. 9, and in appendix A) is incredibly cool. I look forward to reading the additional papers based on this data set that they promise at the end.The Vancouver Sports and Retro Collectors Show will take place at the Langley Events Centre from Friday November 1st to Sunday November 3rd. Among all things you will find at the show, the headline will be the meet and greet with Pavel Bure. Fans will also get a chance to meet his brother, Valeri Bure, and Canucks legend Kirk McLean!
The buzz around Pavel Bure in Vancouver is picking up once again and for good reason. On November 2nd, a home game for the Canucks, the organization will officially retire Pavel Bure’s jersey and hang it into the rafters of Rogers Arena. Bure’s No. 10 will be the 4th jersey up in the rafters along with Stan Smyl’s No. 12, Trevor Linden’s No. 16 and Markus Naslund’s No. 19.
Pavel Bure made a huge impact on the Vancouver Canucks, and is remembered, by some, the greatest player the team has ever had.
*Please note the Pavel Bure meet and greet will NOT be free. Prices and dates vary by player, please see below for details.
Pavel Bure Meet and Greet
Saturday, November 2nd, 10:00am to 11:30am
Autograph Pricing $94.00 each (Any Item)
Pavel Bure Autograph ticket includes FREE admission to Fanfest on Saturday
Partial proceeds to support Kidsport Langley Chapter
Valeri Bure Autograph Session
Saturday, November 2nd, 10:00am to 11:30am
Autograph pricing $15.00 each (Any item)
Partial proceeds to support Kidsport Langley Chapter
Kirk McLean Autograph session
Saturday, November 2nd, 11:30am to 12:30pm
Autograph Pricing : FREE to Sportsfest attendees
*Signing program and restrictions TBAThe app interface resembles a studio where you can do hands-on work with the controllers. "Room-scale VR gives creators a virtual workshop, and the use of natural physical motions brings unprecedented expressiveness and intuitiveness to object design," said Vive Studios Head Joel Breton.
A brief HTC Vive Studios video shows an artist creating a cartoon turtle's eyes, exporting the files and 3D printing a physical version. The company says the app is designed for "all ages and skill levels with a low learning curve and intuitive two-handed 3D multi-touch interface." It can supposedly help you "easily and naturally" create 3D objects on a one-to-one scale with simple physical movements and gestures. However, another video I saw the process look a little janky.
HTC further says that using the apps can give you an experience that's "more powerful and expressive" than a mouse and touchscreen, but again, it seems more like a toy than a powerful app like ZBrush. You can then send your files to modeling apps or 3D print them directly. The app is now available for $20 at Viveport, and HTC has promised a more powerful version called MakeVR Pro later this year.
HTC made a few other key announcements today. As alluded to earlier, the company has finally released its wireless Vive Trackers to the developer community for $100 each. The devices can be attached to your hands, body and objects like guns to let you incorporate props into VR play.
Vive also released an open-source full tracking system on Github that uses three Vive trackers. That will help developers build full body tracking apps, "bringing feet and natural movements into VR," the company says. It has already showed off a few demos using the software, including firefighter training, VR rifles, tracked boxing gloves and dinosaur kicking (for a full list, see the blog post here).
Finally, Vive announced that it's teaming with Warner Bros. to create VR content for Ready Player One, a sci-fi action film by Steven Spielberg "that unfolds largely within the virtual reality space." It'll release the content on Viveport "across all VR in-home platforms from high-end PC-based VR systems to mobile solutions," presumably meaning the Vive and Rift, along with Samsung's Gear VR and Google VR-based Daydream headsets. The film is set to arrive in spring of 2018.A draft law released by the German union for data protection (DVD) this week revealed that the interior ministry was proposing to drastically limit the powers of Germany's data protection authorities, banning them from investigating suspected breaches of people's medical and legal records.
As well as expanding video surveillance with facial recognition software, the bill would limit the government's own data protection commissioners to checking that the technical prerequisites are in place to ensure that doctors' and lawyers' files are secure, but it stops them from following up when citizens report concerns that their data has been leaked.
The bill would also shut down citizens' right to know what data is being collected about them - even by private firms, if releasing that information would "seriously endanger" a company's "business purposes," the SZ quoted the draft as saying. Thilo Weichert, former data protection commissioner for the state of Schleswig-Holstein and now DVD board member, condemned de Maiziere's plans as a "massive" erosion of privacy in Germany.
De Maiziere is defanging oversight authorities, say privacy groups
"The limitation of data protection controls in the medical field, which was a focal point of the [data protection] authorities up until now, is simply a disaster," Weichert said in a statement, adding that the ministry's bill was "further proof" that "data protection is not currently seen as relevant by the government."
DVD chairman Frank Spaeing described the law as a "data protection prevention law" and called on the Justice and Consumer Affairs Ministry, the Economics Ministry, and the Science and Research Ministry to intervene on behalf of people's civil rights.
Flat condemnation
The law - which aims to implement European Union data protection directives, set to come into force in 2018 - was roundly condemned by the DVD, though it acknowledged that it was an improvement on previous drafts that the Interior Ministry had presented.
"And yet the draft [...] contains old and in some cases new European-law-breaching and unconstitutional and unacceptable regulations," the organization said in its statement, before singling out the lack of any regulation protecting "professional discretion" among doctors, psychologists and lawyers.
There was also criticism from the Federal Data Protection Commissioner's office (BfDI). Commissioner Andrea Vosshoff - also a member of de Maiziere's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) - said the plan would make "control by the BfDI in many sensitive areas, for instance health insurance companies, job centers, or other social service operators, almost impossible, and is not acceptable."
In an emailed statement to DW, Vosshoff also criticized the ministry's plans not to give the BfDI any power to sanction security forces for personal data breaches - a key directive in EU data protection law.
Vosshoff condemned the plans
The right to know
Perhaps most contentiously, the draft allows the government to deny people the basic right to know what personal data is being collected if "the release of the data endangers public safety and order, or disadvantages the well-being of the country, or the state in another way."
This was a particular irritation for the DVD, which described this right as the "Magna Carta of data protection" and said that considerations of national security and business secrets were not a strong enough reason to corrode that right.
The irony is that the EU directive that this draft is meant to implement was actually designed to improve data protection for citizens - even though it offers a lot of leeway for interpretation by member states. Lina Ehrig of the Federation of German Consumer Organizations (VZBV) told the SZ paper that the new German law would have the opposite effect of that intended by the EU; in other words, it would not stop telcom companies passing on customer data and using it for other purposes.
The German cabinet is currently in discussions with Vosshoff about the interior ministry's plans. Other state data authorities that DW contacted did not want to react publicly to the proposals until they had agreed on a joint response.A 12-year-old Amy Winehouse wrote that she wanted to make people forget their troubles. On the anniversary of her death, Tim Jonze talks to those who knew her at the start of an extraordinary career
Bill Ashton remembers vividly the day an awkward 16-year-old girl by the name of Amy Winehouse turned up at his National Youth Jazz Orchestra. "The singing coach, Annabel Williams, came up to me after rehearsal and said: 'All she did was sit in the corner smoking for England – she didn't join in at all.'" He laughs. "But when it came to performing the song with the big band, she just got up and nailed it first time. Just from listening to the others do it."
A few months later, in June 2000, the NYJO staged a show at Rayner's Hotel in west London. Their singer dropped out at the last minute; Winehouse didn't know the songs, but wasn't fazed when Ashton called her. "She just said: 'Don't worry, I'll learn them on the train.' So between her stop in north London [Southgate] and Rayner's Lane, she learned all four songs on her Discman, and she sang them brilliantly. To do that is extraordinarily rare."
On the first anniversary of Winehouse's death, it's worth remembering just what a natural, instinctive musician she was. Her later, often shambolic shows (in particular that heartbreaking final performance in Belgrade) have gone some way to obscuring the memory of Winehouse at her best: she was one of the last decade's true superstars, a performer who could be strong, emotionally devastating, yet vulnerable, too. A 2006 appearance at the Other Voices festival in Dingle, which screens for the first time on BBC4 on Monday night, remains one of her most powerful: the singer is mesmerising as she interprets several songs from Back to Black over a stripped-back band.
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As a songwriter, she was compulsively biographical. "Everyone writes about their life, but her songs were so specific," says Tyler James, Amy's best friend since they met aged 13 at the Sylvia Young Theatre School. "Every line is about something that took place. I mean, she once wrote a song called Tyler in Cashmere just because she had an obsession with me wearing woolly jumpers." As teenagers, they would sing to each other on the phone. James says the bleak line "I cried for you on the kitchen floor" from You Know I'm No Good was inspired by one of many splits with her then boyfriend Blake Fielder-Civil. A 23-year-old Winehouse told the journalist John Kelly, who interviewed her at Other Voices, that she used to lie on her kitchen floor with a bottle of Jack Daniel's whenever she and Fielder-Civil broke up, playing the Shangri-Las' I Can Never Go Home Again on repeat: "I would pass out, wake up and do it again."
She grew up in a house filled with music. The television was rarely on, but even so silence was at a premium; as well as singing and tap-dancing, a young Winehouse would fill the house with the sound of her practising Home on the Range on a xylophone. Ashton thinks the biggest contributing factor to her talent was the fact that her father, Mitch, was a Jewish taxi driver. "They've got the best musical taste of anyone," he says. "They're extremely discerning, and their taste runs through very good singers. When NYJO did concerts at the Barbican, accompanying people like Buddy Greco, Rosemary Clooney or Peggy Lee, the entire audience was Jewish taxi drivers. Amy had that tradition, and what goes into your ears comes out of your mouth … it's as simple as that. The ear is the most important instrument of all. She had great ears." Her former bass player Dale Davis agrees: "She was into instrumentation and that came through in her voice. She had that ability to improvise phrases. She could sing the same song every night, but do it differently each time."
Winehouse herself talked to John Kelly about this, crediting not just her favourite jazz vocalist Sarah Vaughan for teaching her to sing, but also great instrumentalists such as Thelonious Monk. She likened Vaughan's vocals to the sound of a clarinet; her own vocals were coarser, more brassy. In Monday night's BBC4 documentary, Winehouse's sense of mastery and control is evident when she plays a song like Tears Dry on Their Own to a tiny crowd gathered in |
in extramarital affairs―most notably Monica Lewinsky, the former White House intern at the center of the effort to impeach Mr. Clinton for perjury.
The poll comes as several prominent Democrats have come to acknowledge Mr. Clinton’s transgressions in the wake of the allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
MSNBC host Chris Hayes tweeted on Friday: “As gross and cynical and hypocritical as the right’s ‘what about Bill Clinton‘ stuff is, it’s also true that Democrats and the center left are overdue for a real reckoning with the allegations against him.”
Whether one believes allegations of sexual misconduct against Mr. Trump, however, is still largely dependent on politics.
Eighty-three percent of Hillary voters say the sex allegations against Mr. Trump are “credible,” compared to 6 percent of Trump voters who say the same.
A similar split exists when it comes to former Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly, who was ousted from the network earlier this year amid reports that he racked up millions of dollars to settle sexual harassment lawsuits. Just 18 percent of Trump voters said those allegations have merit, compared to 76 percent of Hillary voters.
Both sides agree that the accusations against Mr. Weinstein are credible. Eighty-one percent of Hillary voters and 74 percent of Trump voters say the wide-ranging allegations against the Hollywood producer are believable.
The Huffington Post/YouGov poll surveyed 1,000 respondents from Oct. 27 to 28. It has a margin of error of 3.8 percent.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
July 16, 2016, 2:43 PM GMT / Updated July 16, 2016, 2:43 PM GMT By Emma Margolin
Sixteen months after signing one of the most controversial anti-LGBT laws in recent memory, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence on Friday became the official pick to be Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate.
The move threatens to further alienate LGBT voters from the Republican Party, just four years after President Obama triumphed over GOP challenger Mitt Romney with a more than three-to-one edge among gay voters. It could also undermine a reputation Trump has cultivated in certain circles of being the most gay-friendly Republican presidential candidate in history.
But for at least some gay Republicans, the future still looks bright for the GOP.
“Donald Trump’s the nominee, Donald Trump sets the policy. That’s what matters,” said Chris Barron, former head of the now-defunct gay conservative organization GOProud, who recently formed the group, LGBTrump. “As long as Pence is comfortable supporting Trump on LGBT issues, I think it’s going to be absolutely perfect.”
Related: Pence May Quell Anti-Abortion Movement's Fears About Trump
From the earliest days of the 2016 election cycle, Trump stood out from his Republican rivals on issues related to LGBT equality. Granted, the bar was set pretty low; while Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz were visiting the anti-gay clerk Kim Davis in jail, for example, Trump was saying publicly he didn’t think sexual orientation should be a reason for letting employees go and that Davis should probably get a different job.
But it wasn’t just Trump’s relatively tame rhetoric on LGBT rights that impressed some Republicans committed to advancing equality; it was also his record. As far back as 2000, Trump was advocating the idea of amending the 1964 Civil Rights Act to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. Eleven years later, Trump told CBN’s “The Brody File” that gay people were “tremendous” and that “there can be no discrimination against gays.” Trump’s Mar-A-Lago was believed to be the first private club in Palm Beach, Florida, to admit an openly gay couple. And when Elton John and his longtime boyfriend, David Furnish, entered a civil partnership in 2005, Trump took to his blog to wish them well.
“If two people dig each other, they dig each other,” the real estate mogul said.
More recently, Trump scored points among LGBT Republicans for his stated position that transgender activist Caitlyn Jenner should be allowed to use whichever bathroom she chooses, as well as his remarks in the wake of the Orlando nightclub shooting that targeted mostly gay, Latino men.
Yet several LGBT rights advocates have repeatedly stressed that Trump’s commitment to equality pales in comparison to that of his presumptive Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. While Trump initially spoke out against North Carolina’s controversial House Bill 2, a law known for preventing transgender people from using government building bathrooms in line with their gender identities, he later backtracked, saying the issue should be left up to the states. A longtime opponent to nationwide marriage equality, Trump has also vowed to appoint justices to the Supreme Court who would reverse the landmark decision that effectively struck down all bans on same-sex nuptials across the country.
In June, the Human Rights Campaign detailed five ways that Trump would roll back LGBT equality as president — a list that includes his support of a federal “religious freedom” law, and a promise to repeal Obama’s executive orders, potentially putting nondiscrimination protections for LGBT employees of federal contractors at risk. The LGBT rights group, which has officially endorsed Clinton, was quick to condemn Trump’s vice presidential pick on Friday.
Related: How Democrats Will Attack Trump's VP Pick Mike Pence
“Donald Trump just doubled down on his agenda of hate and discrimination by choosing the notoriously anti-LGBTQ Mike Pence for his ticket,” said HRC President Chad Griffin in a statement. “Mike Pence has never left any question about his animus toward LGBTQ people, from peddling a hateful and damaging ‘right to discriminate bill’ in Indiana last year, to his longstanding opposition to marriage equality — positions shared by Donald Trump.”
If Trump was indeed hoping to shore up support among the GOP’s social conservatives, then Pence was undoubtedly an ideal choice for vice president. Last year, the Indiana governor became the target of national scorn when he decided to sign a controversial “religious freedom” bill that many believed would make it easier to discriminate against LGBT people.
Known as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), the law was written to prohibit any state entity from substantially burdening a person’s religious beliefs, unless that entity could prove it was relying on the least restrictive means possible to further a compelling governmental interest. Critics warned the measure would effectively serve as a license to discriminate — particularly against LGBT people — on religious grounds.
Related: Pence's Traditional GOP Appeal Cuts Both Ways for Trump
Facing enormous corporate backlash, Pence ended up signing a so-called “fix” that made clear the state’s RFRA could not be used by businesses to discriminate against LGBT patrons. But even with the amendment, LGBT advocates argued the law still posed a risk of opening the door to discrimination in education and access to health care.
Coming on top of the GOP platform committee’s decision this week to adopt a fiercely anti-LGBT agenda — including opposition to marriage equality and bathroom choice for transgender people, as well as an endorsement of the medically discredited practice of “conversion therapy” — Pence’s pick as a running mate seems like it would be the final straw for many Republicans in the LGBT community. But according to Gregory Angelo, president of the pro-LGBT Log Cabin Republicans, Friday’s announcement wasn’t necessarily a dealbreaker.
“Let’s keep it all in context: The day that news broke about Mike Pence’s selection, news also broke that Peter Thiel, an openly gay delegate from California, was going to be speaking at the Republican National Convention,” said Angelo. “I think you have to view the draft platform and the Pence pick through the same prism of an evangelical, Christian base that feels rattled by the overtures Mr. Trump has made to the LGBT community, and the fact that he didn’t campaign as a social issues warrior throughout the primary process.”
The Log Cabin Republicans have yet to decide whether to endorse Trump — a decision the group typically makes in the fall.
“I’m not losing any sleep at night over Pence,” Angelo said. “My concerns are with Trump. And there are definitely concerns there.”As readers of this blog know, late last spring I spoke at a cool conference in England called How the Light Gets In, where I hung out with all kinds of professional reality-ponderers. I've already posted Q&As with two fellow speakers I shared housing with: biologist Rupert Sheldrake, who urges scientists to take telepathy more seriously; and physicist George Ellis, who deplores the philosophical philistinism of some fellow physicists. Below is my Q&A with another housemate, physicist Carlo Rovelli of Aix-Marseille University and the Intitut Universitaire de France. I interviewed Rovelli by phone in the early 1990s when I was writing a story for Scientific American about loop quantum gravity, a quantum-mechanical version of gravity proposed by Rovelli, Lee Smolin and Abhay Ashtekar. (General relativity, Einstein's theory of gravity, is notoriously difficult to reconcile with quantum mechanics.) I was thrilled to meet Rovelli face to face, especially since he turned out to be, like Sheldrake and Ellis, a good as well as smart guy. Rovelli is the author of a leading textbook on quantum gravity and a biography about the ancient Greek philosopher Anaximander (discussed below). For more on Rovelli's views on physics and philosophy, see this 2012 conversation with him on Edge.org.
Horgan: Why did you become a physicist?
Rovelli: I was young in the sixties and seventies, and shared the dream of my generation: changing the world and make it more just and gentle. We lost. I did not know what to do next. I found physics, where, instead, revolutions succeed. I got in love with it. It has been a passion that hasn't ended.
Horgan: Has physics lived up to your expectations?
Rovelli: It has been much better than I expected. Infinite fun and enthusiasm. Investigating the secrets of the world. Thinking things that nobody else has thought before. Great adventures in thinking. Great companions of travel. Fantastic.
Horgan: What is loop quantum gravity?
Rovelli: It is, in my humble opinion, the best tentative theory of quantum gravity we have at present. We do not know if it is right. But we know there is a problem, and this is the best possible solution found so far for this problem.
Horgan: Is it still a viable contender as a unified theory?
Rovelli: "Unified theory" generally means a theory that unifies all forces and all fields: a "theory of everything." Loop quantum gravity doesn't have anything to do with this. [Horgan note: LQG doesn't include electromagnetism or the nuclear forces.] I think that for the moment we know nothing about a "unified theory" and the attempts to write it are by far premature and ill conceived. So, LQG is not a contender as a unified theory. Much more humbly, it is just a tentative solution for a simpler problem: describing the quantum aspects of gravity. Which is to say the quantum aspects of spacetime. This is hard enough. But it is a problem that we have chances to solve, because we have the ingredients.
Horgan: Do multiverse theories and quantum gravity theories deserve to be taken seriously if they cannot be falsified?
Rovelli: No.
Horgan: Do you ever think it's time for physicists to abandon the quest for a unified theory?
Rovelli: The "quest for a unified theory" is a misconception. Physicists never really searched for it. They stumbled upon string theory, which to some appeared as a possible unification of everything, and, for lack of imagination, put too much energy into strings. When the enthusiasm for strings begun to fade, many felt lost. Now that supersymmetry is not showing up where string theorists expected it, it is a disarray.
Horgan: Can physics—or science in general—ever completely solve the mystery of the universe?
Rovelli: What is the "mystery of the universe"? There isn't a "mystery of the universe." There is an ocean of things we do not know. Many of them we'll figure out, if we continue to be somewhat rational and do not kill one another first (which is well possible.) There will always be plenty of things that we will not understand, I think, but what do I know? In any case, we are very very very far from any complete comprehension of everything we would like to know.
Horgan: Can science attain absolute truth?
Rovelli: I have no idea what "absolute truth" means. I think that science is the attitude of those who find funny the people saying they know something is absolute truth. Science is the awareness that our knowledge is constantly uncertain. What I know is that there are plenty of things that science does not understand yet. And science is the best tool found so far for reaching reasonably reliable knowledge.
Horgan: What's your opinion of the recent philosophy-bashing by Stephen Hawking, Lawrence Krauss and Neil deGrasse Tyson?
Rovelli: Seriously: I think they are stupid in this. I have admiration for them in other things, but here they have gone really wrong. Look: Einstein, Heisenberg, Newton, Bohr.... and many many others of the greatest scientists of all times, much greater than the names you mention, of course, read philosophy, learned from philosophy, and could have never done the great science they did without the input they got from philosophy, as they claimed repeatedly. You see: the scientists that talk philosophy down are simply superficial: they have a philosophy (usually some ill-digested mixture of Popper and Kuhn) and think that this is the "true" philosophy, and do not realize that this has limitations.
Here is an example: theoretical physics has not done great in the last decades. Why? Well, one of the reasons, I think, is that it got trapped in a wrong philosophy: the idea that you can make progress by guessing new theory and disregarding the qualitative content of previous theories. This is the physics of the "why not?" Why not studying this theory, or the other? Why not another dimension, another field, another universe? Science has never advanced in this manner in the past. Science does not advance by guessing. It advances by new data or by a deep investigation of the content and the apparent contradictions of previous empirically successful theories. Quite remarkably, the best piece of physics done by the three people you mention is Hawking's black-hole radiation, which is exactly this. But most of current theoretical physics is not of this sort. Why? Largely because of the philosophical superficiality of the current bunch of scientists.
Horgan: You have written about the Greek thinker Anaximander. Who was he, and why do you find him interesting?
Rovelli: He is the guy who understood that the Earth is a stone that floats in the middle of the Sky without falling down. He understood that the Sky is not just above out head: it is also under our feet. It surrounds us in every direction. He is the only one in the history of our planet who understood this, and convinced everybody else that this is the case. In fact, he has done much more than this, but this is his greatest achievement. I find him immensely interesting because he represents one of the main steps in the development of scientific thinking. He is a giant.
Horgan: Do you agree with philosopher Thomas Nagel that science needs a new paradigm to account for the emergence of life and consciousness in the cosmos?
Rovelli: No. When we do not understand something, people are tempted to think that "some new paradigm" is needed, or a "great mystery" is there. Then we understand it, and all fog dissolves.
Horgan: Do you believe in God?
Rovelli: No. But perhaps I should qualify the answer, because like this it is bit too rude and simplistic. I do not understand what "to believe in God" means. The people that "believe in God" seem like Martians to me. I do not understand them. I suppose this means that I "do not believe in God". If the question is whether I think that there is a person who has created Heavens and Earth, and responds to our prayers, then definitely my answer is no, with much certainty.
If the question is whether I believe that "God" is a powerful something in the people, which causes a lot of disasters but also a lot of good, then of course I believe it. In fact, I am extremely curious about religion. I think that we should study what is religion much more than what is done. There is a sort of taboo in this, a sort of respect towards people who "believe in God", which makes it difficult to understand better.
I think that viewing the "belief in God" just as a bunch of silly superstitions is wrong. The "belief in God" is one form of human religious attitude, and human religious attitude is something very general and universal about our functioning. Something which is important for man, and we have not yet understood.
Horgan: Are science and religion compatible?
Rovelli: Of course yes: you can be great in solving Maxwell's equations and pray to God in the evening. But there is an unavoidable clash between science and certain religions, especially some forms of Christianity and Islam, those that pretend to be repositories of "absolute Truths." The problem is not that scientists think they know everything. It is the opposite: scientists know that there are things we simply do not know, and naturally question those who pretend to know. Many religious people are disturbed by this, and have difficulty in coping with it. The religious person says, "I know that God has created light saying, 'Fiat Lux.'" The scientist does not believe the story. The religious people feel threatened. And here the clash develops. But not all religions are like that. Many forms of Buddhism, for instance, have no difficulty with the continual critical attitude of science. Monotheistic religions, and in particular Islam and Christianity, are sometimes less intelligent.
I have an idea about the source of the conflict: there is beautiful research by anthropologists in Australia which shows that religious beliefs are often considered a-temporal but in reality change continuously and adapt to new conditions, new knowledge and so on. This was discovered by comparing religious beliefs held by native Australians studied by anthropologists in the thirties and, much later, in the seventies. So, in a natural situation, religious beliefs adapt to the change in man's culture and knowledge. The problem with Islam and Christianity is that many centuries ago somebody had the idea of writing down beliefs. So now some religious people are stuck with the culture and knowledge of centuries ago. They are fish trapped in a pond of old water.
Horgan: Have you ever accepted money from a military organization?
Rovelli: No. In my country military service was compulsory when I was a young man. I refused to join the army and was briefly detained for this.
Horgan: Do you think physicists—and scientists in general--have a moral responsibility to oppose militarism?
Rovelli: I think that we have a moral responsibility to oppose war as human beings, not as physicists or scientists. I think that the problem is that everybody "opposes the war" in words, but then many people are ready to make exceptions to serve their interests, defend their power and economical superiority. And these people hide this behind "feel good" words like "help people" or "fight terrorism". I found this morally disgusting. I wish people were less religious and more moral.
Horgan: In 2002 I bet physicist Michio Kaku $1,000 that by 2020 "no one will have won a Nobel Prize for work on superstring theory, membrane theory, or some other unified theory describing all the forces of nature.” Who do you think is going to win? [Horgan note: Lee Smolin was originally going to bet against me but backed out at the last minute, the big chicken.]
Rovelli: You. No doubt.
Postscript from Horgan: In the comments section, you can see that Carlo Rovelli posts responses to some early comments on his remarks. I'm copying his responses here for easier access.
A few answers from carlo rovelli:
- to “lakefield”: I actually loved these questions: finally general questions allowing ideas to be expressed, instead of the common boring technicalities.
- to “pupplesan”: I think what you do in your post about the “hard problem of consciousness is not characterising it, but rather anticipating a possible answer. Which might be right. Or not.
- to “Strangelove”: Yes, Archimedes and Eudoxus are also giants. Establishing ranking is not of much interest, I think. I had the misfortune that my US publisher chose the title “The First Scientist” for my book on Anaximander, raising a silly priority debate. I meant bringing attention to Anaximander’s wonderful achievements, not to open an empty discussions about who is greatest or the first! More on the substance of your post, I agree that the key is being testable, which is the main thing you say. But I think that the picture of science as “random guesses” then tested is not a good picture. The “guesses” that have a good chance of being later confirmed are those that have ground. Your example about the spherical Earth is very good: there had been a long sequence of observations, arguments and rational thinking (An example in Aristotle’s ‘On the Heavens’ is the round shade of the Earth on the Moon during lunar eclipses) that provided very strong plausibility to the idea. I think that a problem of today’s theoretical physics is the difficulty of appreciating the difference between a “random guess” and a “well motivated guess”.
- to “ZoranOstric”. You ask about a way to overcome this separation. I think a good starting point could be simply physicists stoping talking philosophy down. For centuries scientists were cultured people, who knew the main philosophical ideas of the past, knew well the history of science, and were very curious about the philosophers of their own times. Yes, I do think that knowing what people in analytical philosophy do now would be useful. There are many thinker in analytical philosophy nowadays that I have found very interesting for a physics (Butterfield, Price, Earman, Norton, Dorato, van Fraassen, Bitbol, Halvorson, Brown, Wuthrich, Myrvold, Ismael, Weinstein, Sauders… just to name a few at random). An example: people talking about “other worlds existing” could usefully read John Austin and David Lewis, at least to avoid using “exist” so superficially…
- to "cshbar", who asks: 'how [my] favored theory can be falsified?' Good question. Thanks. Answers in several steps:(i) In principle, Loop Quantum Gravity gives specific quantitative predictions, for instance regarding the possible values of the area of any surface, or cross section. Any measurement of a cross section that does not enter the set of the values predicted by theory falsifies the theory. (ii) These predictions are pretty general, and the situation is very different from string theory, which has zillions of vacua each with a different set of predictions, or multiuniverses, where it is not even very clear what a 'prediction' is going to be.(iii) In practice, it is difficult to test predictions, because the Planck length is small.(iv) But the claim of LQG is simple, and low key: it is not a theory we try to sell as the final theory of everything that everybody should buy; we present it is a tentative theory whose physical viability we ourselves we are far from sure about, until some empirical support comes in.(v) As for myself, predictions and testing the theory is what I am consider interesting and what I am working on. This is why I am trying to use the theory to compute the probability of black holes tunnelling into white holes, with the hope to see signals of this process in cosmic rays, and get hard testing. So, the short answer is: LQG is developed with the idea that what cannot be tested empirically is not good science.
Post-postscript: Biologist Jerry Coyne comments on the Q&A at "Why Evolution Is True," http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2014/08/23/accommodationism-from-a-physicist/.Fans looking to chase their kids around with an axe now have the perfect place to do that. The Stanley Hotel, the inspiration for the Stephen King novel and Stanley Kubrick film, The Shining, has finally opened its very own hedge maze.
An international contest was held to select the maze design and out of 329 entries from 31 countries, a panel selected the maze of New Yorker Mairim Dallaryan Standing earlier this year. It officially opened last week.
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The hotel, which is located in Estes Park, CO, has been open for over a century. The release of the King novel and Kubrick film made it a tourist destination for fans looking to experience the same kind of isolation Jack Torrence experienced in the story. Alas, while the hotel could match the beauty and isolation described in the book and seen in the movie, most were disappointed there was no hedge maze. (For anyone who hasn’t seen The Shining movie, spoilers — but Jack goes crazy and chases his son Danny with an axe in a massive hedge maze at the end of the film. This is not in the book.)
Unlike the maze in the film, the maze at the hotel is considerably smaller (mostly because of the available flat space on the grounds of the hotel) and much lower to the ground (for now, it’ll grow). Basically, it’s a fun addition to the experience, but still very far away from the frightening space Kubrick created for his film, which was on a sound stage and expanded with matte paintings.
By the way, the Stanley Hotel is not named after Stanley Kubrick. It’s named after F.O. Stanley, the man who originally bought the land and built the first parts of the hotel. The coincidental connection is just one of many eerie things about the space, which has daily ghost tours and an annual horror-themed Stanley Film Festival.Homebase has been accused of "vulture" business practices after a leaked internal document appeared to promote the idea of using unpaid jobseekers to keep down company payroll costs.
The DIY retailer confirmed that a photo of more than a dozen unemployed jobseekers from the government's work experience programme, captioned, "Would 750 hours with no payroll costs benefit YOUR store?" was produced by company staff for an internal discussion.
The image of the jobseekers in high-visibility jackets standing in a store next to a manager stated that in February this year, the Haringey branch of Homebase in north London drafted 25 jobseekers from the government's work experience scheme. Those on the scheme work 30 hours a week unpaid for up to eight weeks. The document came to light when it was passed to blogger Tom Pride.
The company, which employs more than 17,000 people and is part of the multibillion Home Retail Group, strenuously denied that the image was a poster or an advert for the scheme.
The image – with the subheading "How the work experience programme can benefit your store" – was produced as part of a larger document, it said, and used in private discussions between neighbouring Homebase store managers.
Recently, the work and pensions minister, Iain Duncan Smith, said those on similar schemes were not unpaid as unemployed people receive upwards of £56.25 a week.
Unite, Britain's largest union, said the Homebase internal document had let "the cat out of the bag," adding that the entire scheme smacked of "state sponsored slavery."
Separate from the Work Programme and mandatory work activity, the work experience scheme became voluntary last year after the government was forced by companies to change the rules.
But jobseekers have told the Guardian they have been threatened with having their benefits sanctioned or sent on mandatory work activity if they did not take part or pulled out.
Campaigning group Boycott Workfare said they were informed by an anonymous source that those in the Haringey branch had been warned they would be sanctioned if they did not take up the offer of the Homebase placements.
Two days before the start of the Easter bank holiday, nearby Finsbury Park jobcentre tweeted that it had successfully placed 21 people in the Haringey store to gain experience. The tweet was later deleted.
Steve Turner, executive director of policy at Unite, said, "This exposure has let the cat out of the bag and shows who is really benefiting out of workfare schemes. The government need to urgently bring an end to this appalling, exploitative practice."
"Homebase make millions of pounds in profit, yet scandalously – like vultures – they are seeking to exploit some of the most vulnerable people in society, by forcing them to work for free at the threat of losing essential financial support."
"Not only is it a problem for the people they are exploiting, but it also drives down the pay and conditions of regular members of staff. It is bad enough that the government let big businesses get away with poverty pay levels, but to actually drive struggling people in to the grips of this kind of exploitation is unforgivable and smacks of state sponsored slavery."
Homebase said those on work experience did not replace paid workers and those on the scheme were free to leave if they wanted.
"We ensure they work alongside, not replace, paid colleagues. They are entirely under no obligation to participate, nor will non-participation affect any benefits."
Homebase said the image did not form "wider company policy" and said it was "part of a document which was prepared for use in a single internal meeting to discuss the programme that had operated in that store".
The retailer added that the document also contained testimonials from those who benefited from the scheme.
Boycott Workfare called for the scheme to be scrapped: "The government can't have it both ways: branding people on benefits as feckless scroungers when thousands of us are working for no wages. If they really wanted to tackle the'something for nothing' culture they could start by ditching workfare and making companies pay a wage to everyone working in their stores.
"In a week where people claiming benefit have been smeared by the chancellor, the fact of the matter is that it's not people on benefits who are scrounging off the taxpayer, it's businesses."
Commenting on the Homebase image, the Department of Work and Pensions said it had safeguards in place to "ensure people doing work experience are not exploited".
It said: "All employers offering work experience through jobcentre plus sign an agreement that placements must be in addition to existing or planned vacancies and that no current employees are replaced by people doing work experience."Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
While Dzhokhar Tsarnaev claims that his older brother Tamerlan was the inspiration for the attack on the Bosotn Marathon, who was the inspiration for Tamerlan? According to reports by the AP and Daily Mail, family members point the finger at a man identified only as Misha, a friend whom Tamerlan knew through a local mosque. Misha is described as a bald, red-bearded, 30-year-old Armenian convert to Islam who “claimed to be an exorcist who is fighting with demons.” Tamerlan’s uncle, the famously pissed off Ruslan Tsarni, as well as Tamerlan’s former brother-in-law Elmirza Khozhugov, say Misha’s teachings took a hold over the deceased terror suspect:
“When Misha would start talking, Tamerlan would stop talking and listen. It upset his father because Tamerlan wouldn’t listen to him as much,” Khozhugov said. “He would listen to this guy from the mosque who was preaching to him.” Anzor became so concerned that he called his brother, worried about Misha’s effects. “I heard about nobody else but this convert,” Tsarni said. “The seed for changing his views was planted right there in Cambridge.”
Tamerlan lost an interest in music because Misha said it was un-Islamic. He started to read Al Qaeda’s Inspire magazine — which happens to have promoted the very same type of pressure cooker bomb used in the Boston attack — and Infowars, the insane conspiracy theory website run by Alex Jones. (“I’ve seen this before,” Jones tells Buzzfeed. “The federal government trying to connect me to tragedies.”)
Misha’s full identity has yet to be revealed, but it shouldn’t take long. There can’t be that many bald, red-bearded Armenian Muslims in the Cambridge area.Hey guys! Today is a big day for me. I received in the mail a vinyl debut album from a French Instrumental band called "Parqks", who asked me a couple of months back whether they could use some of my artworks for their cover art. I was happy to contribute my art, and today I am holding the result in my hands in shape of their debut album.You can check out the album art on my facebook page: www.facebook.com/mercurycode - also be sure to check out Parqks, if you are into Instrumental and Post-Rock. Their debut album is FANTASTIC! www.parqks.com/#music Anways, I feel honored and proud and felt like sharing this with you, since this new texture right here came together while listening to their tunes| RULES OF USAGEFree high resolution!Made from my own material. Hope you enjoy!1.Don't claim my textures as your own with none or minor alterations.2.So others are able to find the source.3.Please feel free to send me a link to your artwork. I'm always happy to see what you made!An EL AL flight en route to Tel Aviv from Toronto was forced to return to the city after issuing a mayday call.
Evan Daurio, an employee of Corus Entertainment, the parent company of Global News, was on board the flight and said the plane was up in the air before it encountered trouble.
“We felt some sort of explosion or combustion on the right side of the plane. The lights went off and everything kind of started to flicker a bit,” he said Tuesday evening.
“We saw the crew running around and after a bit of time we were told that there was something wrong with the plane, but we weren’t exactly sure what, and that we were turning around and going back to Toronto.”
Daniel Moir, who was on the plane, said that he and his fellow passengers were worried but they tried to keep themselves distracted.
“One pilot came rushing down the (aisle) looking very worried which made us more worried too. All they said is there was a problem with the right engine and we were returning to Toronto,” he told Global News in an email.
Daurio described the atmosphere as “pretty tense” as the plane made its way back to Pearson airport.
He said after the plane landed, it waited as a fire truck pulled up along the right side.
Daurio said the plane then taxied to the gate where passengers were kept on board while crews worked to find accommodations for them.
Toronto Pearson International Airport spokeswoman Natalie Moncur said the airport’s operations command centre was notified of the mayday call from tower personnel just after 7:10 p.m. ET. The airport reported the plane took off at 5:53 p.m.
“We had dispatched fire and emergency crews. They were on scene to greet the plane when it landed and conduct an inspection of the plane to make sure it was safe,” she said.
Moncur initially said passengers deplaned, but multiple people on board contacted Global News and said they were still waiting to go into the terminal. Moncur followed up to say EL AL staff were making arrangements for passengers.
Daurio said passengers were let off the plane before 11 p.m.
Airport officials couldn’t confirm the details of the mayday call and referred questions to EL AL.
Global News attempted to speak with EL AL, but a representative wasn’t available for comment Tuesday evening.
WATCH: Aviation expert says engine fires rare but can be ‘catastrophic’ if not contained (Dec. 21)
Rebecca Joseph contributed to this reportSo the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, thinks his country has a ‘profound interest… in a very strong United Kingdom staying in a strong EU’, and President Obama is planning to join in campaigning for the Remainders too. They say this not because they think it is good for us, but because it is in their interests that we influence Europe in a free-trading, Atlanticist direction.
Well, two can play at that game. How would Americans like it if we argued that it is in our interests that the United States should forthwith be united with all the countries in their continent north of the Panama Canal — Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador and Panama — into a vast customs union governed by a trans-national, unelected civil service. Let’s call it the American Union, or AU.
Imagine that Britain’s Foreign Secretary has just made a speech in Toronto saying he thinks America should join the AU in order to influence Mexico in the direction of free trade. The great and the good in America agree, because they think being part of the ten-country AU will prevent war, boost trade, help smaller nations compete with the behemoths of Europe and China, enable free movement of people, stand up to Russia, encourage scientific co-operation and ensure environmental protection.
Above all, we argue, it would show the world that America is not small-minded, xenophobic, protectionist and isolationist. To this end we think the AU should — er — agree a common tariff against imports from the poorer countries of South America and have free movement of peoples within but not from outside the union. We also think the United States should give up the dollar and use a common currency issued in central America, called the auro, sometimes known as the oreo, or if it is not ready to do that, should encourage others to use the auro, even though there is limited fiscal harmonisation, which bodes ill for the single currency. Oh, and the flag of the AU, consisting of ten radial yellow stripes on a blue background, should be prominently displayed alongside the Stars and Stripes.
Unfortunately, in the current political climate, it turns out that these manifest advantages, deliciously attractive though they might be to the American elite, because they offer an escape from having to think about people in places like Iowa and New Hampshire, apparently do not have quite the same appeal to the American electorate. People are worried about Mexicans taking their jobs, using their health care and drawing upon their welfare if they join the AU. And about Panamanians running up deficits, Guatemalans passing laws that affect Americans and Nicaraguans sharing a common foreign policy.
The average Trump voter might not like Congress much, but he likes the idea of an expensive international parliament that shuttles between Mexico City and Vancouver even less, and of an international executive whose directives pass automatically into law still less, let alone one whose corridors of power are positively |
out of work for over a year in conditions where job-finding prospects are bleak,” according to the report. Economists generally agree that extended jobless benefits increase the unemployment rate. But they disagree on how big the effect is and how damaging that is to the economy. Generous unemployment insurance can increase joblessness if Americans who are out of work don’t search as hard as they otherwise would have for new jobs. They can also give recipients a reason to hold out for better-paying jobs. Those impacts can be a negative for the economy because it means instead of reentering the job market, sidelined workers are relying on the government for assistance and staying unemployed for longer.
Yes, because as any austerity cheerleader will tell you, it's very important that workers get used to the fact that they're now permanently competing for Third World wages."That kind of thing doesn't happen inside my house." Woman finds human remains in deep freezer. @ABC11_WTVD at 4pm pic.twitter.com/gMs65ofGjk — Andrea Blanford (@AndreaABC11) May 31, 2016
Goldsboro police are carrying out a death investigation after human remains were found inside a woman's deep freezer.It happened in the 1700 block of Holly Street on Friday night. The remains were sent to the NC Medical Examiner's Office for identification.Wednesday, police said the person in the freezer died of natural causes, but were waiting to release the name until next of kin can be notified.The woman who made the gruesome discovery told ABC11 she knows the body is that of her elderly neighbor who no one had seen since early last fall.The woman, referred to here as Jane, didn't want to be identified. She said she bought the deep freezer from her neighbor's daughter three weeks earlier at a yard sale. Jane said the woman referred to the freezer, sealed shut with duct tape around the lid, as a time capsule she was keeping for her church."She told me that if I could keep it here and keep it sealed until the church came and picked it up, got the contents, I would be able to keep the deep freezer afterward," Jane said.But Jane said just like the woman's cat, which was left abandoned on her front stoop, so was whatever was left inside the freezer. After three weeks went by, Jane couldn't wait any longer to open it."I had already made the decision that I really needed to open it because everything was just so sketchy," Jane said. "And I had even had the idea that maybe her mom was in there."I went in there and I opened it up," she said. "Lifted the lid and I saw a foot. And I put the lid back down and I tried to analyze what I just saw. And it looked fake so I opened it again and I looked again. But then I recognized the foot. It was her mother's foot."Jane called 911. While officials have not yet identified the body, she is certain who it is."I'm glad that I was the one who was chosen to be able to find her mother so that that poor woman can rest," said Jane. "She's been in a freezer for like eight, nine months possibly."Police said they were investigating the case as a felony concealing the death of a person.PARIS (Reuters) - Five suspects, arrested in France on suspicion of planning attacks on security targets in and around the French capital, were directed remotely by Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the Paris prosecutor said on Friday.
An Islamic State flag is seen in this picture illustration taken February 18, 2016. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Authorities said earlier this week that attacks had been planned for Dec. 1 against police and intelligence headquarters in Paris as well as the Disneyland Paris theme park.
The prosecutor’s emphasis that France was under direct threat of attacks from Islamic State militants raised tension as the country went into a weekend of political campaigning and a vote on Sunday for a center-right candidate for next year’s presidential election.
France is already under a state of emergency, with soldiers patrolling the streets of the capital, following bomb and shooting attacks by Islamic militants in November 2015 which killed 130 people.
“An imminent attack was thwarted,” Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins told a news conference.
“A Strasbourg commando team, and also a man arrested in Marseille, were given instructions to acquire arms. The instructions were given by a commander from the Iraqi-Syrian region via encrypted apps,” he said.
Hand-written documents pledging allegiance to Islamic State and glorifying martyrdom were found at a house in Strasbourg, eastern France, Molins said.
Two of the five suspects had traveled to the Turkey-Syria border via Cyprus in March 2015, he said. Four of the men are French, while a fifth is Moroccan.
Police meanwhile continued searching for an armed man after finding a dead woman in a retirement home where some 60 missionaries were living near Montpellier in southwestern France, sources close to the investigation said on Friday.
One source said a caretaker had contacted the police after freeing herself after being bound and gagged by the suspect.I’ve been using JavaScript for a while now, but only really programming in anger with it during the last year. I’ve found it in turns frustrating and enlightening, ridiculous and brilliant. I have never felt so empowered by a language and its ecosystem, so I thought I’d take some time to write about why that is. I’m starting with a ramble through the history of JavaScript, or rather my undoubtedly inaccurate understanding of it, to provide some context for where and how I’ve been using it.
JavaScript the Survivor
JavaScript has been around for a long time, and it has the scars and stories to prove it. As languages go it has more than its fair share of corner cases, incompatibility issues, frustrations and quirks. It’s an easy language to knock: it was hit with the same ugly stick as the other curly bracket languages, it’s more verbose than other dynamic languages like ruby or python, and if you can look at a piece of code and tell me what the value of the implicit this variable will be, well, you should be getting out more. (Ok, I’m being mean here. Nowadays I usually know what the value of this will be, but let’s just say it isn’t exactly obvious to a novice.)
JavaScript had a difficult childhood. It grew up in lawless neighbourhoods surrounded by gangs. It spent a lot of time listening to its parents fighting with one another about what they wanted it to be when it grew up. As any young language would, it tried hard to please its parents (and that barmy committee of uncles, and all the other random people trying to shape its future). As a result it suffers from what can only be described as behavioural quirks. Depending on which gang it’s hanging out with it will sometimes happily talk to you through its console.log, at other times refuse to say anything, and yet other times it will blow up in your face (but not tell you why).
It has collections, just like the other languages, but no sensible way of traversing them. Instead you are left with the delightful:
for (var key in map) { if (map.hasOwnProperty(key)) { var value = map[key]; // right, now we can get some work done } }
Now you see that var key at the top of the for loop? That’s not declaring a variable, oh no. It’s saying that somewhere else there’s a variable called key (right at the top of the nearest containing function, it turns out). Oh, and that key variable is visible all through that function, and any functions it contains, not just tucked away in the for loop. Brilliant!
So you see, it’s easy to knock dear old JavaScript. Google has even gone to the trouble of coming up with an entire new language for the browser to try to appeal to the Java- and C#-loving, class-conscious (ahem) programmer. But I think they are wrong to do that. All JavaScript needs is some love, and to be treated with a little respect. Sure every now and then it will crap on the bed, but it will also reward you with a wonderful development ecosystem if you make the effort to learn its little ways.
JavaScript grows up
During the browser gang wars, several things happened that started bringing peace and unity to browser-based development. JavaScript started to gain a reputation as someone who could smarten up your neighbourhood: it could provide all sorts of excitement and turn your boring old browser into a cool, asynchronous playground. However it still had its behavioural oddities, and the different gangs had virtually their own language for saying the same thing (as gangs do). Doing something in more than one neighbourhood often involved pretty much starting over.
However, a number of the other kids decided JavaScript wasn’t so damaged that it was beyond help. They realised the gangs were more similar than different and started studying their various quirks. Mediators began to emerge between JavaScript and the various gangs, so you could talk to a mediator and they would figure out what you meant. This was great, except it led to the forming of a new set of gangs. You could join the GWTs or the extjs, the prototypers or the YUIs. But once you’d chosen your path it proved difficult if not impossible to work with the other mediators. They all had a different idea about how to speak both with the gangs and with JavaScript itself. Some of them wanted to “protect” you from JavaScript’s perceived ugliness, and some even tried to pretend it was a whole other thing (say, class-based OO). Others were content just to talk to the gangs on your behalf and leave you to talk to JavaScript directly.
Then one day a new mediator called jQuery appeared on the scene. jQuery wasn’t like the others. Its designers figured that in the browser you mostly cared about exactly three things: handling events, manipulating the DOM, and talking back to your server, and that if they made those things really easy you could probably figure out the rest, including JavaScript itself. jQuery was game-changing in its elegance. (Don’t get me wrong, apparently inside the jQuery house is some pretty shocking JavaScript, but luckily no-one ever visits there.) It made use of familiar constructs, like using CSS selectors to identify elements in the DOM, just like you do. It allowed you to treat the DOM as the great big cuddly hierarchical data structure that it is, offering you the functional constructs of internal iterators, filters, chaining and so on. Suddenly the browser felt like it had been tamed.
In the meantime JavaScript had gone into therapy and emerged as ECMAScript, which meant that if you wanted JavaScript in your neighbourhood at least you had a good idea of how it wanted to behave, even if you weren’t going to let it. This would have been great except it was that barmy committee of uncles that were acting as the therapists, so things moved like treacle. (One of the uncles, Uncle Doug, has some interesting tales about just how slowly things can move). Meanwhile other events were unfolding.
The browser grows up
Google, the mighty advertising search company, had been slowly and successfully making inroads into browser-based apps with GMail, Google Docs, Maps and other cool technologies. They even have their own Marauders’ Map. Then a few years ago Google moved into the browser space. I’m not an industry pundit so I won’t try to predict what their business strategy was or is, suffice to say it looked like they saw the browser as the platform of the future, and decided they may as well be the dog as the tail.
They were already stretching the browser to the limits of credibility with GMail – a fully-fledged mail, calendar and contacts app in your browser. They had to invent technologies like Google Gears to provide client-side storage, and then persuade you to install them in your browser (which was a pretty easy sell since it gave you offline mail and document editing in your browser). So they created their own browser, called it Chrome, and then decided to do three very smart things in order to make a consistent, high-performance browsing platform as ubiquitous as they needed it.
Firstly they open sourced their browser so people could see what they were up to. This meant other open source efforts, in particular Firefox, could borrow from their technical innovation, which upped the bar for everyone. (Firefox wasn’t waiting around either. With each new release of the browser and its Gecko engine came improvements in rendering times and JavaScript processing speed, as well as better support for emerging standards in the various browser technologies.) Secondly they started to push very strongly for clearer standards across browsers, giving rise to the nebulous HTML 5. Certainly there are other major players involved in HTML 5, not least the venerable Yahoo where Uncle Doug lives, but Google’s involvement created a sense of urgency that was never there before.
Thirdly they realised the browser is more than just a place to render HTML and execute JavaScript. Google Chrome contains a full suite of development tools: a REPL to interact with the JavaScript in the current page, a DOM inspector to traverse the DOM and inspect CSS styles and how they got there (not the DOM that was loaded, but its current state after all your JavaScript manipulations), a network analyser to tell you which page elements are loading (and failing) and how long they took, basically everything the jobbing web developer needs to iterate quickly. Other browsers, notably Firefox, have these available as plugins like Firebug and Web Development tools, but Chrome gives you them out of the box.
Even Microsoft decided they needed to get on board with the new wave of HTML 5. First they started referring to the emerging HTML 5 standards as “tier 1 supported technologies” which was heresy to the Microsoft Old Guard. Then they quietly dropped Silverlight, which was their competing not-invented-here browser technology (and which of course only works on Windows). After about 100 years of IE6, they released IE7, IE8 and IE9 in rapid succession, each one faster and more standards compliant than its predecessor (although it’s fair to say that IE is still the red-headed stepchild of web conformance, but at least they’re playing the game).
Now HTML 5 is a huge slew of initiatives covering not only CSS, HTML and JavaScript standards but 2d and 3d graphics, full-duplex I/O with WebSockets (and half-duplex with EventSource), sounds, video… In fact if you stand back and squint you could be forgiven for mistaking the HTML 5 ecosystem for an entire operating system. Whose system language is JavaScript.
JavaScript on the server
The next piece of the JavaScript puzzle starts a couple of years ago with a young hacker named Ryan Dahl. He figured we were doing I/O all wrong on the server, and that in today’s multi-core, highly-concurrent world this was never going to scale.
Mostly we do something like this:
context = "today"; // a local variable data = file.read(); // synchronously read data process(data, context); // and process it
where the thread doing the read blocks until data has been read from the filesystem and loaded into a buffer. To give some idea of scale, memory is tens or hundreds of times slower than CPU cache (measured in orders of ηs), socket I/O is thousands of times slower than memory I/O (orders of μs), and file and network I/O is thousands of times slower than socket I/O (orders of ms). That means your thread could be doing literally millions of things instead of clogging up the place waiting for some data to come back.
An asynchronous version might look more like this:
context = "today"; // a local variable file.read( // ask for some data function(data) { // callback is invoked some time later, process(data, context); // still bound to context } );
where the read function immediately returns and allows execution to continue, and at some arbitrary point in the future — when the data is available — that anonymous function is called with a reference to the context variable still available, even if it’s gone out of scope or changed its value since the call to file.read.
Now this is completely foreign to most server-side programmers. For a start the major languages of C#, Java and C++ are various kinds of useless at bindings and closures — and even Python and Ruby aren’t big on callbacks — so most server-side programmers aren’t used to thinking in these terms. Instead they’re quite happy to spin up a few more threads or fork and join the slow stuff. And this is just the first turtle: What if the process function itself is asynchronous and takes a callback?
However this model is bread and butter to your JavaScript programmer. The entire browser is predicated on a Single Event Loop: There is only one conch shell so if you (or more accurately your function) has it, you can be sure no-one else has. Your concurrent modification woes evaporate. Mutable state can be shared, because it will never be concurrently accessed, even for reading (which is why the whole DOM-in-the-browser thing works so well with event handlers). They are also aware that the price of this is to give back the conch as quickly as you can. Otherwise you bring the whole browser grinding to a halt, and no-one wants that.
So if you’re going to try to pull off this kind of evented I/O shenanigans on the server, well what better language to use than one where this is the core paradigm? Ryan looked at Google Chrome’s shiny new V8 JavaScript engine and asked: what would it take to get this running on a server, outside of the browser? To be useful it would need access to the filesystem, to sockets and the network, to DNS, to processes, … and that’s probably about it. So he set to work building a server-side environment for V8, and node.js was born.
Fast-forward a couple of years and node.js has grown into a credible server-side container. As well as the core container, the node.js ecosystem contains a saner-than-most package manager called npm, and libraries for everything from Sinatra-like web servers, database connectivity, handlers for protocols like IMAP, SMTP and LDAP. In fact I find most of my time is spent coding in the problem domain rather than trying to wire together all the surrounding infrastructure cruft. (Sometimes I find myself deep in a rat hole trying to figure out why a library isn’t working, but such is the way of open source. At least I can look at the source and add some console debugging.)
It uses native evented I/O on Linux and until recently would only run with an emulated I/O layer on Windows. Until Microsoft got involved. Yes, the mighty Microsoft is actively aiding and sponsoring development of tiny little node.js to try to produce equivalent performance on Windows using its (completely different) native evented I/O libraries.
The current stable branch of node.js is showing bonkers fast performance on both Linux and Windows, and only seems to be getting faster. (The fact that Google’s V8 team are big fans and are actively considering node.js on the V8 roadmap isn’t doing any harm either: they suddenly received a slew of bug reports and feature requests as the uptake of node.js pushed the V8 engine in new and unexpected ways.)
JavaScript everywhere
And it doesn’t stop there. JavaScript’s serialization form, JSON, is becoming ubiquitous as a lighter-weight alternative to XML for streaming structured data, and NoSQL databases like mongo are happily using JSON and JavaScript in the database as a query language. This means, for the first time, you can have the same JavaScript function in the browser, on the server and in the database. Just think for a moment how many times you’ve written the same input validation or data checking logic in three different technologies? I’ve not been using any database-side JavaScript in the work I’ve been doing, but it is an interesting proposition.
Tablets such as the sadly-but-hopefully-not-forever-demised HP TouchPad and the nascent Google ChromeOS tablets are using JavaScript (and node.js!) as a core technology. Instead of targeting a closed platform like iOS you can simply write a web app — possibly taking advantage of other tablet-specific APIs or event sources such as a GPS or accelerometer — and it will Just Work on your tablet device. Now that’s pretty sweet! Sadly the most open technology is available on the smallest proportion of devices, and vice versa, but you can still reach a lot of people just by writing a slick web application.
One interesting tangent is that a number of folks are considering JavaScript as a compilation target for other languages! (The implication being that JavaScript is so broken that you wouldn’t want to actually write it, but it’s ok as a kind of verbose assembler language for the browser.) The Clojure language has recently spawned ClojureScript, which is a compiler that emits JavaScript so you can run Clojure in your browser, and a new language called CoffeeScript has emerged, which is a sort of “JavaScript, the good parts with a Pythonesque syntax and a nod to Ruby.” It aligns very closely with JavaScript — you can see exactly how your CoffeeScript expressions turn into the equivalent JavaScript — but lets you get away with less syntax. I used CoffeeScript for a short while, and found that the best thing it gave me was an appreciation of how to stick to the good bits of JavaScript. I expect I’ll talk more about why I leapt into CoffeScript — and why I then decided to decaffeinate — in my next article.
And finally…
One thing I keep noticing is that by being this late to the JavaScript party, a lot of the lumpier language-level problems have been solved, and solved well. One example is a library called underscore.js that describes itself as “the tie to go along with jQuery’s tux.” It elegantly provides missing functional idioms like function chaining and the usual suspects of filter, map, reduce, zip and flatten, in a cross-browser and node-compatible way, as well as some useful methods on object hashes like keys, values, forEach and extend (to merge objects) etc. Similarly a library called async provides clean ways of chaining multiply-nested callbacks, managing multiple fork-joins, firing a function only after so many calls, etc.
As I said at the beginning of this article, I don’t remember feeling so empowered by a technology, in terms of being able to deliver full-stack applications, as I am by the combination of HTML 5 and server-side JavaScript. It’s an exciting time to be developing for the browser — and the web — and it’s never been easier.Xiaomi is an innovative tech company known for their cheap but quality tech products which span different categories. The company recently announced its most expensive product ever recently, the Mi Laser Projector with a hefty 9999 Yuan ($1,470) price tag. Yes, it is Xiaomi’s most expensive product presently but on a comparison, the Laser projector is still way cheaper than other laser projectors in the market.
The Xiaomi Mi Laser Projector was billed to go on sale today, July 4 via Xiaomi Mall and indeed it went up on sale with some monstrous sales figures. It took just one hour 53 minutes for the sales to hit 10 million Yuan ($1,470,609.86). Now, if you know about Xiaomi’s products you’d understand that they are just not available in excess units. So, the figure translates into just 1000 units of the Mi Laser and we’re sure that sales revenue could have been more than doubled if the stock hasn’t been exhausted.
The Xiaomi Mi Laser Projector uses an advanced laser fluorescence display technology (ALPD 3.0) with a shelve life of 25,0000 hours which translates to up to 34 years usage if the projector is used for 2 hours daily. A daily usage of up to 4hours can still guarantee up to 17 years of usage, meaning the laser is ultra-durable and long lasting. The projector’s two core technologies are the light source technology manufactured by the Light Peak photoelectric company while the imaging technology chip in use was made by Texas Instruments and Guangfeng photoelectric custom R&D.
Read More: Microsoft Launches Rechargeable Modern Keyboard With A Hidden Fingerprint Scanner Priced At ¥988 ($145)
The new Laser projector is capable of displaying up to a maximum of 150 inches with 1920 x 1080p resolution. The projector provides a red light ratio of 16% to 18%, wide color gamut, color quasi, with contrast comparable to the laser studio 3000: 1 screen contrast. The light source brightness can reach up to 5000 lumens which is of theatre screen level. The projector also diffuses its direct light source, allowing for more eye protection. The sound quality is also of high quality, giving the Mi Laser 150″ projector the capability of providing theatre-level audio-visuals right in the comfort of the sitting room.
(source)Woe, Is Me was an American metalcore band from Atlanta, Georgia. Formed in 2009, the group was signed to Rise Records and its subsidiary, Velocity Records. Their debut album, Numbers, was released on August 31, 2010 and charted at number 16 on Billboard's Top Heatseekers chart. Due to many lineup changes and conflicts, the only original member who remained in the band through its entire run was guitarist Kevin Hanson. The band broke up in September 2013.
History [ edit ]
Formation and Numbers (2009–2010) [ edit ]
Woe, Is Me was founded during the fall of 2009 in Atlanta by former Of Machines drummer Austin Thornton, who started the band along with Kevin Hanson, Cory Ferris, and Ben Ferris, who were all formerly of a local Atlanta-based band named Cheyne Stokes. Tim Sherrill, who played lead guitar of another local group named Shooter McGavin, also joined in.[2] These five members then recruited vocalists Michael Bohn and Tyler Carter respectively for unclean and clean vocal positions after Michael's and Tyler's departure from A Path Less Traveled, another local group. With this seven-member lineup, the band recorded a three-song demo with producer Cameron Mizell containing the songs "Hell, or High Water", "I" and "If Not, for Ourselves"[2] which were released to their Myspace profile. The group later recorded and released a cover of the Kesha song "Tik Tok", also showcased online within a few months of being a band. Soon after these recordings were released, The Artery Foundation took notice of them. Rise Records, along with their imprint label, Velocity Records, signed Woe, Is Me before even playing their first show.[3] They recorded their debut album, Number[s] during the same month that they were signed. It was subsequently released on August 31, 2010.[4] It reached position No. 16 on Billboard's Top Heatseekers chart.[5][6] The band's debut tour, the Pyknic Partery tour, was shared with Drop Dead, Gorgeous, From First to Last, Sleeping with Sirens, Abandon All Ships, For All Those Sleeping, and Attila.[7]
Clean vocalist Tyler Carter's soul-influenced voice garnered comparisons to Jonny Craig, who provides guest appearances on the album.[8][9][10][11][12] The group held an album release show in Georgia for Number[s] on September 2, 2010 with pop punk band Veara as a supporting act. Later in September, the band recorded a cover of the Katy Perry song "Hot n Cold" for the compilation album, Punk Goes Pop 3.
In an interview with radio station The Gunz Show, Carter stated that the band would be recording a music video for "[&] Delinquents" in September 2010.[13] The group embarked on a Canadian tour supporting Abandon All Ships from October 1, 2010 to the 28th of that month. From November 4, 2010 to November 28, 2010, the band was included on a US tour entitled Average Guys with Exceptional Hair Tour in support of A Skylit Drive, along with For All Those Sleeping, Scarlett O'Hara, and Motionless in White. The music video for "[&] Delinquents" was released on the first of December of that year.[14]
"Fame > Demise", line-up instability (2010–11) [ edit ]
By the end of 2010, lead guitarist Tim Sherrill parted ways with Woe, Is Me.[15] Geoffrey Higgins then took up the position in March 2011.[16] Soon after, the group officially released "Fame > Demise" (pronounced fame over demise) through the iTunes Store on March 21, 2011.[17] Carter explained that the song is and would only remain as a single, and would not be part of the band's second album.[18] An acoustic version of the song was also released.[19]
In June 2011, lead guitarist Geoffrey Higgins also departed from the band.[20] The group began their performances on Warped Tour with only Hanson performing the rhythm guitar parts to where leads were backtracked during performances for the time being due to their lack of a lead guitarist.[21] With the band yet again searching for a lead guitar player, the conclusion of their search was made weeks afterward where Abandon All Ships' drummer and guitarist, Dan and Andrew Paiano were kicked from the band.[22] Almost immediately afterward, it was announced that Andrew would be joining Woe, Is Me to play lead guitar.[23] On August 10, 2011, clean vocalist, Tyler Carter left the band. He cited an interest in following newer and different objectives than being in a band and went on to state that "[the rock 'n' roll lifestyle] and what it consists of just isn't for me anymore" as the reason for his departure.[24]
"Vengeance", Number[s] re-issue, and Genesi[s] (2011–2012) [ edit ]
On September 15, 2011, Woe, Is Me announced via-video update their new singer, Hance Alligood. Alligood was once a part of a local Atlanta band, "Oh, Manhattan". Along with this update, the group also played various clips from a new single entitled, "Vengeance", which was released on September 27. On March 7, 2012, Michael Bohn and both Ferris brothers left the band due to personal, professional, and musical differences
"It came to a point where we could either continue on the path they saw fit, or we could create our own path and find happiness in our own ways," said Bohn and the Ferris brothers in a statement made shortly after their departure from the band.[25] They have since reconciled with former bandmate, Tyler Carter, and created a new band named Issues with their friend, Case Snedecor.[26]
On April 16, 2012, touring members Doriano Magliano (former vocalist for That's Outrageous!) and bassist Brian Medley officially announced they had joined Woe, Is Me, so with Jeremy also added to the group, the band set to enter the studio throughout summer 2012 with a release set sometime later this year.[27] On April 19, 2012, Woe, Is Me were announced as part of the "Scream It Like You Mean It 2012" tour (July–August 2012) alongside headliner Attack Attack! with We Came as Romans, The Acacia Strain, Oceano, Like Moths to Flames, Close to Home, Impending Doom, Abandon All Ships, Secrets, Volumes, For All Those Sleeping, The Chariot, Glass Cloud, At The Skylines, Texas in July, In Fear and Faith, and Hands Like Houses.
American Dream EP and break-up (2013) [ edit ]
On March 8, 2013 the band released a statement that they had parted ways with drummer and founding member Austin Thornton, due to personal differences. As of Thornton's departure, Kevin Hanson was the only original member in the band. With the release of the statement, the band also stated that they are planning on releasing a new single in June.[28][29] On April 25, Woe, Is Me stated on their Facebook page that they will be tracking their new music with Tom Denney. They plan to release it during the summer. A recent interview with the band and lead singer Hance in particular gave insight towards the feel of the new album that they are working on. "The singing/screaming ratio is more balanced, whereas Genesis had a lot more screaming and heavy parts. Doriano and I will share vocal responsibilities and have equal singing/screaming parts. Genesis had lots of breakdowns/chug parts, which don’t get me wrong, were cool. But, the heavy parts on this new stuff will be more riffy and more fun to move to. The choruses will still have the same pop feel to them as the ones from Genesi[s]".
On June 15, 2013, during the first show of Warped Tour, Woe, Is Me announced they would be releasing a new EP later in the year. They later released a new song called "Stand Up," which was announced as the first single from the EP, titled American Dream. It is the first record to not have the Woe, Is Me symbol [s]. It was announced sometime around Warped tour started that David Angel will be the band's new drummer. David Angel played drums for a band called At the Skylines. In a recent Warped Tour update video on the bands YouTube page, they showed vocalist Danny Leal (Upon a Burning Body) tracking vocals for the title track.
While the band had a plan to record a third album,[30] Alternative Press confirmed during September 2013 that the band had ended. Woe, Is Me included a personal post from vocalist Hance Alligood stating that he had "lost passion" for the genre and had decided to leave the band on good terms. As a result, the remaining members decided to disband instead of going through yet another line-up change.
Members [ edit ]
Final lineup Kevin Hanson – rhythm guitar (2009–2013)
Andrew Paiano – lead guitar (2011–2013)
Hance Alligood – clean vocals (2011–2013), additional unclean vocals (2012–2013)
, additional unclean vocals Doriano Magliano – unclean vocals (2012–2013)
Brian Medley – bass guitar (2012–2013)
David Angle – drums (2013) Former members Tim Sherrill – lead guitar (2009–2010)
Jack Langdell – lead guitar (2010–2011)
Geoffrey Higgins – lead guitar (2011)
Tyler Carter – clean vocals (2009–2011)
Michael Bohn – unclean vocals (2009–2012)
Ben Ferris – keyboards, unclean vocals (2009–2012)
Cory Ferris – bass guitar (2009–2012)
Austin Thornton – drums (2009–2013), keyboards, programming (2012–2013)
Timeline
Discography [ edit ]
Music videos [ edit ]
"[&] Delinquents" (2010)
"Vengeance" (2011)
"A Story to Tell" (2013)
References [ edit ]I didn’t arrive in West Yorkshire with the hairstyle I had fantasized about. I have a reasonably close relationship with my hairdresser, but bringing in a photo of a French footballer for my last appointment was already quite a leap. The idea of myself casually asking for the faintest of blonde highlights and then quickly clarifying that I had been inspired by fashionable European men didn’t seem genuine, and I ultimately decided that I wouldn’t risk the possibility of someone thinking I was a closet homophobe.
After a long journey from the western United States I arrived at my hotel in downtown Leeds mid-day, exhausted but willing to exert myself if it meant absorbing everything I could in the first 1/2 of my 2 1/2 day stay. What I had pledged would be a short nap ended up being a 12 hour slumber, and I spent my first waking hours in this exotic locale flipping between the interchangeable early morning news programs not unlike the ones I’ve seen in the states.
I ate my breakfast in the hotel’s restaurant buffet at a table by myself, albeit surrounded by other solitary men, then set out to find the city’s famous football stadium. After 90 minutes I was wandering the outskirts of the city, a land of luxury car dealerships and Burger Kings, my isolation the result of a dead cell phone and a horrible sense of direction. My feet spent, I resigned myself to cracking the local bus system and somehow found my way back to the hotel.
Later that day I walked to the nearby mall in pursuit of a fashionable purple shirt, but couldn’t find anything satisfactory and left empty-handed. Within a block I encountered a shop for piercings and tattoos. Momentarily channeling the audacity from the hero of this story, I walked towards the shop with the intent of adorning my left ear with a purple hoop earring, only to make eye contact with the attractive employee behind the store window just steps from the entrance. I re-directed my paces, found the UK’s version of a convenience store and stocked up on wine, vodka and various nuts, using the self check-out of course. I spent the night wallowing in self-pity while also resenting the sheer potential of my social anxiety. I realized it had the ability to paralyze me at the drop of a hat.
I set the bar low on my final day, the day of the concert. “Go to the renowned Moroccan restaurant that you had read about. Get it take-out. Leave.” I couldn’t do it. The crowds around the establishment were too frenetic, the beads of sweat on the workers too prominent. I bought more wine on the way back to the hotel.
In the hours before the concert I regretted everything about the trip. I felt like a dunce to have gone alone, knowing my own emotional limitations. I began to doubt whether Prince would even show up. Why would someone of his stature come to perform for a crowd in this far-off part of the country? Why would he perform for a crowd that included *me*?
After drinking a sizeable amount of wine(at least my lips were purple) I set out for the local arena in the pissing rain. My heart fluttered at the sight of a 40-something woman in knee-high purple and white striped socks. Inside the arena I awkwardly double-fisted two pints of over-priced beer in a dark corner of the lobby. I then panicked, realizing that such an amount of liquid would have to depart my body in some manner. It did, ultimately, via perspiration.
He didn’t do “Private Joy”. Or “Head”. In fact he didn’t do anything from “Dirty Mind”. He didn’t do “Erotic City” or “Do Me, Baby”, and the rumours of him doing some Led Zeppelin covers considering the location were ultimately unfounded. It didn’t matter, not even a lick.
He did 55 minutes. Left. Returned. |
the content of the tattoo:
Mr. Ryan said he was happy he had to alter only the tattoo’s color. "The girl’s not changing," he said. "I’ve been married 28 years."
There were questions about what Ryan would do with the tattoo after the Jets cut Sanchez this past offseason, to which Ryan said he would consider changing the number, but was keeping the tattoo.
Woo notes that Ryan also rid himself of his Jets apparel, donating his trademark sweater vest to the Salvation Army.
The good news is Ryan had a pretty solid solution after making the mistake of a permanent tattoo dedicated to a not-so-permanent job. The bad news is this guy who got a "Back To Back Seahawks Champs" tattoo did not have a similar solution and found out the hard way that sandpaper doesn't erase tattoos.Liz Harrington at the Washington Free Beacon finds interesting line items in the budgets at the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Even under a Trump appointee, the NEH is still funding liberal researchers.
Eric Mandelbaum, a philosophy professor at the City University of New York, will receive a $50,000 grant for "Propaganda and Belief in the Modern World," a book-length study on the "psychology of belief formation."
Mandelbaum coauthored a paper in 2015 entitled, "Believing Without Reason, or: Why Liberals Shouldn't Watch Fox News." In his beginning section, "Believing Badly," Mandelbaum expressed shock that about half of Americans believe in ghosts, and believing in God is another example that "people believe very odd things."
"[Seventy-four percent] of American adults believe in God, 72 [percent] believe in miracles, 68 [percent] believe in heaven, 57 [percent] believe in the Virgin birth," the article states. "Thus more Americans believe that Jesus was born of a virgin than that humans are part of the phylogenetic tree." "As of May 2014, 22-28 [percent] of Americans believe that the Bible is the actual word of God, and is to be taken literally word for word," Mandelbaum emphasizes. "People hold shockingly irrational beliefs," he writes.
Merry Christmas, you shockingly irrational Jesus freaks.
The conspiracy theory that Mandelbaum unfurls is that the little "crawl" of text along the bottom of the Fox News screen can infernally, unconsciously persuade liberals they might be wrong about something:
"The reluctant liberal Fox News viewer, then, will not merely unwillingly accept information (e.g.,) embedded in the crawl, but will integrate that information with other previously held beliefs," he continues. "And this information—these new beliefs—will not only be acquired in an evidence-less fashion, but they will be acquired from sources the viewer explicitly rejects as trustworthy sources. These beliefs will then be integrated into the subject's future decisions and attitudes, unbeknownst to her and despite her better judgment. If the Spinozan model is correct, this proliferation of belief without evidence is real and serious." Mandelbaum adds that viewers are not safe, even if they tell themselves, "This report is not credible and I should reject it." "[O]nce parsed and understood, the report lies ‘sleeping' in central cognition, stretching its inferential tentacles outward," he writes.
The professor doesn't seem to care whether conservatives might be persuaded out of their beliefs by watching large chunks of the liberal networks.
On his own website, Mandelbaum describes his work on the acquisition of beliefs: "How can human beings, seemingly the smartest animals ever encountered, be so freaking dumb? We seem to acquire beliefs with the ease with which we catch colds, yet we also seem to learn nothing. How this is possible is a fun topic to examine, and will ensure your swear jar is full."
PS: Then there’s the taxpayer-funded NEH research on the really important topics, like “Slouch: The Hidden History of America's Poor Posture Epidemic.” If that’s an epidemic, I’m infected. The project description is “Research and writing of a book on the rise and fall of the American poor posture epidemic in the 20th century and its impact on science, medicine, government, and industry.”NEW YORK, March 11 (Reuters) - U.S. health insurers are struggling to set prices for their Obamacare plans in 2015 and decide which regions to return to before the deadlines for submitting those plans to regulators.
Some insurers already expect to lose money this year following the rocky launch of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which aims to provide coverage to millions of uninsured Americans with the help of government subsidies. The rollout was marred by technical errors that held up early enrollment, last-minute regulatory changes and steady political opposition from Republicans.
For 2015, insurers must describe their health plans and proposed rates to state and federal regulators starting in April and May. But before they do, some of the most important factors that go into those decisions may not be known, from the size of the doctor and hospital networks that the federal government will approve to final 2014 enrollment figures and the relative health of their new plan holders.
Without that data, said Jon Urbanek, senior vice president of commercial markets at Florida’s market-leading Blue Cross Blue Shield, “I can’t tell you exactly yet that we’ve decided about counties and products and all those pieces, but we feel like participating in the marketplaces is very consistent with our mission.”
Cigna Corp Chief Executive Officer David Cordani said the nation’s fifth-largest insurer was still undecided on which if any new markets it might enter, although “that decision needs to be made in short order,” he said in an interview.
The result, industry executives and experts say, is that some of the larger insurers may pull out of individual markets where they already know they can’t make money. Otherwise they will try to hold steady until 2016, when the number of people on Obamacare plans is expected to surge as high as 22 million.
Some smaller insurers offering health plans in 2014 may back out altogether if they can’t afford to ride out the program’s early troubles.
“There will be some sort of a shakeout,” said Tim Jost, a health law expert and professor at Washington and Lee University in Virginia. Small health plans and cooperatives that priced their health coverage too high and got few customers are among the most vulnerable, he said.
“On the other hand, (the national insurers) have been watching the markets, and if 2014 turns out to look better than expected, they may jump in,” Jost said.
John Morrison, who founded The National Alliance of State Health CO-OPs, a trade group, was more optimistic about the small insurers. He said the coops have low overhead and are required to keep enough capital on hand to last them into at least the second or third year of the exchanges. They will all be open, he believes, and enrolling new customers in 2015.
PRICE, POLICY SURPRISES
A handful of large insurers have won most of the customers so far among more than 100 active on the Obamacare marketplaces in the 50 states. By their own estimates, WellPoint, Aetna Inc, Humana Inc, and Health Net together pulled in about 970,000 enrollment applications by the end of January out of about 3 million nationwide at that time.
But large insurers including Cigna and Aetna said they do not expect to make money this year on the new Obamacare exchanges.
In January, Aetna Chief Executive Officer Mark Bertolini suggested that the company’s participation in 2015 could depend on whether the administration would allow it to raise rates enough to cover expenses.
“Are (rate increases) going to be double-digit, and are we going to get beat up because of the double digit, or are we going to just have to pull out of the program? Those questions can’t be answered until we see the population we have today,” he said in an interview with cable news channel CNBC.
Health Net said it is breaking even on its exchange customers after hitting targets in Southern California, its largest market. As of early February it had signed up 168,000 people in California and Arizona.
“I feel like we’re all in and we are happy we are,” Health Net Inc CEO Jay Gellert told investors in January.
Insurers are also bracing for more late policy changes that could disrupt the Obamacare business model. Just last week the administration said it would allow insurers to extend by two more years health policies that were supposed to end in 2014 because they don’t comply with the healthcare law.
“We expect consumers will continue to have a robust number of plan choices available to them for the 2015 open enrollment season as insurance companies compete for the business of millions of Americans seeking coverage with the assistance of tax credits,” said Aaron Albright, a spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees the Obamacare marketplaces.
Actuaries, who help insurers calculate what rates to charge, note that the government’s most recent guidance to the industry, in the form of a 300-page report released last week, raised new questions on how to predict the Obamacare market in 2015.
For instance, the government said it is still considering what percentage of health insurance premiums paid to insurers must be used to cover medical expenses rather than administrative costs, a decision that could directly impact industry profits.
“Even when something is a final rule it has not meant that it is not subject to further change,” said Hans Leida, an actuary at Milliman, referring to the government’s regulation of Obamacare. “There is still great uncertainty to come.”Robots are coming! Especially robots that carry and deliver stuff, like the Starship delivery bot or these ridiculous motorized suitcases. A new bot is about to join those aspirational ranks, and it’s made by Piaggio — the same company that created the Vespa scooter.
This bot is called Gita, and it’s a bright blue orb-shaped cargo robot with wheels that Piaggio says has the same “braking, balancing and vehicle dynamics that you would expect of a high-performance motorcycle,” which is a little dubious. But Gita has a top speed of 22 miles per hour, and it can supposedly either follow its owner around or navigate environments on its own.
Piaggio’s robotics division told TechCrunch that Gita is going to be less about making deliveries and more about augmenting jobs that require a lot of equipment, like maintenance or gardening. That makes a little more sense than a city full of Gitas following humans back from the grocery store, even if it’s a little less futuristic. I’m fine with baby steps, though, because after seeing the nightmarish new Boston Dynamics robot I’m not so sure I know what to believe about robots anymore.Joey Fatone, Chris Kirkpatrick, Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez and Lance Bass of N'Sync attend the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards at the Barclays Center on Aug. 25, 2013 in the Brooklyn.
It's not the reunion fans are really looking for, but the members of *NSYNC staged a reunion of sorts to celebrate JC Chasez's birthday. Chasez, the oldest member of the group, turned 40 on Monday and Justin Timberlake chronicled the event on his Instagram with a classic pic of the quintet smiling for the camera.
JC's 40th... And, if you don't know now you know... A photo posted by Justin Timberlake (@justintimberlake) on Aug 8, 2016 at 11:05pm PDT
It looks like it was an epic night.
Happy Birthday #JCChasez!!!! Comment with your bday wishes to JC!! A photo posted by Lance Bass (@lancebass) on Aug 8, 2016 at 10:04am PDT
'N Sync Joins Justin Timberlake on Stage at the MTV VMAs
It marked the first time Timberlake, Chasez, Lance Bass, Chris Kirkpatrick and Joey Fatone have appeared in public since their reunion at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards.Posted by Theodoros II, Updated on September 10, 2014
Throughout the centuries myths and folktales have enjoyed immense popularity in society and although the phrase “urban legend” is synonymous in most people’s minds with “false belief,” the term actually indicates a more complex social phenomenon related to the production and transmission of folk narratives—narratives which are indeed usually false, but which can also, on rare occasions, prove to be true.
So what is an urban legend after all? A fictional story of a sick and sneaky mind, or the exception that proves the rule? Some directors have tried to answer these questions for us, sometimes with great success, but unfortunately in most cases they only succeeded to contribute more “B movies” to the film industry. See what we mean with these films that are based on creepy urban legends.Corporate recruiters (R) gesture and shake hands as they talk with job seekers at a Hire Our Heroes job fair targeting unemployed military veterans and sponsored by the Cable Show, a cable television industry trade show in Washington, June 11, 2013. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. private employers added 147,000 jobs in October, below economists’ expectations, a report by a payrolls processor showed on Wednesday.
Economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast the ADP National Employment Report would show a gain of 165,000 jobs, with estimates ranging from 130,000 to 190,000.
Private payroll gains in the month earlier were revised up to 202,000 from an originally reported 154,000 increase.
The report is jointly developed with Moody’s Analytics.
The ADP figures come ahead of the U.S. Labor Department’s more comprehensive non-farm payrolls report on Friday, which includes both public and private-sector employment.
Economists polled by Reuters are looking for U.S. private payroll employment to have grown by 166,000 jobs in October, down from 167,000 the month before. Total non-farm employment is expected to have risen by 175,000.
The unemployment rate is forecast to tick down to 4.9 percent from the 5.0 percent recorded a month earlier.All three Greenpeace protesters climbed down to police and were arrested
After nearly 10 hours of hanging on in strong winds, three Greenpeace protesters have come down from their perch high on the gantry of a Niwa research ship.
Police were waiting for them on the deck of the Tangaroa, which has been chartered by United States oil company Chevron to do survey work off the East Coast.
One by one, the protesters were led to a police van, after being verbally arrested earlier in the day.
MONIQUE FORD/FAIRFAX NZ Former Green Party co-leader Russel Norman speaks on the actions of the climate change protesters who boarded the Niwa ship.
Siana Fitzjohn, Kailas Wild and Adrian Sanders were cheered by fellow Greenpeace members on the dock, including former Greens co-leader Russel Norman, now executive director of Greenpeace in New Zealand.
Earlier on Tuesday, police climbed the ship's gantry twice in an effort to talk down the three protesters, but were rebuffed each time.
One protester was hanging from the gantry structure, one had climbed a mast, and another was attached to a ladder. They unfurled a banner proclaiming: "Climb it change".
KEVIN STENT/Stuff.co.nz Greenpeace activists stormed the Niwa research ship Tangaroa, claiming the vessel has been involved in oil exploration.
Police had already arrested two other protesters, Genevieve Toop and Niamh O'Flynn, who boarded the ship.
Greenpeace claimed the taxpayer-funded climate and ocean research ship had been refitted at a cost of $24 million for oil and gas exploration, and was preparing to leave Wellington for the East Coast.
But a Niwa spokeswoman said Tangaroa was not "searching" for oil. "We are a sea research vessel. We do have clients we work for on various things."
MONIQUE FORD/ FAIRFAX NZ The three Greenpeace protesters on the gantry of the Tangaroa research ship in Wellington Harbour.
Chevron confirmed on Tuesday that it had chartered the ship.
Science and Innovation Minister Steven Joyce said he did not know who the charterer was, but it "wouldn't suprise me at all" if it were an oil company.
Further, if an oil company did strike black gold, it would be a boon for New Zealand.
"The Tangaroa would just be doing surveying, but let's say it found oil or gas and they got an exploration licence, and if it turned into there being a production facility, there would be obvious benefits for New Zealand."
He pointed out earlier that the refit was completed back in 2010, and that Tangaroa had been doing survey work since the 1990s.
Any outrage about the fact a Niwa vessel was being used for oil and gas surveying would be "very conveniently recent", he said, because Niwa had been contracting commercially for 30 years.
"The ridiculous thing is, the vessel's research is being subsidised by the commercial work it does."
When accused on Twitter of not answering the question of whether Tangaroa had been surveying for oil, he tweeted "stop trolling... you are boring".
Greenpeace climate campaigner Steve Abel said the Government was being dishonest.
"Right now, as John Key gets ready to head out to Paris for climate change talks, this taxpayer-funded science ship that should be doing vital environment work is trying to head out to survey our waters for the climate-wrecking oil industry."
Norman said it was liberating to be able to fight climate change at the "front line" in his new role.
He vowed he would take similar action at some point, but was not trained to do it yet.
"It's only my fourth week on the job and this is a specialist skill – I don't qualify. Maybe on another occasion."
Police said they had about six officers at the scene before the protesters came down. Their priority was to get the activists off the ship safely.
"We're engaging with them to find out what their end game is, and to see if there is a way to facilitate getting off the ship safely," Senior Sergeant Braydon Lenihan said.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.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went Wednesday to the street in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Armon Hanatziv where the rock was thrown earlier this week that caused the death of Alexander Levlovitz and declared “war” on those who throw rocks and petrol bombs.
“Here, in the heart of Jerusalem, at a traffic island on a main road, a thug and criminal stands here, on a traffic island, takes a rock and throws again and again at the windshields of cars of Jerusalem residents until he manages to cause death – it did not kill, it murdered,” Netanyahu said. “This stone is one too many. We are declaring war on those who throw stones and bottles, and rioters.”
The prime minister, who also went to the Metzudat Adumim Border Police base north of the capital, and to an IDF position on Road 443 to Jerusalem, which has been plagued in recent weeks by terrorist incidents, said the government will dramatically change its policy regarding those who throw rocks and firebombs.“We are changing the policy,” he said. “The current situation is unacceptable to us.We intend to give tools to the police and soldiers to act very aggressively against those who throw rocks and petrol bombs.”Netanyahu’s tour of those sites followed an urgent meeting he held in his office Tuesday evening during which a number of proposals were raised, including setting a minimum punishment of five years in prison for rock-throwers, 10 years for those who throw petrol bombs and fines of up to NIS 100,000 for minors and their families, in an effort to create deterrence.Netanyahu also said during his tour Wednesday that the open-fire regulations will be changed.The Jerusalem Post has learned, however, that the changes to the rules of engagement are unlikely to be major or “reinventing the wheel,” and that they are likely to relate more to the police than the IDF.“These phenomena are intolerable in the State of Israel, and I’m not just talking about the roads to Jerusalem or about Jerusalem itself, I am talking about the Galilee and the Negev as well,” the prime minister said.Regarding the tension on the Temple Mount, Netanyahu said Israel supports “strictly maintaining the status quo” at the holy site, but that it is being breached by “inciters and rioters” who barricaded themselves on the site and harass Jewish visitors.Terming this phenomenon also as “unacceptable,” Netanyahu said the government is dealing with the matter in cooperation and coordination with the Jordanians, “and not only them.”Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Monday warned that the situation on the Temple Mount threatened Jordanian-Israeli ties.Since that time, according to government sources, messages have been passed between Jerusalem and Amman to try to relieve the tension. One official said Jordan’s tough comments were likely meant both for domestic needs, as well as to show the Arab world that Jordan – currently the Arab representative on the UN Security Council – is taking the matter very seriously.Meanwhile, the Knesset will hold an emergency meeting on Monday, during its recess, to discuss the escalation of violence in the capital.Yesh Atid initiated the discussion, with backing from Zionist Union, Meretz and the Joint List.“Rock-throwing and Molotov cocktails have become routine and this situation cannot continue anymore. We must bring security back to the residents,” Yesh Atid’s spokeswoman said.“The State of Israel must use any means necessary to fight terrorism.”A Joint List spokesman said the party’s MKs plan to speak out against “the escalation on the part of security forces and the government, the harm to the [al-Aksa] Mosque and intrusions by settlers.”Monday’s meeting will also address the ongoing strike in Christian schools, whose representatives claim that they receive less funding than other schools.Lahav Harkov and Yonah Jeremy Bob contributed to this report.
Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>>Delaware pitcher Taylor Wroten threw for the whole game as Delaware District 3 Senior League Softball team from Georgetown defeated Asia-Pacific from the Philippines, 4-0 in the World Series Senior League Softball Championship held at Lower Sussex Little League Fields near Roxana on Sunday August 6th. Special to the News Journal / Chuck Snyder (Photo: Credit Photo/CHUCK SNYDER)
ROXANA – After a six-year absence, Delaware is back at the top of the Senior Little League Softball world.
All it took was beating a team that had outscored opponents 29-1 in its six tournament games.
Taylor Wroten gave up two hits and walked one as the Delaware District III team from Georgetown blanked the Asia-Pacific squad from the Philippines, 4-0 on Sunday at Bruce Layton Field.
Philippines starting pitcher Kaith Jaladoni was perfect through the first four innings. But Wroten was just as effective.
District III, the visiting team on Sunday, broke through in the top of the sixth inning. With one out, Sierra Livingston reached on an error. She moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by Jordan DiFava. Jaladoni’s no-hitter ended when the next batter, pinch-hitter Kelsey Kormanik singled to left.
Livingston almost tried to score from second, but manager Kormanik wisely put up a late stop sign. Kelsey Korminik advanced to second on the throw home.
Jaladoni nearly emerged unscathed from the inning. But then Kara Powell hit a comebacker to the circle. Jaladoni bobbled and then threw home, apparently believing the bases were loaded and a force was in order.
Instead, Livingston was safe and District III was on its way to the first title by a Delaware team since the District III team from Laurel won in 2011.
The Philippines squad handed District III its only tournament loss, 1-0 on Thursday. Jaladoni struck out 18 in that game. But the Delaware squad adjusted to her riseball and looked far more comfortable at the plate on Sunday.
Jakayla Sample doubled District III’s lead with a leadoff solo homer in the sixth inning. Kylie Kruger’s single drove in Corrin Farris to make it 3-0 and Kruger came around on an error to round out the scoring.
Among the District III roster, Wroten, Kormanik, Sample, Farris, and Livingston play at Sussex Tech. DiFava plays at Delmarva Christian.The punk rock covers super-band known as Me First and the Gimme Gimmes have released their seventh full-length studio album, this time paying homage to the best of the best from the queens of pop… and Culture Club.
The album kicks things off with a heavy guitar-driven version of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” with a slow first verse and half time chorus that shakes things up nicely. The second track, “Straight Up” from Paula Abdul, opens with a horrendously grimy yet fitting bass line from Fat Mike before Spike Slawson’s vocals chip in and make you realize that The Gimme’s have gotten pretty good at twisting songs on their head, seeing as this track could hold up on its own as a straight up punk track, rather than just a punk cover.
However, one of the album highlights comes in early at track 3, which is Cher’s “Believe.” The song contains a delightfully cheesy electronic sample tone playing over the intro, and even cheesier vocals from Slawson that make you feel a compulsive need to dance… that and you begin realize you know more words to this record than you thought you did. These three tracks are worth a good listen as they perfectly display three different ways to tackle a punk cover. The heavy guitar style, the genuine punk sounding twist, and one hundred percent cheese. However, due to the very nature of the band, there is no shortage of cheesy moments on this album (for instance their take on Dolly Parton’s “And I Will Always Love You”).
That being said, that is not all this album has to offer as it occasionally gives things a serious shake up, for instance the acoustic rendition of “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion, which even features an accordion chiming in every now and then. That, and Spike brings out his ukulele for Madonna’s “Crazy for You,” complete with harmonies and a smooth saxophone.
Although there are some pretty impressive covers being dropped on this release, such as their impossibly melodic yet punk mesh of The Carpenters hit “Top of the World,” when all is said and done, It’s a Me First album, so going in you get pretty much what you expect: a fun album that, like the rest of their works, fades after a couple of listens… then will no doubt return a couple of months down the road and all the fun will be restored into it. Though delivering nothing really new, the album gives you a reason to not be embarrassed the next time you are caught singing Barbra Streisand.
Are We Not Men, We Are Diva is out now on Fat Wreck Chords.
Rating: 6.5 slices out of 8The IBM Bluemix team has created a step-by-step Big Data for Social Good Example Demo and a video tutorial (below) to take you through the entire logistics & process of running Analytics for Hadoop (BigInsights) on IBM Bluemix.
Datasets
To participate in the challenge you must create and submit a working, clickable, and interactive data visualization utilizing the Analytics for Hadoop service on IBM Bluemix, AND analyzing one or more datasets included in the curated list of datasets below OR include data meeting the data requirements described below. The total size of the Datasets analyzed must be between 500MB - 7GB in size.
Dataset requirements:
The total size of the Datasets analyzed must be between 500MB - 7GB in size. (Explore, join and find correlations from multiple datasets!)
Dataset content must be civic-based, meaning it must relate to a city or region, and or residents or citizens or a city or region. Datasets do not have to be issued by a government entity as long as the dataset content is civic-based. Compliance with this requirement will be determined at the sole discretion of the Administrator and Poster.
Dataset must be either publicly available, or you must have a license to use the data
Dataset contents must be in English. [Non-English datasets may be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. IBM has the sole discretion to accept or deny the requests.Please submit requests to support@challengepost.com.]
Quickstart Questions and Data
Good news! We’ve taken the liberty of putting together a few datasets, ready to go with question options - in case you’re not sure what data to use or which question to ask.
Crime and socioeconomic indicators: Is there a relationship between the number of crimes in the city of Chicago and socioeconomic indicators (Median income, Poverty, Education, etc)? Data: City of Chicago Crime Data, Median household income by county, Socioeconomic Indicators
Total 311 complaints locations and median household income: Can we predict the total 311 complaints per zip code with the median household income in San Francisco? Data: 311 complaints in San Francisco, Median household income by county
Department of homeless services (DHS) and unemployment: Is there a correlation between the total persons sleeping in shelter each day in NYC and the unemployment rate? Data: DHS daily data, Unemployment Data
Red light violations and crime rate: Can we project the corners with high red light violations using crime rate data of each zip code (or county)? Data: Red light violation in Chicago, City of Chicago Crime Data
Pollution, traffic and population of cities: Can we explain cities that are highly polluted with the population and the traffic data of the city? Data: Pollution, Traffic, Population
US population and GMOs: What correlations can you find between US population estimations and the adoption of genetically engineered crops in the U.S? Data: US Census Population Estimates, ERS GMO crops
Obesity and food availability: How does commodity availability and consumption in the United States (fruits, vegetables, meat, grains, etc.) relate to obesity? Data: Obesity Data from NY, USDA ERS Commodity Consumption Data
IBM-Curated Datasets
You aren’t required to use an IBM-curated dataset, but here are a few options to get you started! Please note that additional datasets may be added throughout the competition.
Other open data portals to check out:
Data Analysis Prompts
Not sure what question to ask when analyzing your data? The judging criteria includes the relevance and potential social impact of the civic insights gathered. When thinking about what your chosen data could reveal consider what the data could tell you about:
Making cities smarter
Local economics
Residents’ quality of life
Crime
Public health
Poverty
Education
Local environment or “green initiatives”
Social equality
Work and joblessness
Traffic patterns, violations, congestion, and fuel saving
Dig a Little Deeper
Still having trouble wrapping your mind around what questions to ask your chosen datasets? Feel free to ask some big questions!
The Building Blocks of a Sustainable Community
Correlating the quality of an areas infrastructure to the economic well being of the area could help organizations better understand what is needed to support long-term economic sustainability. From roads to fresh water access to access to markets for goods - there are many factors to consider. Look beyond just numbers to explore the quality of each major infrastructure element and see what you can find.
Economic Impact of Care Giving
Study demographic and economic data about a metropolitan area and/or region to determine the current and future impact of care giving. Along with household data, data about geriatric care facilities, access to geriatric medical help, and support organizations could be used. Social media could be mined to look at the number of people talking about care giving challenges over time. Specific issues such as Alzheimer's or other ailments could also be incorporated into the project.
More Questions?
Want to discuss data or get help vetting your analysis idea with a Hadoop expert? Post your questions on the Discussion Board. For questions about the Big Data for Social Good Challenge process or rules, email Support@ChallengePost.com.RIGA, Latvia — Hans Madsen really stood out in the crowd on Sunday morning, and not just because there were only about 50 spectators for the early draw on the third day of the women’s world curling championship.
What set the 62-year-old resident of Yorkton, Sask., apart was his jacket: bright red and bearing maple leaf logos and “Canada” across the back.
The Canadian curling team of Ottawa’s Rachel Homan, Emma Miskew, Alison Kreviazuk and Lisa Weagle were nowhere to be seen, though. What, a member of the United States team wondered, were Madsen and his wife, Judy, doing there?
“Yeah, but all the girls are curling, and they put on a good show,” Madsen said after watching the U.S. lose 6-5 to Germany and his native Denmark fall 6-4 against Japan.
The Madsens were in Kingston, Ont., to watch as Homan and her teammates won the Scotties Tournament of Hearts national championship in February. Last year, they attended the Scotties at Red Deer, Alta., and the world championship in nearby Lethbridge. A year earlier, they made the short haul from Yorkton to Regina for the nationals and then the long haul to Esbjerg, Denmark.
They’re already making travel plans for next year’s nationals at Montreal and the worlds at Saint John, N.B.
That led to an interesting mix of emotions. His mother and older brother are Norwegian, so Madsen, who moved to Canada in 1957, had to deal with the Norway-Canada, Norway-Denmark and Denmark-Canada matchups.
Back to the get-ups, though.
Besides the Canada jacket, Madsen was wearing a Denmark hat as he and his wife sat beside the fathers of Danish skip Lene Nielsen and second Jeanne Ellegaard on Sunday.
“I have some tinsel for this afternoon,” he said, referring the “headgear” he would feature for the Canada-Latvia game. “Then, maybe at the beginning of the week, I think it’s time to change the (beard) colours.”
Madsen is semi-retired, working for a Saskatchewan utility contractor “in between the curling. Some things take precedence.”
German skip on two wheels
German skip Andrea Schopp won the first of her two world titles in 1988, before many of the curlers in this year’s championship had been born.
How does she stay up with those “kids?” Maybe it’s because the 48-year-old German appears to be the only woman who has the drive to get herself to games at the Volvo Sports Center.
Schopp has a bicycle that she rides between the host hotel and the arena, a distance that requires a 10-minute trip for those in their own vehicles or riding on buses provided by the host organizing committee.
Budget-minded plans
The Canada-Latvia game on Sunday afternoon attracted by far the largest crowd of the first four draws of the tournament.
Even so, spectators filled about half of the 1,000 seats in the arena.
However, Roberts Birznieks, a member of the Riga organizing committee, said ticket-sale expectations for the week had already been met based on the crowds for the host Latvians’ first two games.
gholder@ottawacitizen.com
Twitter.com/HolderGordWalking through the grand entrance hall of Kallio Library in Helsinki, it's hard to believe it began life as a homeless shelter. Shelves heaving with books in different languages are neatly stacked, and a piano sits in the middle of a large event space in the centre.
There's a comic book room, a section where you can borrow musical instruments, and a rainbow corner dedicated to LGBT literature. On the top floor, the lively (but still immaculately tidy) children's section features a quiet “fairytale attic” with desks for doing homework. It's full of kids who have come straight here with friends after school, as they do most days.
“The use of libraries is changing – more and more people use this as a workspace, they're here for hours and hours with their laptops,” says service administrator Kalle Riiheläinen.
“I think that if we removed all the books and replaced them with laptop points where you can charge your battery, it would still be as crowded and full... but of course we don't want to do that.”
It can't be a coincidence that Finland, a country with one of the highest literacy rates in the world, also boasts a network of effective, well-stocked libraries that people actually use – from students and freelancers to families. Around 2,000 customers visit Kallio Library every day – more than 600,000 a year – mostly local residents who travel less than 1km. They check out half a million items annually.
Across the country, which only has a population of 5.5 million, Finns borrow almost 68 million books a year. Compare this to the UK, where libraries have been among the first services targeted by councils struggling to make savings, and use by adults has dropped by around 30 per cent in the last decade. Only a third of over-16s used a public library in the year to March 2016, government research found.
It’s not necessarily councils’ fault that they are failing to protect libraries – with budgets cut by £18bn in real terms between 2010 and 2015, many are struggling to fund even the most basic services. But the wide-ranging benefits properly funded libraries can provide – particularly for the socially isolated, new parents or those on low incomes – should not be overlooked. Some experts have even warned library cuts are harming young people's mental health.
An artist's impression of the new Helsinki library's recording studios. Picture: Helsinki Central Library
What further sets Finnish libraries apart is that you can borrow a lot more than just books. Kallio has board games and a large music section, but some libraries lend out virtually everything you could ever want – from cookware for a dinner party to drills for home improvements, along with art, footballs, garden games and sewing machines. Everything is free: providing high quality library services at no cost to the public is enshrined in Finnish law.
The new Helsinki Central Library, due to be completed in 2018 at a cost of €96m, |
of the Federation of Journalists and Reporters in Sinai, told CPJ that he believed Abuhaj could have been targeted because of his coverage of Muslim Brotherhood meetings and protests in northern Sinai. The Egyptian government has declared the Muslim Brotherhood an illegal organization.
In a statement by the federation, Abuhaj’s lawyer, Saeed al-Kassas, said that the accusations against the journalist were based on a leaflet bearing Muslim Brotherhood slogans which police found with Abuhaj. The prosecution was also relying on video footage showing Abuhaj at a Muslim Brotherhood demonstration. Abuhaj told prosecutors that he was using the leaflet as part of his coverage of protests, and that he attended demonstrations as part of his work as a journalist, the federation told CPJ. The lawyer said there was no proof that Abuhaj participated in any violent activity, according to the federation’s statement.
Abuhaj worked for the Sinai Media Center, which is made up of a group of journalists who post news items, videos, and photos online, and feed information to other news outlets. Abuhaj’s work, including his coverage of terrorist attacks, was also published by the Rassd Sinai News Network. Abuhaj covered demonstrations, deadly clashes, and the destruction of government buildings that occurred as part of the conflict between supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and government forces following the ouster of former President Mohamed Morsi. Abuhaj also covered socioeconomic issues such as fuel shortages in northern Sinai.
Terrorist attacks and fighting between state forces and militant groups have made Sinai more dangerous and restrictive to reporters in recent years. Journalists face threats from violent anti-government groups as well as state security forces, Mubarak said.
On November 17, 2013, a court in Arish ordered Abuhaj held in pretrial detention, according to news reports. His pretrial detention has been periodically renewed, but no trial date was set as of June 1, 2015, Mubarak said.
Abuhaj is being held in Arish Central Prison. He suffers from a problem with his spine and receives medication sent by his family, according to Mubarak.
CPJ did not include Abuhaj in its 2013 or 2014 prison census because the organization was not aware of his imprisonment until May 2015.
Hany Salah el-Deen, Misr 25
Medium: Television
Charge: Anti-state
Imprisoned: November 28, 2013
Salah el-Deen was arrested while trying to board a flight from Cairo to Beirut, according to news reports. He was interrogated and accused of involvement with the Muslim Brotherhood, the reports said. Salah el-Deen’s family said he was traveling for medical purposes, but other news reports and Hazem Ghorab, the general manager of Misr 25, told CPJ he was traveling to look for work.
Misr 25, a channel supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood, was shut down when the military ousted former President Mohamed Morsi on July 3, 2013. Ghorab told CPJ that Salah el-Deen was the news manager for the outlet and hosted his own TV show. After the outlet shut down, he couldn’t find work elsewhere. Prior to working at Misr 25, Salah el-Deen was a managing editor for Youm Sabea, according to that news website.
Salah el-Deen’s TV show on Misr 25 was called "Matafi 180” (Firefighters 180). On June 26, 2013, one week before the station was shut down, Salah el-Deen aired an audio recording in which unidentified individuals called for Egyptian security forces to assassinate Muslim Brotherhood leaders.
On his show, Salah el-Deen regularly accused media critical of the Muslim Brotherhood of serving the interests of the former government of President Hosni Mubarak. On June 20, 2013, amid calls for nationwide protests against the Muslim Brotherhood, Salah el-Deen said he received telephone threats in retaliation for his criticism of anti-Brotherhood media. He broadcast the phone numbers from which he received the threats, which he said included statements such as: "Don't you dare let me hear your voice again. …We will do to you what national security used to do to you earlier." Egyptian police and national security are known to have tortured and killed Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist sympathizers under previous regimes.
A Cairo criminal court sentenced Salah el-Deen to life in prison on April 11, 2015. He was tried, along with 50 other defendants including prominent leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, on charges of "spreading chaos" and "forming an operations room to direct the Muslim Brotherhood to defy the government" during the dispersal in August 2013 of the sit-in at Rabaa Al-Adawiya in Cairo, where Egyptians had gathered to decry the ouster of Morsi. The dispersal left hundreds dead, according to news reports.
The Egyptian government has declared the Muslim Brotherhood to be a terrorist organization. Life sentences in Egypt are 25 years long, and can be appealed, according to news reports.
It is unclear if Salah el-Deen is appealing.
Salah el-Deen’s family said in December that he was put in solitary confinement for 21 days and not allowed medical treatment during the six months he spent in Tora prison, a high-security prison in Cairo. He suffers from chronic health conditions including diabetes, high blood pressure, and weak eyesight.
Local journalists expressed solidarity and organized demonstrations to pressure the government to release Salah el-Deen. In mid-April 2015, the journalist was sent to Al-Manyal hospital in Cairo to be treated for his health conditions, according to news reports.
CPJ did not include Salah el-Deen in its 2013 or 2014 prison census because the organization was unaware of his case.
Mohamed Ali Salah, El-Shaab el-Jadeed
Medium: Internet
Charge: Anti-State
Imprisoned: December 27, 2013
Salah was arrested while covering student protests at Al-Azhar University in the Nasr City neighborhood of Cairo on December 27, 2013, according to the opposition news website El- Shaab el-Jadeed.
Salah, who was 19 at the time of his arrest, was a photojournalist in training with El-Shaab el-Jadeed and was pursuing a degree in media studies at Egypt University for Science and Technology in Cairo, according to his outlet and the regional group Arabic Network for Human Rights Information.
Salah wrote several reports for El-Shaab el-Jadeed and took photographs of anti-government protests in November 2013 around Nasr City and other parts of Cairo. El-Shaab el-Jadeed is critical of the current Egyptian government. Magdy Hussein, who was El-Shaab el-Jadeed’s editor-in-chief at the time, called for demonstrations in support of ousted President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood.
In February 2014, a Cairo criminal court sentenced Salah to five years in prison on charges of illegal demonstrations and inciting violence, according to local human rights groups and his news outlet. At least 22 others were convicted in the same trial.
In court documents, the judge wrote that he was not convinced that Salah was a journalist, despite Salah’s defense lawyer presenting documents and ID cards indicating his training with El-Shaab el-Jadeed, according to the regional group Arabic Network for Human Rights Information.
On March 18, 2014, a higher court amended Salah’s sentence to three years in prison, a sentence which he cannot appeal, according to his outlet. Local rights organizations and the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate called for a pardon for Salah.
An injunction filed by Salah’s defense lawyers against his sentence was rejected by a Cairo court on May 10, 2014, according to his outlet.
CPJ was unable to determine Salah’s health status or whereabouts. CPJ’s calls to El-Shaab el-Jadeed were not answered.
CPJ did not include Salah on its 2014 prison census because CPJ was unable to determine at the time if his imprisonment was in connection with his journalistic work.
Ahmed Fouad, Karmoz
Medium: Internet
Charge: Retaliatory
Imprisoned: January 25, 2014
Fouad, a reporter for the news website Karmoz, was arrested while covering a demonstration by members of the Muslim Brotherhood in the neighborhood of Sidi Beshr in Alexandria governorate, according to his employer and local press freedom groups. The protest led to violent clashes between protesters and security forces.
Fouad was charged with "joining a group that aims to disrupt the law," "demonstrating without permission," "blocking a road," and "possessing a weapon," according to news reports. His court hearings, scheduled to begin on December 14, 2014, in Alexandria, were postponed four times, according to the press freedom group Journalists Against Torture Observatory. The next hearing is scheduled to take place in October 2015, although the exact date has not been specified, the group said.
Karmoz denied the allegations against Fouad and said he was doing journalistic work at the time of his arrest. The website covers local news and politics in Alexandria.
Mosad Albarbary, Ahrar 25
Medium: Television
Charge: Anti-state
Imprisoned: April 2, 2014
Albarbary, the administrative manager of Misr 25, a TV channel affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, was arrested in Beirut, where he had gone to reopen and manage another satellite station, Ahrar 25, on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hazem Ghorab, Misr 25’s general manager, told CPJ. The Egyptian government has declared the Muslim Brotherhood to be a terrorist organization.
Ahrar 25 operated from Lebanon between September 2013 and February 2014 but faced several disruptions before being finally removed from the air due to pressure from neighboring governments, according to news reports citing Islam Akl, a host at the station.
Albarbary was arrested near Rafik Hariri airport while he was waiting for the arrival of Mokhtar al-Ashry, head of the legal department of the Muslim Brotherhood, according to news reports. Al-Ashry was detained first and, when Albarbary inquired about him with airport authorities, he was also arrested. Both were detained for five days by Lebanon’s National Security, following a request by the Egyptian government, then were deported to Cairo with Egyptian security agents, the reports said. Lebanese authorities said Albarbary had been extradited based on a bilateral extradition treaty between the countries, according to news reports. Ahrar TV staff members fled Lebanon after Albarbary was arrested, according to reports.
Upon their arrival in Cairo on April 7, Al-Ashry was charged with using a false passport, news reports said.
Albarbary was charged with “publishing false news” in order to support the Brotherhood’s alleged operations room during the dispersal of the August 2013 sit-in at Rabaa Al-Adawiya in Cairo, where Egyptians had gathered to protest the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi. The dispersal left hundreds dead, according to news reports. He was also charged with “spreading chaos” and “forming an operations room to direct the Muslim Brotherhood to defy the government" during the dispersal.
Albarbary was tried along with 50 other defendants, including prominent leaders Muslim Brotherhood, who faced similar charges. Albarbary’s lawyer, Mahmoud Amer, told CPJ that Albarbary was added to the Rabaa operations room case after it was referred to court in March 2014.
On April 11, 2015, a Cairo criminal court sentenced Albarbary to life in prison. Life sentences in Egypt are 25 years long, and can be appealed, according to news reports. Amer told CPJ that he would appeal the verdict. No appeal date was scheduled by June 1, 2015.
Albarbary was being held at Tora prison. In April 2015, his wife said that prison authorities were restricting her visits to the journalist. Amer told CPJ the journalist was in good health.
CPJ did not include Albarbary on its 2014 prison census because the organization was unable to determine at that time whether his imprisonment was related to his journalistic work.
Omar Abdel Maksoud, Masr al-Arabia
Medium: Internet
Charge: Retaliatory
Imprisoned: April 15, 2014
Abdel Maksoud was first arrested on February 19, 2014, while covering a baby shower for a woman who had been taken into custody and forced to give birth in a hospital in handcuffs, according to news reports. The woman had been arrested on accusations of participating in an anti-government protest.
Activists organized a celebration for the woman and her baby in front of their home in the Al-Zawya Al-Hamra neighborhood in Cairo, days after the mother was released from custody, according to news reports. Police stormed the celebration, and beat and arrested the participants, including Abdel Maksoud, according to news reports.
Abdel Maksoud, a photographer, was covering the celebration for the independent Masr al-Arabia news website, the outlet said. Masr al-Arabia said the journalist was charged with working for Al-Jazeera, which is banned in Egypt on the accusation that it uses its reporting to serve the interests of the banned Muslim Brotherhood.
After nearly a month of detention in Tora prison in Cairo, Abdel Maksoud was released on bail on March 9, 2014, and continued to work with Masr al-Arabia.
On April 15, 2014, he was arrested again while visiting his family at their house in Mit Ghamr City, north of Cairo. Abdel Maksoud’s family told reporters that police came to their house looking for the journalist, and arrested him and one of his brothers, Ibrahim. The next day, the police came back for another brother, Anas. All three were charged with setting fire to cars belonging to Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s presidential campaign. The cars had been set on fire a few days prior to the arrest, according to news reports.
Abdel Maksoud was also charged with belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood. His colleagues and friends publicly denied the accusation.
Masr al-Arabia said Abdel Maksoud was on assignment for them in Cairo at the time of the alleged crime. Cairo is hundreds of miles away from Mit Ghamr City, where the cars were attacked.
While Abdel Maksoud and his brothers were being held in pretrial detention, a court in the city of Mansoura ordered their release on bail twice, but the Ministry of Interior appealed in order to keep them in custody, according to reports citing their lawyer Malek Al-Ghazali. The court refused the ministry’s appeal and ordered their release a third time on September 11, 2014, according to the reports.
Despite the journalist’s family posting bail of 15,000 Egyptian pounds (US$2,000), the three brothers were not released. Ten days later, on September 21, 2014, Abdel Maksoud’s family and his lawyers were told that the prosecution had brought a new case against them and that the three had been charged with participating in an illegal demonstration in Mit Ghamr, according to reports citing their lawyer.
Although the three brothers were in detention, the Mansoura Criminal Court on January 19, 2015, sentenced them in absentia to life in prison on charges of setting fire to cars and belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood, according to news reports. Abdel Maksoud and his defense lawyer were not informed about the court session.
The family’s lawyer said they were pursuing a retrial, as is customary when sentences are issued in absentia, according to reports. The next court hearing in the retrial is scheduled to be held on July 9, 2015, the regional group Arabic Network for Human Rights Information told CPJ. The group also said that Abdel Maksoud’s defense team would present evidence that he was working in Cairo at the time of the arson attacks in Mit Ghamr for which he is being tried.
On February 21, 2015, a criminal court in the city of Senbellawein, in the Dakahlia Governorate, sentenced Abdel Maksoud and one of his brothers to two years in prison on separate charges of illegal protests. That sentence was overturned on appeal on May 16, 2015, and the court cleared them of the illegal protest charges.
No trial date had been set for Abdel Maksoud on the charge of working for Al-Jazeera.
In detention and during interrogations, Abdel Maksoud suffered physical abuse, including police pulling out his fingernail in an attempt to pressure him to confess, according to his family and colleagues. Abdel Maksoud and his lawyers have denied all of the charges against him.
He is being held at Meit Selseil Prison in the Dakahliya governorate, according to the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information. He suffers from heart problems for which he has received medical attention in custody, according to colleagues.
CPJ did not include Abdel Maksoud in its 2014 prison census because the organization was unable to determine at the time if Abdel Maksoud’s imprisonment was related to his journalistic work.
Abdel Rahman Shaheen, Freedom and Justice Gate
Medium: Internet
Charge: Retaliatory
Imprisoned: April 9, 2014
Shaheen, a correspondent for Freedom and Justice Gate, was arrested on the street in Suez City, according to news reports. Freedom and Justice Gate is a news website affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, which the Egyptian government has declared to be a terrorist organization.
In June 2014, a Suez court sentenced Shaheen to three years in prison and 10,000 Egyptian pounds (US$1,400) on charges of inciting and committing violence during protests. His appeal was denied on December 25, 2014, according to his employer.
Freedom and Justice Gate condemned the arrest and denied the allegations against Shaheen in a statement issued shortly after the journalist's arrest. Shaheen's wife said the court did not allow his defense lawyer to present his case and did not inform them of the verdict, news reports said.
In February 2015, another Suez court sentenced Shaheen to an additional three years on charges of aiding terrorism and broadcasting false news, according to the local press freedom group Journalists Against Torture Observatory. The journalist’s wife told the group on May 24, 2015, that their lawyer had appealed the second verdict, but that the court had not yet reviewed the request for appeal.
Shaheen was transferred from Ataqa Prison in Suez Governorate in northeastern Egypt to Faisal police station, his family said in February 2015, according to news reports. They said they were not given an explanation for the transfer.
Emad Sayed Abu Zeid, Suef Online
Medium: Internet
Charge: Anti-State, False News
Imprisoned: September 1, 2014
Security forces arrested Abu Zeid from his home in the southern governorate of Beni Suef in September 2013 and accused him of publishing false news that harmed public opinion, both on the news website Suef Online as well as on social media affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, according to news reports.
One month later, Abu Zeid was released pending investigation. In September 2014, he was rearrested when he appeared in court and was sentenced to three years in prison, according to his daughter, Fatma, who spoke to CPJ. According to local press freedom groups and Suef Online, he was convicted on charges of publishing false news and joining the Muslim Brotherhood, which the government has declared an illegal organization.
Abu Zeid is a correspondent for Al-Ahram Gate, the online portal of Egypt’s main state-run newspaper, Al-Ahram. He also frequently wrote for Suef Online, which was critical of the July 2013 ouster of President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, the news website said.
According to Suef Online, Abu Zeid was arrested in connection with an article he wrote for the news website on September 10, 2013, that criticized the local government in Beni Suef. The journalist has written several other articles for Suef Online that criticized the military-backed government.
Abu Zeid’s brother, Shaaban Abu Zeid, said in an October 2013 press conference that his brother had been interrogated about his views of Morsi and the dispersal of a pro-Morsi sit-in on August 14, 2013, in which hundreds of protesters were killed. The journalist’s brother said that Abu Zeid was also asked to swear that he was not a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, according to news reports.
On December 8, 2014, the journalist denied any affiliation with the banned group in a letter he wrote from prison, which was published on social media.
Abu Zeid is being held in a prison in the city of Fayyoum, where he still writes articles critical of the Egyptian government for Suef Online, according to news reports. His daughter Fatma told CPJ that the journalist’s appeal was scheduled for November 11, 2015.
CPJ did not include Abu Zeid’s case in its 2014 imprisoned census because CPJ was not able to determine at the time if the journalist’s imprisonment was related to his work.
Mohamed Ali Hassan, Misr Alaan and Al Nahar
Medium: Internet
Charge: Anti-state
Imprisoned: December 11, 2014
Police in plainclothes raided Hassan’s home at dawn on December 11, 2014, and took him, his wife, and their infant daughter to the Agouza police station in Cairo, Hassan’s wife told CPJ. They did not present a warrant, she said. She was released with their child after a few hours in custody.
Hassan, 31, is a correspondent for the privately owned news website Misr Alaan, which is affiliated with a satellite television channel of the same name. Both are sympathetic to ousted President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood and his supporters. The website has covered demonstrations against Morsi’s ouster.
During the arrest, police told Hassan and his wife that he had been detained because he worked for Misr Alaan, Hassan’s wife said.
Prosecutors charged Hassan with “spreading false news,” “inciting illegal protests,” “funding illegal protests,” as well as belonging to “an illegal group,” according to his wife and local rights groups. The Muslim Brotherhood is banned and listed as a terrorist organization in Egypt.
Hassan’s pretrial detention, at the Giza central prison, is periodically renewed by the prosecutor’s office. His request for release was rejected by a Cairo criminal court on May 3, according to rights groups. Hassan’s wife told CPJ he was in good health in prison.
No trial date had been scheduled as of June 1, 2015.
Hassan el-Kabbani, Freelance
Medium: Internet
Charge: Anti-state
Imprisoned: January 22, 2015
El-Kabbani, a reporter for several news websites, including the Muslim Brotherhood’s news website Freedom and Justice Gate and Rassd, has been in pretrial detention since his arrest, according to news reports. In the meantime, his name was added to the sentencing phase in a separate, mass trial, resulting in life in prison.
El-Kabbani is also a press freedom advocate and blogger who co-founded the “Journalists for Reform” movement in 2007. The movement, which identifies itself as a press freedom group, took a stand against the ouster of Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi and is critical of the current administration. Months before el-Kabbani was arrested, he wrote several articles in which he criticized the military-led government for ousting Morsi. His articles, several of which were published in Freedom and Justice Gate, also expressed support for a popular uprising against the government.
El-Kabbani was arrested in his home in the 6th of October neighborhood in Cairo and taken by security agents in plainclothes to the local national security headquarters, according to news reports and human rights groups. El-Kabbani’s wife said she and her brothers were also detained for one day and that el-Kabbani was abused in custody.
El-Kabbani was charged with espionage, damaging Egypt’s standing abroad, joining an illegal group, and disseminating false information to disturb public security and peace, among other charges, according to news reports. Prior to his arrest, his house was raided twice by police while he was out, according to the reports.
El-Kabbani’s wife said that one of the central pieces of evidence against the journalist was a phone call he had made to Dr. Mohammed Ali Beshr, a Muslim Brotherhood leader and Egyptian politician who served as minister of state under Morsi. His wife said the phone call was for journalistic purposes.
Cairo’s National Security Court continuously renewed el-Kabbani’s pretrial detention pending investigation, most recently on May 5, 2015, according to local rights groups and news reports. No trial date was scheduled by June 1, 2015, according to local press freedom groups.
Meanwhile, however, on April 11, 2015, el-Kabbani was sentenced to life in prison on different charges in a separate case, in which he was tried with 50 other defendants, including prominent leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, all of whom were charged with "spreading chaos" and "forming an operations room to direct the Muslim Brotherhood to defy the government" during the August 2013 dispersal of the sit-in at Rabaa Al-Adawiya in Cairo, where Egyptians had gathered to decry the ouster of Morsi. The dispersal left hundreds dead, according to news reports. The Egyptian government has declared the Muslim Brotherhood to be a terrorist organization. Life sentences in Egypt are 25 years long, and can be appealed, according to news reports.
El-Kabbani’s family and lawyer did not know he was being tried in that case until his name was read during the sentencing at the end of the trial, according to news reports. Egyptian authorities listed him as a fugitive in official court documents and tried him in absentia, even though he was in custody for the other case.
CPJ was unable to obtain el-Kabbani’s lawyer’s contact information to determine if the journalist would appeal the life sentence.
El-Kabbani’s wife said the journalist is being held at Scorpion prison, a maximum security prison that is part of Cairo’s Tora prison complex, with restricted visits, according to news reports.
Tarek Mahrous, Freelance
Medium: Television
Charge: Anti-state
Imprisoned: January 31, 2015
Police in plainclothes arrested Mahrous while the journalist was in a cafeteria. Mahrous told CPJ that police first took him to his home in the Sheikh Zayed neighborhood of Cairo, where they confiscated his cameras, then to a police station in Sheikh Zyed.
Mahrous was charged with participating in and photographing illegal demonstrations and sending media materials to channels supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood, according to news reports and local human rights groups. The Muslim Brotherhood has been declared illegal in Egypt.
Mahrous, a freelance videographer, has contributed reports to Misr Alaan, a Turkey-based satellite TV station that has broadcast protests against the Egyptian government and is critical of Egyptian authorities, and other outlets, including the Egyptian government-owned Middle East News Agency.
Mahrous told CPJ that he was kept in the same police station but was interrogated by national security officers about his work with Misr Alaan and other outlets. Mahrous told CPJ that the police focused on videos of demonstrations and conferences he had produced for Misr Alaan about a group of activists who called for demonstrations during the third anniversary of the Egyptian uprising on January 25.
“They wanted to know the names of my colleagues, my media sources,” Mahrous told CPJ, “But I refused to give them any names.”
Mahrous told CPJ that he was kept in pretrial detention, without access to his lawyer or family, until May 18, 2015, when a Cairo criminal court judge ordered his release without bail, pending investigation. “I was lucky to see a fair judge, but there are many unlucky prisoners facing injustice and put in horrible conditions, with crowded dirty cells, without access to the outside world, for extended time,” Mahrous said.
Mahrous said that despite the judge ordering him to be released, he wasn’t freed until June 2. CPJ spoke to Mahrous on June 4.
No trial date had been scheduled by June 1, 2015.
Ahmed el-Tanobi, Arab Media Freedom Monitor
Medium: Print
Charge: Anti-state
Imprisoned: January 31, 2015
Police arrested el-Tanobi at a Cairo metro station and took the journalist to his house, where they confiscated several items, and then to the police station, according to Kotb Elarabi, the head of the regional press freedom group Arab Media Freedom Monitor, and news reports.
El-Tanobi was officially charged with “incitement against the government,” “participating in illegal protests,” and belonging to an “illegal group,” according to the Monitor. In a message from prison published by the Monitor on May 8, 2015, the journalist denied all the allegations and said his only crime was telling the stories of Egyptian journalists.
El-Tanobi is an editor and the cultural affairs correspondent for the Muslim Brotherhood daily, Freedom and Justice, according to the paper’s Facebook page and the local press freedom group Journalists Against the Coup. He is also a researcher for the Arab Media Freedom Monitor.
Elarabi said that el-Tanobi had told him he had been followed by police after he participated in a January 8, 2015, press conference at the American University in Cairo, where the Monitor had launched a report covering journalists’ arrests.
Elarabi said that among the items confiscated from el-Tanobi’s house were the Monitor’s annual report and a receipt for the university hall rented for the conference.
El-Tanobi has also been accused of publishing false reports that harm Egypt’s image abroad, Elarabi said. The allegation is not an official charge.
In February 2015, el-Tanobi’s wife said the journalist was abused and beaten during his arrest and that he was being kept in crowded jail cells, according to a video published on YouTube by the opposition Egyptian newspaper El-Shaab el-Jadeed. In March 2015, the journalist’s family said he was being held in Giza central prison.
The Monitor called for el-Tanobi’s release in a statement on its Facebook page, which also showed el-Tanobi’s press ID.
No trial date had been scheduled by June 1, 2015.
On June 4, a Giza court ordered el-Tanobi to be released on bail. The journalist was released on June 9, Elarabi said.
Abdelrahman Abdelsalam Yaqot, Karmoz
Medium: Internet
Charge: Anti-state, Retaliatory
Imprisoned: March 21, 2015
Yaqot, a photographer for the independent news website Karmoz, was detained by two police officers in plainclothes outside the Fauzi Maath police station, in the coastal city of Alexandria, where he had gone after getting a tip about a bomb threat at the station, according to Karmoz.
When Yaqot told the officers that he was a photographer, they verbally harassed him, beat him, and confiscated his press card, mobile phone, camera, and bag. Karmoz reported. The website said Yaqot was then taken to his house, where police searched his apartment without a warrant. Local press freedom group Journalists Against Torture Observatory reported that Yaqot’s lawyer said police did not find any evidence against Yaqot in his apartment.
Yaqot is charged with possessing explosives, which authorities said he had in his bag, “participating in an illegal protest,” and belonging to an “illegal group,” the Muslim Brotherhood, according to Journalists Against Torture and Karmoz. The Muslim Brotherhood is banned in Egypt.
The journalist’s lawyer and Karmoz said that Yaqot was not involved with the Muslim Brotherhood and had no political affiliations, according to news reports. Karmoz said he was arrested while doing his job for the website. Yaqot’s lawyer said he submitted documents to authorities that verified Yaqot’s legal employment at Karmoz, according to Journalists Against Torture.
Yaqot was being held in the Dekheila police station in Alexandria in pretrial detention. He has written several letters from jail, published by Journalists Against Torture and local media websites. In the letters, he describes the use of beatings and electric torture by security forces to collectively punish the group of detainees with which he is being held.
No trial date had been set by June 1, 2015.
Youssef Shaaban, Al-Bedaiah
Medium: Internet
Charge: Retaliatory
Imprisoned: May 11, 2015
Shaaban, an editor and reporter for the independent news website Al-Bedaiah, was arrested when he appeared in court for an appeal hearing, according to Khaled al-Balshy, editor-in-chief of Al-Bedaiah and a board member of the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate.
The appellate court in the city of Alexandria on May 31, 2015, confirmed the February conviction of the editor and sentenced him to 15 months in prison, according to news reports. Shaaban had been convicted in February, along with nine activists, on charges of assaulting police officers and attempting to storm a police station, the reports said. All of them denied the allegation and said the police officer had assaulted them, according to news reports. They were released on bail pending appeal, according to news reports.
The charges stemmed from a March 29, 2013, protest that Shaaban was covering at an Alexandria police station against the alleged police assault of a lawyer, according to Al-Bedaiah. The lawyer was representing defendants who were accused of burning the local headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood, according to news reports. Shaaban was briefly detained while covering the protest.
Al-Balshy told CPJ that Shaaban would appeal at the Court of Cassation, which would be his last legal resort. The editor said he, his outlet, and the syndicate would ask the prosecutor general to release Shaaban until that court heard his case. Al-Balshy told CPJ that Shaaban has Hepatitis C and requires medical attention.
Shaaban is at Burg Al-Arab prison, in Alexandria, according to news reports.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This report and the accompanying capsules have been corrected to reflect the addition of Mahmoud Abdel Nabi, who was mistakenly left off the census when it was initially published. The text has also been updated to reflect the correct spelling of Abdullah al-Fakharany's name.A Special Appeal to Facebook Users - Unauthorised Use of Baby Zoe Chambers Photograph
Last updated: 13th January 2012
First published: 13th January 2012
Article written by Steve Williamson
Image used with permission of Julie Chambers
One version of a hoax message that is currently circulating rapidly on Facebook features a photograph (right) of baby Zoe Chambers and her mother Julie. The caption on the circulating photograph claims that baby Zoe will receive a free heart transplant if the picture receives 1000 Facebook shares. However, this caption is a blatant lie. Zoe suffered from CHD (congenital heart disorder) and received a heart transplant operation in 2007. Sadly in July 2008 she passed away. Zoe's mother Julie is extremely upset by this cruel and totally unauthorised use of Zoe's picture.The heartless and morally bankrupt individual who originally misused this photo is a Jamaican who goes by the name of Garen Thoms. He had shared it on his fan (read scam) page on FB "Free Digicel Credit". He also uses the name "FreeCreditGuy". Initial investigation into this showed me he was using the photo to line his own pockets as the photo description included a link that led to one of his scam websites where people were tricked into making PayPal donations to his own company, thinking they were donating to a CHD cause. I exposed him on his fan page and thanks to Julie's large group of friends in the CHD community the picture and indeed his fan page were removed from Facebook.Since then however, a number of people have downloaded their own copy of the picture and added it to their own walls. Some commentators have wrongly claimed that the child is named "Morgan Knight-Brown." This is incorrect - this person is another one who had their own copy of the photo on their wall. Morgan Knight-Brown was unaware of the circumstances around the photo and had shared her own copy on her wall. This was further shared by in excess of 55,000 people and many messages were sent asking her to remove it. Morgan appears to primarily use her cell phone to access Facebook and it took a couple of days for the messages to reach her due to the different way cell phones handle Facebook. Once she was aware of the issue with sharing Zoe's photo she promptly removed it, and posted a status alerting her friends that they should not share the photograph. However, there are still at least two other source instances of the picture that we are trying to get removed.Details of Mr Thoms, his scam and the nefarious use of the picture, have been passed to the police. I have also reported him to the web hosting company of the three domains registered to him and am still awaiting updates.The continued circulation of Zoe's photograph as part of this absurd hoax is causing great distress to Zoe's mother Julie. If you see this photo in use anywhere on Facebook, apart from among the profile pictures of Julie Chambers, please report it.Garen Thoms runs the following three websites, each of which have a message stating one should "Like" the page or wait a random number of seconds before seeing the content - which in one case is nothing more than a default template.A whois lookup on each of those domains reveals the following details:Thoms, GarenShaw Park Lime BottomOcho Rios P.O Box 840, ST Ann 99999Jamaica1-876-398-9339Interestingly - his scam page offering "free digicel credit" (Digicel being a cell phone provider in Jamaica) has resurfaced with a new name and he is claiming he had to take it down and remove the name "digicel" but a more probable reason why is the mass reporting of the site by people in support of Julie.One of the newspaper articles where the photo was stolen from:Newspaper articles reporting on Zoe's passing:
Last updated: 13th January 2012
First published: 13th January 201 |
fine, it was only me who probably wouldn't make any money.
(Image: Archant)
"This weekend we were closed and it and was going to make it more tricky but there were ways to go through it.
"But we were closed on Tuesday and the decision was made to close for good."
Read more: Mum blasts Santa mystery tour trip as 'waste of money' after family taken to busy shopping centre
Clearance of the site around the Castle, which had included fairground attractions and festive themed stalls, is due to take place in the coming days.
(Image: Archant)
About 10 traders at the site are in the process of being contacted to discuss the financial situation.
Mr Payne said he had predicted to have up to 1,500 visitors to the attraction at peak times but figures were closer to 1,100.
He said: "Everyone from the site will be affected by this and it is not a decision I have taken lightly.
"It is a project I have worked on for two and a half years and to see it melt is devastating."
Castle Park, which is usually bustling with keen skaters and shoppers getting into the festive spirit, was last night dark, dingy and silent.
(Image: Archant)
Colchester Winter Wonderland and Ice Rink has attracted many people from all over the county since it opened.
But last night the castle gates were closed, manned by security guards, who were the only people in sight in the park.
The last families to be allowed into the park were just making their exit, and the gates were quickly sealed behind them.
Through the bars the Christmas lights were still twinkling away, but they were distant, and there was no one able to appreciate the festive decor.
Security guards said they had stopped allowing people into the park at around 5pm, which left the grounds deserted.
They said the stalls were still standing, but there was no one to man them, and the empty ice rink had been closed all day.Despite being entirely funded by donations and troubled by the occasional fire, the Internet Archive is making considerable inroads into its self-appointed task to create a publicly accessible archive of everything it can get its hands on. The organisation has, in the last few years, launched in-browser vintage computing emulation playable classic arcade games, a museum of de-fanged malware, an Amiga software library, a trove of internal documents from interactive fiction pioneer Infocom, to say nothing of its archive of vintage computing magazines Its most popular feature, however, is the Wayback Machine, a service which allows users to insert a URL and view any copies the Internet Archive's robots have captured through time. A fantastic resource both for research and for securing information which would otherwise be lost to history, the Wayback Machine has previously respected the robots.txt directives file that allows webmasters to lock automated content crawlers away from chosen files and directories, but now it will do so no longer.' explained Mark Graham in a blog post announcing the change. 'While the shift will allow the Internet Archive access to a wider range of content and more control over what content remains within its archives, it does so by removing that control from webmasters - a move which has proven controversial, in particular in that ignoring the directives file altogether will also ignore sites which wish to block Internet Archive access specifically through its ia_archiver User Agent.Financial Times explains that once the ID system is in place, Facebook will work with record labels on a licensing deal for all the music that's available on the site. Those talks are said to be in the early stages and a final agreement isn't expected before this spring.
The music industry has been taking issue with YouTube for years, claiming that the site doesn't adequately compensate artists and rights holders for the content it hosts. Earlier this month, the video site announced that it paid $1 billion in ad revenue to the music industry in the last year. Facebook has revenue deals in place with publishers, but doesn't currently have any licensing agreements for music. As you might expect, labels want a piece of that ad money like they're receiving from YouTube for having their music available to users.
According to a National Music Publishers' Association op-ed on Billboard this fall, the songwriters' trade group said it identified nearly 900 videos that contained 33 top songs on the music charts at the time. Those clips garnered well over 600 million views total, so it's easy to see why the music industry wants to be compensated for having its material on display in Facebook videos.Posted By: Stonecipher
July 2, 2008
Last weekend Joe Lieberman (I - CT) appeared on CBS’s "Face the Nation" with Bob Schieffer.
Sen. Lieberman used his appearance to promote his fear-mongering, pro-war agenda and to attack Barack Obama.
That in itself is not terribly surprising since Lieberman, the former Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee, has come out in support of John McCain. In fact, Lieberman has been one of McCain’s most visible surrogates thus far and some have even speculated that Lieberman could once again run for Vice President, only this time as a Republican.
The attack on Barack Obama in itself was reprehensible, but what is worse is the back-stabbing context in which it took place.
First, here’s what Sen. Lieberman said to Bob Schieffer:
"Our enemies will test the new president early. Remember that the truck bombing of the World Trade Center happened in the first year of the Clinton administration. 9/11 happened in the first year of the Bush administration."
Lieberman implied that if we elect Barack Obama, the terrorists will attack. To add effect, the Senator from Connecticut prefaced this comment by discussing John McCain’s and even Hillary Clinton’s credentials as potential commanders-in-chief.
The timing of this comment was also suspicious, coming on the heels of comments made by chief McCain strategist, Charlie Black, in which Black claimed a terrorist attack against the United States would be good for John McCain’s campaign.
The incitement of fear of a terrorist attack seems to be a theme of McCain’s Campaign this week.
What makes all of this worse, however is the previous relationship that Senator Obama had with Senator Lieberman.
In 2006, Sen. Lieberman was about to face the political fight of his life. Lieberman’s unapologetic support for the Iraq War made him vulnerable to a potential primary challenger in his re-election bid for his Senate seat.
Sure enough, that challenger came along in the form of Ned Lamont, the president and founder of a small telecommunications network in the Northeast.
Lamont was the anti-war candidate and Lieberman sensed that he was in very real danger of losing his Senate seat before the General Election even began. So, Lieberman did what any smart Democrat at the time would do. He called rising political superstar Barack Obama and enlisted his help in convincing Connecticut Democrats that despite his stance on the war, Lieberman was the only right man for the job.
Except Lieberman didn’t just ask for Obama’s support, he begged.
According to Greg Sargent over at Talking Points Memo, a former Lieberman Campaign official who was involved in securing Barack Obama’s support described the Illinois Senator’s favor to his candidate like this:
"It was a favor as huge as we could have gotten -- it was like a drowning man getting thrown a life preserver. Just when Ned [Lamont] was trying to establish himself as a credible alternative on the war, Barack Obama came in and said, ‘Hey, I disagree with him on the war, but you should send him back to the Senate.’"
That same campaign official also said:
"We needed him [Obama] to strongly validate us as a candidate that liberal Democrats should not desert. We went to the Obama operation with a very urgent plea for him to come out for us."
Barack Obama did not owe Joe Lieberman any favors, and he agreed to support Lieberman in an attempt at Party Unity, something Lieberman clearly rejected just months later when he lost to Lamont in the primary and then promptly registered as an Independent in order to run against the Democrat in the General Election.
Lieberman went on to win his Independent bid for re-election and retained his seat. He continued to caucus with the Senate Democrats, allowing them to gain a one seat majority over the Republicans and therefore control of The Senate. But since 2006 Lieberman’s Joe-mentum has been carrying him farther and farther away from the Democratic Party, to the point where now, he has endorsed a Republican for President, and he has viciously and unfairly attacked a man who made a huge effort, with major political risks, to help him out.
Barack Obama’s stance on almost all issues has not changed since Lieberman used the Senator from Illinois to help convince the voters of Connecticut to re-elect him. If anything, Obama has drifted slightly closer to Lieberman’s political world-view.
The only thing that has changed between Barack Obama and Joe Lieberman is that now Obama is running against Lieberman’s candidate.
The point is not that Lieberman should not be allowed to support McCain, the point is that if he had even an ounce of integrity, he would highlight McCain’s strengths and be tactful enough not to launch these attacks against his recent ally that are filled with fear-mongering and wild and unfounded speculation about the results that Obama’s policies may produce.
Joe Lieberman is a back-stabber and sadly, this is a prime example of why if you want a friend in Washington, you better get a dog.
For a little more on this story, here's liberal blogger, Michael J.W. Stickings take titled "Joe Lieberman, Jerk Extraordinaire."
And also, here is a news story with clips of Obama speaking in support of Lieberman:Earlier this week, Star Wars Battlefront 2 gameplay footage surfaced online that showed the sci-fi shooter's loot box system.
Unlike its predecessor, Battlefront 2 has randomised crates of Star Cards that offer gameplay-affecting power-ups.
An uncommon Star Card to boost Boba Fett's attack.
These can give you more health, power up weapons, boost damage or grant other special abilities - such as a healing effect for nearby allies.
Though the feature wasn't working when the revelations came to light, duplicate Star Cards will be automatically converted into "crafting parts" which you can then put towards a particular card or to upgrading a card you have already.
You can get the currency used for buying crates by just playing the game, but the possibility of buying unlimited loot boxes using real-world cash sparked concern among fans.
EA has now confirmed to Eurogamer that yes, you can buy more of these crates using real-world money.
It's not clear, however, how big an advantage this will create. Certainly, there are different loot rarities, and you can pay for a box with a greater chance at better - Legendary or Epic - quality loot.
"Players will be rewarded in the game through regular play in many different, earnable ways including crates," an EA spokesperson told us. "For those that want to accelerate the rewards, they can do so by purchasing crates that contain randomised items and rewards."
It's not the first EA game to offer a system like this for obtaining loot - Battlefield offers Battlepacks, for example. But Battlepack contents are limited to cosmetic gun and vehicle skins, plus unique melee weapon designs. The suggestion from Battlefront 2's alpha is loot items actually affect how you and your team plays.
Perhaps it's to be expected - Battlefront 2 will offer a free season of DLC without the need to buy a season pass: future maps, weapons and characters will launch throughout the year. EA has to make up that money somewhere.
But the nature of the loot boxes has fans worried the core design of the game will suffer.
The above video's top comment is from fan Josh Klein: "Hopefully this doesn't mean this game will be pay to win. Cough cough Call of Duty...?"
"Day one some rich kid with parents credit card spends $100+ on crates gets all high level cards and bam is kicking butt non stop for months till everyone catches up...?" SwanyPlaysGames replied.
Alistair Alexander countered: "We're getting free DLCs so they have to make money for the DLCs somehow and this is fine with me as long as the crates are fair, just hoping that the crates are not like COD supply drops?"
So, how fair will it feel? We may have a wait to find out. EA will likely tune the game further before its full release in November.Music and literature are both masters at evoking emotion. The ingenuous beats of Pharrell’s “Happy” can put a smile on the face just like the cathartic life-mashing of Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet. But two researchers wanted to find out what would happen if they created a direct link between the two art forms, building a program that would automatically translate the emotions of a written text into a unique musical score. The result, presented this month in Canada and Sweden by artist Hannah Davis and computer scientist Saif Mohammad, is both impressive and just the beginning.
Here, for instance, is what happens when their system, which they delightfully named TransProse, eats up playful Peter Pan and spits out piano music:
And here is what happens when that same system translates Cormac McCarthy’s blight-filled masterpiece The Road:
At the heart of their work is the budding field of sentiment analysis, or attempts to teach computers to detect emotions in text, often by using coded keywords. At its most basic level, sentiment analysis tries to categorize text — like tweets — as positive, negative or neutral, which has become information of serious value to marketers, politicians or anyone trying to sell a product. While even that level of analysis is still a flawed practice (programs have a hard time accounting for sarcasm, for instance), some researchers have been much more ambitious.
Davis and Mohammad, who works at Canada’s National Research Council (NRC), used a collection of 14,000 common words Mohammad helped code, known as the NRC Emotion Lexicon. Thousands of people were recruited online and asked which of eight basic emotions — anticipation, anger, joy, fear, disgust, sadness, surprise and trust — they associated with each word, and the results, released in 2013, offer an imperfect but robust foundation for the kind of work TransProse does.
The word aching, for instance, is classified as negative; a computer using Mohammad’s lexicon will also detect sadness. Countdown is associated with anticipation; criminal with anger, disgust and fear; respect with anticipation, joy and trust. Some words, like maternal, are coded as both positive and negative, while other words, like screen, came out of the annotating process without significant links to any of the emotions.
When it came to producing music, the researchers built a program that would read the text and produce an emotion profile, based on which emotion-packed words were used by the author and how often. They then used music theory to build a system that would assign values for features like key, octave and notes. Texts that had more positive words overall were translated in C Major, for instance, because major keys are associated with happiness. The octave was determined by the difference in how many words related to sadness or joy appeared; hence The Road’s deep rumbling score above. More emotion words of any kind meant more notes, while fewer yielded a more sparse piece of music. Consonant notes reflect joy and calm, while discordant notes embody exciting, emotion-packed parts of a novel.
“The basic, basic emotions are definitely coming through,” says Davis, who has been working in data visualization since graduating from New York University with her master’s last year. “It’s a first iteration.” She not only wants to fine tune the current system, limited to three melodies played on a piano, but add more instruments, generate longer pieces and try analysis of different texts — eventually creating a tool that could turn a State of the Union speech into a symphony in a split-second or transform Hamlet, with strings of notes representing dialogue of various characters, into a cohesive song.
“We are connecting literature with music and we chose emotions as the medium to connect them,” says Mohammad, “but there are other things we can capture as well and it works for any piece of text. We are limited only by our imaginations.”
Still, their initial results do a decent job of embodying the spirit of a storyline. And their work serves as a reminder that we should all be grateful not to be stuck on a Belgian riverboat in the Congo:
To hear the scores their system produced for nine different novels, visit the TransProse website here.
This is an edition of Wednesday Words, a weekly feature on language. For the previous post, click here
Write to Katy Steinmetz at katy.steinmetz@time.com.CTV Atlantic
Nova Scotia’s embattled former energy minister is coming under fire for nearly $35,000 in travel expenses he racked up in less than eight months last year.
Andrew Younger, who has been on leave from cabinet since December, accumulated the expenses in trips in 2014 to countries including Korea, Germany, Scotland and the U.S.
“I think it’s unprecedented, frankly, at a time when the premier is talking tough about the need to tighten belts,” said Maureen MacDonald, interim leader of the Opposition New Democrats.
Premier Stephen McNeil told CTV News he was not aware about the amount of travel Younger was undertaking.
“I knew that he, like all ministers, was travelling,” McNeil said.
Though he wasn’t available for interview, Younger responded in an e-mail saying, “All the travel was approved by the premier’s office (much at their request) and all has very specific outcomes.”
Younger purportedly studied Germany’s considerable electricity conservation, tidal power in Scotland, and Korea’s offshore technology.
McNeil says it’s up to cabinet ministers to justify their expenses, and he will be taking a closer look at Younger’s trips.
“I don’t know what he was doing on those trips at this stage. We’ll certainly be asking the questions,” McNeil said.
“It’s a lot of money. For the people I represent, many of those families live on less than that, quite frankly, he said.”
On one trip to Houston, Texas for the annual oil industry trade show, one NDP and one PC MLA accompanied Younger.
MacDonald, who has spent 17 years in the legislature, including in cabinet posts, says the spending is way beyond normal.
“You can go back and check my travel over that period of time and it won’t even come close,” said MacDonald, who has overseen the health care and finance dossiers.
The premier notes that the rules surrounding ministerial travel and expenses have now changed.
As of Dec. 1 of last year, everything must be approved through the premier’s officer, McNeil said.
Ministers will have to justify future trips as the province grapples with financial challenges, he added, saying he can’t imagine a minister getting approval for spending in the neighbourhood of $35,000 in less than a year.
There is currently no indication of when Younger, who took a personal leave on Dec. 23, will return to cabinet.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Rick GrantPresident Rodrigo Duterte declared June 26 as a regular holiday nationwide in observance of the Eid’l Fitr or end of Ramadan.
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The declaration was cited in the Proclamation 235 signed by the President on June 16.
“The entire Filipino nation should have the opportunity to join their Muslim brothers and sisters in peace and harmony in observance and celebration of Eid’l Fitr,” the proclamation read.
It’s going to be a long weekend since the holiday falls on a Monday.
Republic Act No. 9177, which was approved by former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in 2002, provides that only the Office of the President can declare the Eid al-Fitr as a regular holiday, upon the recommendation of the National Commission of Muslim Filipinos. JPV/rga
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Subiectul aderarii Romaniei la zona euro este unul mult discutat si analizat. Intensitatea dezbaterii s-a diminuat explicabil pe masura ce zona euro si insasi Uniunea Europeana au inceput sa se confrunte cu probleme dificile, care au pus sub semnul intrebarii chiar viabilitatea proiectului european pe termen lung. Astfel ca, daca in primul deceniu al anilor 2000 problema principala era «cand va fi Romania pregatita sa adere la euro », in anii din urma accentul dezbaterii pare sa se fi mutat pe o alta intrebare, si anume «in conditiile in care insasi zona euro se confrunta cu probleme si incertitudini, mai merita sa ne preocupe proiectul aderarii? »
Realist vorbind, nu existenta in viitor a zonei euro este pusa sub semnul intrebarii, ci versiunea 2.0 a acesteia – si a UE in ansamblu, forma sau scenariul in care acestea vor functiona. Chiar in scenariul extrem (si nu foarte probabil, chiar daca nu poate fi exclus ) al disparitiei UE ca organizatie politica, Piata Comuna, politicile economice comune si insasi moneda comuna s-ar putea mentine, chiar daca vom vorbi poate de o mai mare volatilitate si variabilitate, inclusiv in ceea ce priveste apartenenta unor state la diverse structuri europene, y compris zona euro.
Prin urmare, este legitim sa ne preocupe in continuare obiectivul aderarii la euro, care reprezinta de fapt obiectivul performantei economice, competitivitatii, echilibrelor macro. Legat de acest subiect, s-a scris mult despre cum, cand si in ce conditii ar putea fi atins acest obiectiv, s-a vorbit despre criteriile de convergenta nominala si reala, despre etapele premergatoare aderarii la euro si despre termene mai mult sau mai putin realiste. Nu ar fi rau insa sa ne (re)amintim si de ce ar merita sa intram in zona euro, care ar fi pana la urma avantajele ce ar justifica eforturile si asumarea eventualelor riscuri inerente procesului.
Fara a urmari neaparat ierarhizarea importantei avantajelor, nu putem ignora faptul ca se vorbeste tot mai insistent despre « Europa cu mai multe viteze » si despre « cercuri concentrice », ba chiar despre posibilitatea ca tarile non-membre ale zonei euro (in prezent doar 8 la numar, incluzand Romania, din cele 27 de state membre UE post Brexit) sa aiba doar drept de vot consultativ in probleme care privesc strict moneda unica. Discutiile sunt in faza scenariilor incipiente, nu este clar daca – de exemplu – o tara non-euro va fi exclusa de la dreptul de vot plin in probleme esentiale, precum politica fiscala comuna sau uniunea bancara, dar riscul exista. Aderarea Romaniei la euro ne-ar oferi o mai buna pozitionare in structurile europene, ne-ar plasa in « primul cerc », cu statut de membru cu drepturi depline de vot in toate problemele economice, financiar-bancare si monetare ale Uniunii.
Probabil cel mai evident efect al aderarii la euro este unul strict financiar – ar fi eliminata problema diferentelor de curs valutar. Pare mai mult o problema contabila, dar ea se traduce in bani si implicit influenteaza profitabilitatea, stimuland sau inhiband – dupa caz – exportul, importul, investitiile, imprumuturile.
Diferentele de curs valutar apar intre momentul inregistrarii in contabilitatea unei companii a unei creante de incasat in valuta sau a unei datorii de platit in valuta si momentul incasarii / platii efective (moment stipulat in contractul comercial, care poate fi la 10 zile, la 30 zile, al 90 zile de la livrare, etc). In cele doua momente, cursul valutar este diferit, inregistrarea contabila facandu-se in lei la cursul zilei.
In cazul cresterii euro, diferenta de curs este favorabila exportatorului. In situatia inversa, a scaderii cursului euro, exportatorul va inregistra diferenta de curs nefavorabila, suma in echivalent lei incasata efectiv fiind mai mica decat valoarea creantei inregistrate in contabilitate la momentul exportului.
Pierderea sau profitul generat de diferentele de curs valutar apar si in alte situatii, cum ar fi reevaluarea unor plasamente financiare in valuta sau a operatiunilor de schimb valutar ca urmare a spread-ului intre cursul de vanzare si cursul de cumparare, respectiv cursul de referinta folosit in contabilitate.
Fara a intra in alte detalii contabile, diferentele de curs valutar – favorabile sau nefavorabile – se inregistreaza in conturi distincte si influenteaza profitul, respectiv pierderea companiei. In mod simetric, un importator va inregistra profit in cazul scaderii cursului euro si pierdere in cazul cresterii.
Politica monetara proprie ca parghie de stimulare a exporturilor – un avantaj relativ. Atata vreme cat moneda noastra nationala este leul, banca centrala are teoretic posibilitatea de a oferi exportatorilor o situatie avantajoasa, practicand o politica de crestere a cursului euro, mai exact de devalorizare a leului fata de moneda europeana. Insa, acest avantaj este limitat, atenuat sau poate chiar anulat de efectele secundare ale unei asemenea politici :
- scumpirea importurilor ; multi exportatori sunt in acelasi timp si importatori de materii prime, subansamble, etc. deci resimt in mod direct – si negativ – cresterea cursului ; in schimb, in cazul scaderii cursului, importurile nu se ieftinesc in aceeasi masura sau nu se ieftinesc deloc ;
- cresterea valorii obligatiilor de plata catre banci ; multi exportatori au credite in valuta, iar cresterea cursului determina cresterea ratelor in echivalent lei ;
- cresterea generala a preturilor ca urmare a scumpirii importurilor genereaza inflatie, cu consecinta presiunilor de indexare a salariilor, etc ;
- devalorizarea monedei nationale ofera exportatorilor un avantaj post-factum si nu ex-ante, motiv pentru care nu poate stimula de fapt exportul si nici nu poate reprezenta un pilon de fundamentare a unui plan de business ; in momentul realizarii exportului, un producator nu poate anticipa evolutia cursului ci poate doar spera ca euro va creste ;
- parghia cursului valutar ofera o competitivitate a exporturilor « pe hartie », pe termen limitat si nu una sustenabila, bazata pe performanta calitativa, tehnologica, in termeni reali.
Este adevarat ca, in cazul aderarii Romaniei la euro, avantajul creat exportatorilor prin politica cursului de schimb se pierde. Insa la fel de adevarat este ca acest avantaj este relativ si cu doua taisuri. Statistica ne arata ca – in perioada 2006-2015 – evolutia crescatoare sau descrescatoare a exporturilor nu a avut o legatura prea clara cu evolutia cursului euro. Am avut ani in care euro a scazut in raport cu leul, dar exporturile au crescut si ani in care euro a crescut iar exporturile au scazut. Asadar, poate ar fi cazul sa fim mai rezervati atunci cand e vorba de mitul cresterii exporturilor ca efect al cresterii cursului euro (respectiv al deprecierii leului in raport cu moneda europeana).
Surse : http://statistici.insse.ro/shop/; http://www.bnr.ro/Raport-statistic-606.aspx
De altfel, in ultimii ani, cursul euro/leu a fost destul de stabil, in timp ce exporturile au inregistrat cresteri an de an, fara a fi afectate de stabilitatea cursului de referinta.
Sa vedem insa care a fost experienta altor tari est-europene care au adoptat déjà moneda euro. Consideram ca Slovacia si Slovenia sunt cazurile cele mai relevante – in ciuda dimensiunilor mai mici ale economiei lor in comparatie cu Romania – din doua motive : ele au parcurs déjà o perioada de timp relevanta din momentul trecerii la euro (2009, respectiv 2007) si nici una din cele doua tari nu a avut consiliu monetar. Iata mai jos graficul evolutiei exporturilor celor doua state dupa momentul aderarii la zona euro :
Surse : https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2016/cr16122.pdf; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Slovakia
Se observa ca – dupa trecerea la euro – (2009, respectiv 2007) – Slovacia si Slovenia au inregistrat o perioada scurta de recul al exporturilor ; aceasta perioada a durat 1-2 ani si s-a suprapus cu perioada crizei globale, dupa care exporturile au inregistrat o crestere constanta.
Concluzia este ca pierderea parghiei de stimulare a exporturilor prin politica cursului de schimb este un dezavantaj discutabil. In schimb, trecerea la euro ofera o serie de avantaje evidente :
- o mai mare predictibilitate atat la nivel micro cat si la nivel macroeconomic, determinata de eliminarea incertitudinii cu privire la evolutia cursului de schimb. Proiectiile financiare (cash-flow-ul, bugetul de venituri si cheltuieli) si planurile de afaceri vor putea fi intocmite de managementul companiilor cu o mult mai mare acuratete.
- Dobanzi mai reduse la credite, specifice zonei de euro, ca urmare a primei de risc mai mici, cu influenta benefica asupra costului si accesibilitatii finantarii.
- Facilitarea exporturilor, a tranzactiilor internationale, a turismului, precum si a calculelor si estimarilor contabile.
- Cresterea atractivitatii pentru investitori, generate de predictibilitate, stabilitate si de avantajele de imagine.
- Reducerea riscului de turbulente si disciplinarea politicilor la nivel macroeconomic. Aici exista insa si un risc teoretic de contaminare, in cazul in care una sau mai multe economii semnificative din zona euro intra in derapaj. Un suport financiar masiv din partea statelor din zona euro catre o tara cu probleme sau alte socuri de acest gen ar slabi moneda europeana, expunand-o riscului de inflatie. Riscul exista, dar o economie puternica ofera oricum o protectie mai sigura pentru stabilitatea monedei. Rata inflatiei in zona euro intr-o perioada in care economia si moneda europeana au fost supuse la destul de multe incercari (2008-2016), dupa un varf de cca 4% in 2008-2009 s-a situat in intervalul cuprins intre -1% si 3%, conform graficului de mai jos :
Desigur, fata de ideea aderarii Romaniei la zona euro se vor mai exprima multe temeri, unele sincere altele ipocrite. Nu putine sunt acuzatiile ca introducerea monedei unice este cauza crizelor cu care se confrunta economia Europei. Trebuie insa sa fim realisti si corecti – criza bancara si criza datoriilor suverane au fost cauzate de creditarea excesiva si riscanta de pana in 2008 si de supra-indatorarea statelor, pentru finantarea unor cheltuieli publice peste posibilitati ; adica, de doua vechi pacate ale oamenilor in general si ale oamenilor politici in particular – lacomia si populismul.
Nu trecerea la euro este amenintarea la adresa economiei romanesti, ci slaba competitivitate. In demersul de aderare la euro nu pornim de la zero ; criteriile de convergenta nominala sunt déjà indeplinite, in unele privinte stam chiar mai bine decat « granzii » Europei. Criteriile de convergenta reala insa sunt numeroase - de la functionalitatea instituţiilor, infrastructura, dezvoltarea pieţei financiare, pana la sănătate şi educaţie, evoluţia tehnologică si inovaţia. Indeplinirea acestor cerinte nu mai este neaparat atributia Bancii Nationale a Romaniei, ci mai curand a autoritatilor politice (Guvern, Parlament, Presedinte) ; nici o parghie de presiune publica nu este de prisos pentru a le determina sa inteleaga – o data pentru totdeauna – care este menirea lor reala. In contextul unor asemenea provocari, cat de neadecvati la realitate ne par guvernantii nostri de astazi si cat de straine de adevaratele prioritati ale tarii si ale cetatenilor ne par preocuparile lor…!
Alte surse :
http://cursdeguvernare.ro/trecerea-la-euro-avantaje-dezavataje-riscurile-de-ce-2019-in-loc-de-2015-si-exemplul-greciei.html
http://cursdeguvernare.ro/competitivitatea-indicatorul-care-tine-romania-departe-de-occident.html
Ai informatii despre tema de mai sus? Poti contribui la o mai buna intelegere a subiectului? Scrie articolul tau si trimite-l la editor[at]contributors.roPresident Donald Trump on the South Lawn in Washington, DC. Thomson Reuters
A Russia-born businessman who served as a real-estate adviser to the Trump Organization was pushing for Donald Trump, then a presidential candidate, to pursue a Trump Tower deal in Moscow in late 2015, The Washington Post reported on Sunday.
The businessman, Felix Sater, told Talking Points Memo earlier this month that his "last Moscow deal for the Trump Organization was in October of 2015" but that it "didn't go through because obviously he became president."
"Once the campaign was really going-going, it was obvious there were going to be no deals internationally," Sater said. "We were still working on it, doing something with it, November-December."
The deal apparently fell apart in January 2016 because the Trump Organization did not have the land or permits to pursue it. That summer, the Trump Organization renewed unused trademarks it had acquired from the Russian government from 1996 to 2007 for hotels and branding, according to The New York Times. Russia approved four of the requested trademarks on November 8.
Sater visited Trump Tower in July 2016 for reasons he said were "confidential," Politico reported at the time. He also donated $5,520 to the Trump campaign.
Sater's lawyer declined to comment. The White House referred questions to Stephen Ryan, the lawyer for Michael Cohen — Trump's personal attorney at the time the Moscow deal was reportedly pursued. Ryan did not respond.
Sater, who was accused nearly two decades ago of being a conspirator in a $40 million fraud and money-laundering scheme involving four Mafia families, began advising the Trump Organization while he was an executive at the real-estate firm Bayrock in the early 2000s.
Trump worked with Bayrock on at least four projects, including the Trump SoHo in Manhattan, and said in a 2007 deposition that Bayrock frequently brought Russian investors to Trump Tower to meet with him.
A former Bayrock finance director, Jody Kriss, alleged in a 2010 lawsuit against Sater and others that "for most of its existence," Bayrock "was substantially and covertly mob-owned and operated," engaging "in a pattern of continuous, related crimes, including mail, wire, and bank fraud; tax evasion; money laundering; conspiracy; bribery; extortion; and embezzlement."
The Post reported that Sater began pushing for Trump to visit Moscow in November 2015 and at the time was in touch with Cohen. Trump never traveled to Moscow, but his organization signed a letter of intent, according to The Post.
Michael Cohen at Trump Tower. Stephanie Keith/Reuters
Cohen and Alan Garter, the Trump Organization's chief legal officer, did not respond to a request for comment.
Sater was evidently still in touch with Cohen as recently as late January of this year. The two met |
Keynesian stimulus spending were financed by large federal deficits, we would not be impoverishing our children. Instead we would be investing in the future of our children by providing them with an adequate educational system so they could be qualified to take on future productive hi-tech jobs. Restoring our infrastructure facilities makes it easy and inexpensive to bring goods to market, and it allows us to have safe, sanitary living conditions for enjoying a good life. These are the things that contribute to the productivity, health and happiness of our children. Not economic fairy tales.No foul play suspected in death of Jeremiah Collins
A St. Michael's College student has been found dead in a Winooski park.School officials said Jeremiah Collins, of Bridgewater, Massachusetts, was found dead Wednesday morning in the Gilbrook Natural Area near campus. Police said foul play was not suspected. They have not said how Collins died.The cause of Collins' death was still under investigation.College officials said Collins' family and friends have been notified of his death. Grief counselors were available for those who needed help at the Bergeron Wellness Center.No other information about the death or investigation was released.
A St. Michael's College student has been found dead in a Winooski park.
School officials said Jeremiah Collins, of Bridgewater, Massachusetts, was found dead Wednesday morning in the Gilbrook Natural Area near campus.
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Police said foul play was not suspected. They have not said how Collins died.
The cause of Collins' death was still under investigation.
College officials said Collins' family and friends have been notified of his death. Grief counselors were available for those who needed help at the Bergeron Wellness Center.
No other information about the death or investigation was released.
AlertMeROCKLAND, Maine -- After five burglaries in six years, a retired Maine lobsterman bought a gun to defend himself and ended up shooting an intruder hours later.
Harvey Lembo, 67, said in an interview with CBS affiliate WGME that he bought a revolver on Monday. While he was in bed just hours later he heard an intruder.
"I had the gun under my pillow. I reached out and I cocked it. And I got in my wheelchair.," Lembo said.
Lembo confronted the alleged intruder in his home rifling through his prescription medication and held him at gunpoint.
"I screamed at him to stop. And I told him to go sit on the coffee table or I'd blow his brains out. I still had the gun in my hand. And I'm trying to dial 911 with the gun in my hand," Lembo said.
But while Lembo was on the phone, the man jumped up and ran.
"That's when I shot him, yes. I shot just like that," Lembo. Just barely missed the side of the wall. Got him in the shoulder. If he'd have sat there, nothing would have happened. But he wanted to leave. And I've had enough of it. I've had enough."
When police arrived, they followed a trail of blood to 45-year-old Christopher Wildhaber of Rockland.
Wildhaber was treated for a gunshot wound to the shoulder and is now behind bars facing a burglary charge.
A district attorney will decide whether Lembo will face charges in the incident. In the meantime, he told WGME that future burglars should be ready for his revolver.
"They're going to have the same treatment. And one of them might be worse. Might be fatal. 'Cause I ain't messing around no more," Lembo said.Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz on Monday blasted South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, the Republican Party’s pick to deliver the GOP's response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday. “It’s pretty clear that Nikki Haley is being chosen because the Republican Party has a diversity problem,” Wasserman Schultz said on a conference call previewing the speech.
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley will give the response to the president's state of the union because the GOP has a “diversity problem,” chief Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz says Undoubtedly, this will enrage the establishment and it will respond will the usual stupidity and claim that Wasserman Schultz is a “racist.”
But she’s right nonetheless, apropos of the joke, already old when Steve Sailer repeated it here 15 years ago:Share. It's not Portal 3, but it's enough to convince me Valve knows what it's doing. It's not Portal 3, but it's enough to convince me Valve knows what it's doing.
With a series of new demos, the best of which was a Portal-themed vignette set inside Aperture Science, Valve and HTC have convinced me that Vive VR is a viable, interesting platform for interactive experiences. Vive’s headset/controller combination bears enormous potential for fascinating new ways to explore enormous, ambitious, and entertaining worlds. Given the physical space necessary to engage with these sorts of experiences, I’m not convinced it’s a viable, long-term product for the mainstream — but I am on board.
Vive erased my sense of reality in a way no VR headset, VR game, or VR experience, has. Each demo achieved an impressive sense of actual space that I wanted to explore. In the Job Simulator demo, a robot barked orders and cracked jokes about making soup and sandwiches. I could take ingredients from across the kitchen and combine them to create dishes, or make an absolute mess of everything, using the simple hand controllers. Triggers on the back and grips on the left/right sides of each controller give a convincing sense of controlling things in the world.
I never expected a video game demo in which I grabbed a tomato (and threw it at a robot) to awe me so deeply.
Exit Theatre Mode
This is the most “game” demo I played on Vive. I had an objective, but deviating from it by exploring the kitchen let me physically express myself in ways that made sense. Objects interacted exactly as expected, so if I wanted to do something silly, like put vegetables in the microwave, or throw a knife around, those option were available. Job Simulator would respond with humorous dialogue, and suddenly there was a fun, two-way relationship between this authored demo and my bumbling, physical interactions with it.
TheBluVR, an underwater “experience,” also really impressed me. Standing on the deck of a sunken ship and watching aquatic life swim by barely qualifies as a game, but there's something special about stepping back as a whale approaches so you can take in its enormity. TheBluVR isn't a unique-to-Vive game, of course, but its fidelity on HTC's and Valve's machine is noticeably better than most VR headsets I've used.
Really, though, it’s Valve’s VR controllers that hooked me on Vive as a distinct, standout tool for games.
Painting in a 3D space really demonstrated the effectiveness of Valve’s controllers. With one Wii Remote/PlayStation Move-like device in each hand, I used my left side as a pallette, and the right as a brush, to create art in a way that couldn’t be done without VR. It’s a gimmick, certainly, but it’s cool.
Similarly, I dug The Gallery, a fantastical, dark game I'd never heard of. A humongous golem in the distance babbled while I tinkered with the world around me. Using the controllers, I opened a small door with one hand, reached in with the other, and used the 3D space to analyze a compass, letter, and bottles I broke when letting go. I realized I wasn't listening to the golem because I'd been absorbed in walking around and discovering objects around me. I rarely have this problem when using controllers to poke around a narrative scene, because it suddenly feels less involved.
I paid attention during the Portal sequence.
Exit Theatre Mode
Manipulating (and trying to repair) Portal 2’s ATLAS robot encapsulated exactly the sort of experience I want to have on Vive, and VR in general: Walking around a limited space, soaking in a location, messing with what’s there, and engaging with interesting characters. I stood in Aperture Science and physically walked out of the way as ATLAS’s portly, round self walked through a door I held open. I felt the need to move out of the way when we almost collided. In reality, I knew I stood in a fairly small white room inside a convention center, so it was astonishing to interact with a door and see an entirely separate, large room on the other side, and watch a huge machine come toward me.
It also felt strange to stand next to ATLAS as he lumbered by me — I didn’t expect it to stand so large, or to have so many nuts and bolts I could tinker with when opening him up to repair. When GLaDOS dropped down from the ceiling to sling insults, her daunting size also caught me off guard. There's a strong, palpable difference between playing a first person game, and feeling like you're living it. Maybe I am just a puny human.
The novelty of Portal’s humor certainly made it a memorable demo, but in making it feel natural and normal to pick apart a robot inside a fictional factory, Valve proved to me that VR really works, and more importantly, matters to the sort of experiences I want to have. The controllers are simple but versatile. Much as I dread the cost of owning them, I wanted to try all of my demos again (Aperture Science in particular, because it’s a world I adore so much).
I wanted to see how else I could change things, what I might have missed, and to generally just exist in a game world in a way I never have. Other VR initiatives are succeeding in their own right, but I can’t think of anything that’s had such a profound effect on my own existence as Valve and HTC’s Vive.
Mitch Dyer is an Editor at IGN. He hosts IGN Arena, a podcast about MOBAs. Talk to Mitch about Dota 2, movies, books, and other stuff on Twitter at @MitchyD and subscribe to MitchyD on Twitch.Retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal sits aboard a helicopter during active duty in 2009. Paula Bronstein/Getty
Stanley McChrystal, a retired army general, urged leaders in Washington and the Trump administration not to strip federal funding for public broadcasting in a New York Times op-ed, saying that it makes the nation "smarter, stronger and, yes, safer."
McChrystal was referring to President Trump's draft budget proposal, which included a suggestion to eliminate all $455 million - about $1.35 per person - that's currently dedicated to public and educational programming.
Prior to his retirement, McChrystal was a 34-year combat veteran who former defense secretary Robert Gates described as "perhaps the finest warrior and leader of men in combat I ever met."
McChrystal tendered his resignation in 2010 after he was quoted mocking then-Vice President Joe Biden and other government officials in a Rolling Stone article.
McChrystal acknowledged that his stance on this topic may be "unlikely," but that his experience taught him "that education, trusted institutions and civil discourse are the lifeblood of a great nation," and that soldiers thrive "when they are both strong and smart."
The former general also highlighted his belief that public broadcasting and "thoughtful" television and other media is essential for families in which parents are busy working and don't always have the time to devote to their children's' education and preparation for school.
He pointed to a study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which found that between 2011 and 2013, more than half the kids in this country didn't have the chance to enroll in a preschool program. Having access to free public broadcast channels like PBS is critical, McChrystal argues, for families who may have fewer opportunities and lower income. PBS Kids is currently the only free educational programming channel that airs all day.
Sesame Street
Adding that debating between funding public broadcasting programs and strengthening the military was a "false choice," McChrystal said that free educational programming teaches children the skills and character traits necessary for success in school, as well as the military.
McChrystal also seemed to allude to public sentiment in the country, saying that "Trust among Americans and for many of our institutions is at its lowest levels in generations, and stereotyping and prejudice have become substitutes for knowing and understanding one another as individuals."
He added that while the question of how to restore trust between citizens and the government was an "existential" one, "it's ultimately a practical one," and that elected officials should be practical when approaching the issue, instead of falling back on partisanship.
National public broadcasting functions as "our largest classroom," he said. "We need a strong civil society where the connection between different people... is firm and vibrant, not brittle and divided. We need to defend against weaknesses within and enemies without, using the tools of civil society and hard power. We don't have to pick one over the other."
Other agencies that would see drastic cuts under Trump's budget proposal include: the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Environmental Protection Agency, and Meals on Wheels, which currently provides food for 2 million senior citizens.UPDATE: Game Informer's next cover is Thief, a reboot for the series by Eidos Montreal that will be out next year for PC, PS4, and whatever the next Xbox is called.
The game is no longer called Thief 4.
The April issue of Game Informer has more details on the new stealth game, which looks a whole lot like Dishonored. Not that that's a bad thing.
Original story:
Here's a brand new look at Thief 4, thanks to leaked screenshots obtained by a user named Gamesmaniac on the European social network VK.com. Head over there for all the shots.
According to a Google translation of the Russian site gamemag.ru, Thief 4 is being prepared for next-gen consoles, and it will lose the 4. Just Thief now.
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This lines up with hints and teases we've heard about the Game Informer cover reveal today, which is planned for 12pm Eastern. Game Informer has promised that they'll be revealing a next-gen title, and in response to rumors yesterday that the cover will be Thief 4, GI editor Andy McNamara said that the cover doesn't have a 4 on it. Maybe it's just Thief now?NSA
NSA Conspires with Israel Against Americansby Stephen LendmanMillions worldwide owe Edward Snowden sincere gratitude. He revealed what's vital to know. He connected important dots to do so.He revealed unconstitutional NSA spying. He did it courageously. When governments operate lawlessly, exposing wrongdoing is crucial. Doing it entails risks.Snowden did so anyway. He did it because it's the right thing to do. On September 11, London's Guardian published important new information. It did so from documents he provided. More on that below.On September 12, Russia Today (RT) headlined "EU lawmakers nominate Snowden for Sakharov human rights prize."European parliamentarians established it in December 1988. They did so to honor individuals and organizations championing human rights and freedom of thought.Nelson Mandela and Russia's Anatoly Marchenko were its first joint recipients. In 1992, Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo became the first organization given the coveted award.It's generally granted on or around December 10. It's the day in 1948 when the UN General Assembly ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It's commemorated worldwide as Human Rights Day.Perhaps Snowden will be this year's recipient. Washington will go all out to prevent it. EU Parliament United Left/Nordic Greens representatives Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Rebecca Harms said:He "deserves to be honored for shedding light on the systematic infringements of civil liberties by US and European secret services. (He) risked his freedom to help protect ours."Swedish Pirate Party representative Christian Engstrom co-nominated Snowden. He paid "a heavy personal price" for acting heroically, he said.He deserves recognition for doing so. On September 16, an "official presentation of all the candidates will take place," said RT. In October, the winner will be announced.On or around December 10, an awards ceremony is scheduled in Strasbourg. Snowden rightfully deserves to be honored.New information London's Guardian published provides more reasons to do so. It headlined "NSA shares raw intelligence including Americans' data with Israel."In other words, the agency and Israel both spy on Americans. They do it lawlessly. They do it because who'll stop them. It's sanctioned at the highest levels of both governments.NSA "routinely shares raw intelligence data with Israel." It does it "without first sifting it to remove information about US citizens," said the Guardian.A "top secret" document Snowden revealed explains. Details are included in a memorandum of understanding. It's between NSA and its Israeli counterpart.It's called Unit 8200. It's sometimes called the Israeli Sigint (signal intelligence) National Unit (ISNU). It was established in 1952. It monitors and collects military intelligence.It operates a massive global spy network. It intercepts international communications. It has covert operations in Israeli embassies worldwide.It operates like NSA. It does so lawlessly. Raw intelligence NSA supplies Israel shows it "hand(s) over intercepted communications likely to contain phone calls and emails of American citizens," said the Guardian."The agreement places no legally binding limits on the use of the data by the Israelis."Information Snowden revealed exposed numerous Obama lies. He claims NSA doesn't spy on Americans. Their privacy is respected.False! NSA spies at home and abroad. No domestic privacy safeguards exist. Personal information about Americans is shared with other governments.Israel is one of many. In March 2009, a memorandum of understanding explained intelligence sharing "ground rules."It includes alleged "protection(s) of US persons." It cites constitutional rights to privacy and "need for Israeli intelligence staff to respect" them.It doesn't matter. NSA spies unconstitutionally. Fundamental rights are ignored. Israel operates the same way. It does what it wants with impunity.Memorandum language discloses that Israel gets "raw Sigint" data. It says:It "includes, but is not limited to, unevaluated and unminimized transcripts, gists, facsimiles, telex, voice and Digital Network Intelligence metadata and content."Information shared isn't "filtered in advance by NSA analysts to remove US communications.""Although the memorandum is explicit in saying the material had to be handled in accordance with US law, and that the Israelis agreed not to deliberately target Americans identified in the data, these rules are not backed up by legal obligations," said the Guardian.The document states:"This agreement is not intended to create any legally enforceable rights and shall not be construed to be either an international agreement or a legally binding instrument according to international law."An NSA spokesperson lied claiming shared intelligence complies with privacy laws and norms. The Guardian poses specific questions pertaining to NSA intelligence sharing.The agency stonewalled. It refused to answer. Its memorandum of understanding lets Israel retain "any files containing the identities of US persons" up to a year.It doesn't matter. It bears repeating. NSA and Israel's counterpart do whatever they wish. They operate extrajudicially. They do it covertly. They've always operated this way.US government communications obtained through raw intelligence are supposed to be "destroy(ed) upon recognition."They pertain to ones "either to or from an official of the US government."They include communications of "officials of the executive branch (including the White House, cabinet departments, and independent agencies), the US House of Representatives and Senate (member and staff) and the US federal court system (including, but not limited to, the supreme court)."It bears repeating. It doesn't matter. The CIA considers Israel its main regional spy threat.Washington's Government Accountability Office (GAO) said Israel "conducts the most aggressive espionage operation against the United States of any US ally."The Pentagon accused Israel of "actively engag(ing) in military and industrial espionage in the United States."Its operations are highly sophisticated. In terms of technical capability and human resources, it rivals America's best.It has access to the highest US political, military, and intelligence sources. It steals everything it can get its hands on.It ignores fundamental laws, rules, agreements and norms. It fits the classic definition of a rogue state. So does America.NSA is legally bound to target only foreign-based persons and organizations without an individual warrant. It's permitted to collect meta-data containing Americans' emails and telecommunications related to foreign targets.NSA ignores its own mandate. It does whatever it wants. It operates lawlessly. So does Israel.Memorandum of understanding language "mentions only one check carried out by the NSA on the raw intelligence."It says "the agency will'regularly review a sample of files transferred to ISNU to validate the absence of US persons' identities.' ""It also requests that the Israelis limit access only to personnel with a'strict need to know.' "Israel's allowed "to disseminate foreign intelligence information concerning US persons derived from raw Sigint by NSA" provided it does so "in a manner that does not identify the US person."It permits releasing the identity of US individuals with NSA's written permission.The Guardian obtained a related top secret document. It's dated 2008. A senior NSA official said Israel aggressively spies on America."On the one hand," he said, "the Israelis are extraordinarily good Sigint partners for us, but on the other, they target us to learn our positions on Middle East problems.""A NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) ranked them as the third most aggressive intelligence service against the US.""One of NSA's biggest threats is actually from friendly intelligence services, like Israel.""There are parameters on what NSA shares with them, but the exchange is so robust, we sometimes share more than we intended."The Guardian asked Obama officials how often US data is found in raw intelligence. No response was gotten.An NSA statement said:"We are not going to comment on any specific information sharing arrangements, or the authority under which any such information is collected.""The fact that intelligence services work together under specific and regulated conditions mutually strengthens the security of both nations.""NSA cannot, however, use these relationships to circumvent US legal restrictions.""Whenever we share intelligence information, we comply with all applicable rules, including the rules to protect US person information."NSA lies. It does so consistently. It's been caught red-handed many times. Director of National Intelligence head James Clapper is an admitted perjurer.Nothing US administration or intelligence officials say has credibility. Misinformation, deception and willful lies substitute for truth and full disclosure.Israel operates the same way. They're rogue imperial partners. They do what ever they want. They do it with impunity. They've always done things this way. Claims otherwise ring hollow.Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen [at] sbcglobal.net His new book is titled "Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity."Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.Research shows that 10% of adults (ages 17 and older) in the U.S. are former vegetarians/vegans and 2% are currently vegetarian or vegan.
Based on an independent study completed by Faunalytics, animal advocates have an accurate estimate of the number of former and current vegetarians/vegans in the United States. In this first release of the data, the research shows that 10% of adults (ages 17 and older) in the U.S. are former vegetarians/vegans and 2% are currently vegetarian or vegan. More than a third of former vegetarians/vegans are interested in resuming the diet, with health as the primary motivation.
At Faunalytics, we’ve been asked this question for many years. But with limited research data, advocates haven’t had a clear answer… until now. Three years ago Faunalytics formed a coalition to provide an accurate estimate of the number of former and current vegans and vegetarians in the United States, and here are the results.
Of U.S. adults age 17 and over:
2% are current vegetarians/vegans
10% are former vegetarians/vegans
88% have never been vegetarian or vegan
Faunalytics’ study of former and current vegetarians and vegans is the most comprehensive research ever conducted on this topic. Our results are drawn from a representative sample of more than 11,000 adults in the U.S.
See below for the highlights, or check out the new infographic!
If you’d like more details, you can access the complete report and related companion document with our methodology and tables of results.
So, what else did we learn?
Profile: Former Vegetarians/Vegans
Former vegetarians/vegans in the U.S. have an average age of 48 and first adopted a veg diet at around age 34. Nearly half of former vegetarians/vegans (44%) are over the age of 50. More than two-thirds (69%) of former vegetarians/vegans are women. A large majority of former vegetarians/vegans (65%) say they transitioned to a veg diet quickly, in a matter of days or weeks. More than half of former vegetarians/vegans (58%) cite health as a motivation, making it easily the most common reason that former vegetarians/vegans tried the diet. A slight majority of former vegetarians/vegans maintained the diet for less than a year.
Profile: Current Vegetarians/Vegans
Current vegetarians and vegans in the U.S. have an average age of 42, notably younger than former vegetarians/vegans. Six in ten current vegetarians/vegans are between the ages of 30 and 49. Those who currently eat a vegetarian or vegan diet are even more likely than former vegetarians/vegans to be women (74% vs. 69%). Existing vegetarians/vegans also lean toward liberal politics (52% identify as liberal, versus only 14% who say they are conservative). Current vegetarians/vegans are also less likely to say they actively practice a religion.
The Transition Happens Quickly
As mentioned, two-thirds (65%) of former vegetarians/vegans transitioned to a veg diet in a matter of days or weeks. This is significantly more than the proportion of current vegetarians/vegans who transitioned over the course of days/weeks (53%). These findings suggest that most vegetarians/vegans transition quickly, but people who transition quickly to a vegetarian/vegan diet are less likely to adhere to it.
In addition, the window of opportunity is limited for vegan and vegetarian advocates to help people maintain their dietary changes. More than half of former vegetarians/vegans abandoned the diet within the first year, and a third of them abandoned it in three months or less.
Relationships Matter
For a long time we have had strong anecdotal evidence that relationships and families place stress on one’s ability to maintain a vegetarian/vegan diet. Indeed, in our study half of former vegetarians/vegans (49%) said they were living with a significant other when their diet lapsed. Most of those (a third of all former vegetarians/vegans) were specifically living with a non-vegetarian or non-vegan partner when they resumed eating meat.
Incrementalism (Again)
Almost a decade ago, Faunalytics conducted a comprehensive study of meat reduction, vegetarianism, and veganism. In that report we used the term “incrementalism” to describe the approach of encouraging people to take small steps with the end goal being a diet (and lifestyle) free of animal products. As we wrote, “getting people started on the path toward a desired change is itself a major breakthrough,” and the current study of former vegetarians/vegans underscores this fact.
The latest findings show that a message focused on reduction of animal products may be effective to create an overall decline in animal product consumption. Given that 43% of lapsed vegetarians/vegans say they found it too difficult to maintain a “pure” diet, advocates may want to develop appropriate strategies in response. Although beyond the scope of our study, we believe advocates should also start to concentrate on messages to reduce consumption of chicken and fish, in particular, given the very large number animals consumed.
Using Health as a Motivator
The value of the “health argument” as a means to encourage plant-based diets is a subject of much debate among vegetarian/vegan advocates. While health-driven behavior change may lead to a reduction in the number of animals slaughtered, it does not necessarily lead to more positive attitudes toward farmed animals. However, most long-time advocates think the health argument is effective as a “foot in the door” approach.
Our study provides solid evidence to support these notions. Most former vegetarians/vegans stated that health was the number one motivator for eating the diet (58%). Perhaps more importantly, health was also the key motivation for current vegetarians/vegans (along with animal welfare). In the case of former vegetarians/vegans, health and other common motivators (such as taste preferences, animal welfare, and being disgusted by meat) were not enough for them to sustain a veg diet.
While health was the main motivator for former vegetarians/vegans to alter their diet, it is interesting to note that 27% of them also say they were motivated by animal welfare (yet they still later reverted to eating animals). Current vegetarians/vegans are much more likely to cite multiple reasons for choosing the diet.
In relation to current vegetarians/vegans, it is unclear whether all of these reasons were actually part of their initial decision to become veg, or if some of the motivations arose later. But it appears that having multiple reasons for being vegetarian or vegan is associated with being able to maintain the diet for the long-term.
Advocates Need to Focus on Retention
This groundbreaking study provides a clarion call for advocates to think more about retention and supporting and retaining new vegetarians/vegans as they face any of a number of challenges. In fact, targeted outreach focused on lapsed vegetarians/vegans may itself prove to be fruitful. More than a third (37%) of former vegetarians/vegans say they are interested in re-adopting the diet. That equates to almost 4% of the adult population in the U.S. and, if converted, this would triple the number of actual vegetarians/vegans in the country.
Advocates should acknowledge and address the difficulties faced by former (and current) vegetarians/vegans. For instance, a large majority of former vegetarians/vegans (63%) said that they disliked that their diet made them stick out from the crowd; 41% of current vegetarians/vegans also agree with this statement. Similarly, a majority of former vegetarians/vegans (58%) did not see the diet as part of their identity.
How do we connect with and support former vegetarians/vegans and other receptive audiences? Once again, many of them say they are most likely to be motivated by health. We need to help them make positive, healthful decisions including giving specific advice, such as taking vitamin B12 supplements. We need to teach them how to live with non-vegetarians. And we need to encourage people to consider the other reasons for being vegetarian/vegan to help motivate them to sustain the positive dietary choice.
Other Evidence-Based Suggestions
In a nutshell, the findings from this new study show a need for advocates to: Improve vegetarian/vegan retention; Target outreach activities toward those who are most likely to adhere to the diet; Increase focus on the “how” of vegetarianism/veganism; Diversify messaging for the “why” of vegetarianism/veganism; Focus on bringing back lapsed vegetarians/vegans; and Emphasize reductions of animal products. Additionally…
We should focus on advocating for chickens. Chickens (and fish) clearly represent the majority of animals eaten as food. Unfortunately, chicken is also the most common type of meat consumed by former vegetarians/vegans. Reducing and eliminating chicken consumption (for all meat-consuming audiences) will have the greatest impact on the number of farmed animals’ lives saved.
The fact that 84% of vegetarians and vegans resume eating meat suggests that advocates need to focus more on “how” instead of simply “why” to be vegetarian/vegan. This includes sharing information about how to find tasty veg options, how to avoid standing out from the crowd, and generally how to live in a mostly non-veg world.
Think of vegetarian/vegan advocacy as sustaining a long-term relationship, not just a single point of outreach. Part of the goal for advocates should be to engage their target audience with a sense of community and to actively support them through mentorship and other programs. We suggest providing clear, easy opportunities for new vegetarians/vegans to learn more and become involved in the positive impact of their choices.
Part of being in a successful long-term relationship is having patience. It is human nature to resist abrupt or substantial changes. Vegetarian/vegan advocacy should explore slower, incremental changes and reductions in animal product consumption. Advocates need to find ways to help those who transition quickly to stay with the diet for the long term.
Further Research
In Faunalytics’ full report on this study, we suggest that more research would be useful to understand the impact on farmed animals of delivering a pro-vegetarian/vegan message (both with and without allowances for interim steps), compared with solely advocating specific combinations of reductions/eliminations of animal products. In addition, there are other opportunities for further research, including studies to track various levels of animal product avoidance and conducting in-depth qualitative research with former vegetarians/vegans to understand what might motivate them to return to a plant-based diet.
If You Find This Useful…
Collaborating closely with other groups, Faunalytics spent more than three years designing, carrying out, and analyzing the results from this new study. This included hundreds of hours of staff time as well as many more hours generously contributed by volunteers. It was a major effort and we hope it helps you be as effective as possible for farmed animals.
Faunalytics is already starting to think about possible follow-up studies to find out what works best for sustained vegan/vegetarian advocacy.
If you value this kind of groundbreaking, independent research for animal advocates, please donate to support Faunalytics’ work. Your donation is tax-deductible (in the U.S.).
Thank you for your support of research for effective animal advocacy!Guest editor Bill Gates Can online classrooms help the developing world catch up? By Adi Robertson
We're excited to have Bill Gates as our guest editor in February. Throughout the month, Bill will be sharing his vision of how technology will revolutionize life for the world's poor by 2030 by narrating episodes of the Big Future, our animated explainer series. In addition, we'll be publishing a series of features exploring the improvements in banking, health, farming, and education that will enable that revolution. And while the topics reflect the bets Bill and his wife Melinda are making with their foundation, they've asked us for nothing less than fully independent Verge journalism, which we're more than happy to deliver. Turns out Bill Gates is a pretty confident guy. Nilay Patel, Editor-in-Chief
In 2012, a 15-year-old named Battushig Myanganbayar aced a circuits and electronics course designed for sophomores at MIT — from his school in Ulan Bator, Mongolia. Myanganbayar had watched lectures in English, a second language, and worked through the course material online with the help of a visiting Stanford Ph.D. candidate, Tony Kim. "If Battushig, at the age of 15, were a student at MIT, he would be one of the top students — if not the top," Kim told The New York Times. In fact, Myanganbayar went on to MIT a year later — crediting the online course as a "watershed" moment. Myanganbayar’s success is a testament to the power of online educational programs: thanks to revolutionary technology, a prodigious student has access to the education of his dreams. Today, Myanganbayar is even working with edX, the Harvard-MIT joint partnership behind the original course he took from Mongolia, to improve the experience for future students. Behind the student’s story, though, is a larger question: can online classes be used to help not just a few exceptional students, but the developing world at large? "Before a child even starts primary school, she will be able to use her mom’s smartphone to learn her numbers and letters." In his foundation’s 2015 annual letter, Bill Gates describes a future in which world-class education is only a few taps away, for anyone in the world. "Before a child even starts primary school, she will be able to use her mom’s smartphone to learn her numbers and letters, giving her a big head start," he speculates. "Software will be able to see when she’s having trouble with the material and adjust for her pace. She will collaborate with teachers and other students in a much richer way." Career paths, Gates speculates, will be built into this new education system — students will be able to lift themselves out of poverty by figuring out the requirements for their chosen field and fulfilling them with online classes. And software will connect students to distant teachers and each other. While the concept of remote learning is as old as correspondence courses, today it’s often discussed in the context of massively open online courses, or MOOCs. Organized by companies, universities, and nonprofits, MOOCs provide education in the form of online lectures, quizzes, and projects, allowing large numbers of students to learn at a flexible pace. There’s no single definition for what constitutes a MOOC: some academics have split the term into "connectivist" cMOOCs — which emphasize learning among a loose network of students — and more centralized xMOOCs, which are often traditional college courses expanded to fit tens of thousands of remote pupils. And researchers still aren’t quite sure how to measure MOOCs’ overall impact. "We’re the World Bank, so we like to have data on all the stuff we say, right?" says Michael Trucano, a World Bank technology and education specialist who writes frequently about MOOCs. "There frankly isn’t a lot of good data on this, at all." Coursera, the largest and arguably best-known MOOC platform, claims a total of 11 million students, who can sign up for hundreds of classes from professors at Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and other universities. Classes are free, but students can purchase "verified certificates" for a single class or work towards mini-degrees in subjects like entrepreneurship |
hour or two with my daughter when I get home in the afternoon. Spending daylight hours with her and going to the beach, playground, park, hiking, swimming pools, or whatever she wants to do is much more fun and better quality time than seeing her for a half hour before she goes to bed. I need to make up these hours by working until bedtime and waking up early and starting all over again but I'll cherish these daytime adventures forever. Again, you will have to work extremely hard starting your own business, probably much harder than at a corporate job, but being able to create your own schedule for the things that are the most important to you is pretty awesome.
What are you waiting for? Get started.
To stay updated on business advice for new business owners opt-in below.The elites would have you believe it is the rapist who is the victim. This is his culture, his religion, his understanding of how infidel women are his for the raping.
“My trusting nature and heart has been broken,” the rape victim said a victim impact statement read out in the Central Criminal Court. An apt statement foe all freedom lovers in the whole of the West who are being betrayed by cultural and political elites.
“The Quran not only gave [Muslims] the right to rape — it condoned and encouraged it.”
Those whom their “right hands own” (Quran 4:3, 4:24, 33:50) are slaves, and inextricable from the concept of Islamic slavery as a whole is the concept of sex slavery, which is rooted in Islam’s devaluation of the lives of non-Muslims. The Quran stipulates that a man may take four wives as well as hold slave girls as sex slaves. These women are captured in wartime and are considered the spoils of war. Islam avoids the appearance of impropriety, declaring that the taking of these sex slaves does not constitute adultery if the women are already married, for their marriages are ended at the moment of their capture. A manual of Islamic law directs: “When a child or a woman is taken captive, they become slaves by the fact of capture, and the woman”s previous marriage is immediately annulled” (Reliance of the Traveller, o9.13).
“Prosperous are the believers who in their prayers are humble and from idle talk turn away and at almsgiving are active and guard their private parts save from their wives and what their right hands own then being not blameworthy.” (Quran 23:1-6)
This is all according to Islamic law (sharia).
Mother raped by a ‘Good Samaritan’ is now ‘broken person’
A woman who was raped by a man who purported to come to her aid after she got lost on a night out says she is now a “broken person”.
By Isabel Hayes, The Independent, July 29 2017:
The married mother described how she suffers panic attacks and depression since she was raped by Mohamed Okda while on a night out in Dublin in 2014.
“My trusting nature and heart has been broken,” she said in a victim impact statement read out in the Central Criminal Court.
“I am now a broken person … My belief that people are essentially good and my belief in people around me has been damaged.”
Okda (30, inset), an Egyptian national formerly of Coolfin, Rathdowney, Co Laois, was found guilty by a jury on two counts of raping the woman and one count of sexually assaulting her at a flat in Dublin city on a date in February, 2014.
The jury took just under three hours to return unanimous guilty verdicts following a seven-day trial at the Central Criminal Court earlier this month.
The matter will return to court on October 9.
Garda Mark Mahon told the prosecution that the woman travelled to Dublin to enjoy her first night out since the birth of her child. Around 4am she got separated from her friends after she went to an ATM to get money for a homeless person.
She didn’t know the exact address of where she was staying that night and couldn’t get through to her friends, the court heard. She was upset and crying when she was approached by Okda, who suggested she come back to his apartment where she could continue to try to contact her friends.
The court heard the woman was drunk and tired at that point. She fell asleep or blacked out on a sofa bed in the apartment and woke up to find Okda touching her.
The woman repeatedly said “No” and told Okda she had a husband and children, but he kept pushing her back down, telling her: “You stay. It’s OK.”
Gda Mahon said the woman was in fear for her life at this stage, and that although Okda did not make any verbal threats, she was very frightened.
The woman begged Okda not to kill her before he raped her. When it was over, he told her she could go. The woman ran outside and tried to flag down cars before a taxi stopped and took her to a Garda station.
In her victim impact statement, the woman said she was lucky to have a supportive husband and that they were working to repair their relationship.
“My husband has to deal with the trauma of what happened to his wife,” she said. She said she had lost friends in the wake of that night as she couldn’t bring herself to tell them what happened to her.
“I often feel like I can’t go on. For the sake of my husband and kids, I get up every day and do my best to get on with life.
“I didn’t walk away unharmed. I was once a happy person who loved to talk to people … Not a day goes by without feeling the weight of that night and what was done to me.”
Mr Justice Michael Moriarty told the woman she was an “admirable lady”. “You can hold your head high,” he told her.
The prosecution said Okda had 16 previous convictions in Ireland dating to 2006, none of which was for a sexual offence.
They mostly involve driving offences, public order offences and theft.
The defence requested the matter be adjourned until October, when a plea of mitigation and cross-examination of Gda Mahon will take place.The Black Bay, released for the first time in 2012, is one of the most popular dive watches of its kind. It was the winner of the Grand Prix d-Horlogerie de Genève in 2013. We would be lying if we said this wasn't one of our favorites, as seen by our review of the red version here. (With its black bezel with red triangle, the new 41 mm Black Bay Black is also similar in appearance to the unique Tudor Heritage Black Bay One, which will be auctioned at Only Watch 2015 on November 7th.)
Tudor enthusiasts will be excited about this model as it gets back to the roots of the Tudor brand. Vintage lovers will also find it appealing for its retro design and clean lines. Its overall design recalls Tudor's first diver – the reference 7922 (launched in 1954); its large winding crown nods to the "Big Crown" reference 7924 (launched in 1958); and its snowflake hands recall Tudor models from the late '60s to early '80s.
Additionally, watch collectors will love the price point – retail is $3,425 on a steel bracelet and $3,100 on a distressed leather strap. (The Black Bay Black will be available via Tudor retailers starting tomorrow, October 15th.)I know this has been around since April ’05, but just in case you missed it… check out the Honda Helix / Fusion body kit that let’s you kick-it Akira style. Click here to view some more pix.
Akira Scooter Mod : Gizmodo: “Brad Douglas has all the details after the jump. It looks like there is, in fact, a kit.
I just thought you’d like a little more info about that story. According to the ITMedia article, it’s based off of the Honda Fusion (http://www.honda.co.jp/motor-lineup/fusion/index.html). There’s two (well, three) types for sale. A new Fusion, pre-modded will run you around Y1,155,000 (US$9572.75) (that’s in “Fighting Red” color). One that is painted to look more like the real (?) thing is called Kaneda Red and that will run you Y1,470,000. If you already have a Fusion and you just want the body kit, the bolt-on kit will run you Y630,000 (US$5221.50).
This is all put together by Saitaniya, a custom parts maker out of Osaka. They’ve been working on this for over a year, trying to get a kit that would be easy to put together and also not cost an arm and a leg. They say that if you can change your own muffler, then you can assemble the kit.
The other thing is that they haven’t gotten any kind of OK from Kodansha, the publisher than owns the rights to AKIRA. According to a guy from the custom parts maker, “We haven’t spoken to anyone from Kodansha. If you look closely, you can tell, but this isn’t the “Kaneda Special”. It’s nothing more than a custom parts to make your Fusion look “Akira-esque” If we get the OK from Kodansha, we plan to get more detailed and that’s what we’re currently working towards.””
There are better / more substantial models out there though go here and you can also see a cool Akira inspired scooter that is…. sweeeeeet. Now THAT’S puttin’ yer best foot forward… ick… sorry.With the first batch of tickets about to go on sale, the bookies have unveiled the names most likely to appear
With the first batch of Glastonbury tickets going on sale this week, bookies have revealed their favourites to headline next year’s event, and so far it’s as varied as last year – if a little more vintage – with Fleetwood Mac, Muse and AC/DC the most tipped to top the Pyramid bill in 2015.
Although most ticket holders will have to take a punt on the lineup and purchase tickets without knowing the full extent of what’s in store at the festival, William Hill have laid short odds on a long-anticipated appearance by Fleetwood Mac, who are at 4/1 to headline on Sunday night, while Muse and AC/DC both have odds of 5/1 to perform. Other names included are the enigmatic Kate Bush, and the on-off love-hate saga of Oasis, both of whom get odds of 8/1. Noel Gallagher as a solo venture is also included, along with U2, the Stone Roses and Coldplay, while Robert Plant and the notoriously festival-shy Adele are outside bets with 25/1 odds.
Ladbrokes’ odds differ slightly. They have also named Fleetwood Mac as favourites; however, Paul McCartney, Prince and Morrissey are next in line, with Take That and One Direction outside bets to perform at 33/1.
Standard weekend tickets will go on sale at 9am on Sunday 5 October, while 15,000 coach tickets will be sold in advance of the general sale at 7pm on Wednesday 1 October.
The full ticket price is £220 plus a £5 booking fee, with a maximum of six tickets per transaction. As part of the festival’s efforts to beat touting, those wishing to buy tickets will need to register with the festival in advance. Registration closes at 23:59 on Tuesday 30 September and purchasers will only be able to book a ticket by paying a £50 deposit per person at glastonbury.seetickets.com.Jordan Davis, 25, left, wore a Trump for President flag as a cape and a shirt that depicted George Washington playing guitar and Abraham Lincoln playing the drums. (Benjamin Oreskes / Los Angeles Times)
At Martin Luther King Park in downtown Berkeley, the news media and Trump opponents vastly out numbered the handful of Trump supporters who had come out.
Jordan Davis, 25, wore a Trump for president flag like a cape over a T-shirt depicting George Washington playing guitar and Abraham Lincoln playing drums.
Davis lives in Berkeley and thought it was important to come out and show that the president has some support in these "liberal Marxist enclaves."
That said he was disappointed more people hadn't showed up, because today had been circled on his calender for months.
"I'm doing my part being out here. I support the president's America first message."
Singing we shall overcome pic.twitter.com/0b5EY3lrOD — Benjamin Oreskes🦅 (@boreskes) August 27, 2017
As Davis spoke, a half a dozen Trump opponents stood on top of the fountain in the middle of the park and sang, "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine."
Local authorities had released a long list of prohibited items and were searching bags before people entered the park. Several protesters were later escorted out of the park because they were either wearing goggles or other items that covered their faces.Daytona International Speedway will not ban the Confederate flag but will offer a flag exchange for fans attending this weekend’s NASCAR races there.
“I think the goal of any NASCAR event, and specifically Daytona, we want to be inclusive to everyone,” Joie Chitwood, president of Daytona International Speedway, said Tuesday. “The last thing you want is for anyone to come to a sporting event and really not enjoy that experience because of symbols that really represent things that we’re not proud of.
“For us, we’re celebrating the American Flag this weekend. It’s our nation’s birthday. We’re going to have a flag exchange opportunity. So fans who would like to fly the American Flag, we’ll trade with you on whatever flag you have. We want you to celebrate that flag this weekend.
“Going forward, (we) really have to look at where that other flag goes because it doesn’t have a place in our sport. We’ve got to take a thoughtful process on how we get to that point.”
Chitwood said the track would not ban fans from having the Confederate flag this weekend but would look to what could be done for future events there.
“At this point, with the late nature of where we are, we cannot ban anything, we cannot change our policy,” Chitwood said. “Needless to say, there is a lot of discussion of how we get there and what we can do in the future so we make sure that we celebrate all that is right in this country.”
The action comes in the wake of the June 17 slaying of nine African-Americans at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. Dylann Roof was arrested and charged with the murders. Images emerged of him posing with the Confederate flag and wearing symbols associated with white supremacy.
NASCAR Chairman Brian France told The Associated Press last weekend that NASCAR would “go as far as we can to eliminate the presence of that flag. I personally find it an offensive symbol, so there is no daylight how we feel about it and our sensitivity to others who feel the same way. We’re working with the industry to see how far we can go to get that flag disassociated entirely from our events.”
NASCAR previously issued a statement that it supported South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s call to remove the Confederate flag from the statehouse grounds in Columbia. NASCAR also noted in the statement its “long-standing policy to disallow the use of the Confederate flag symbol in any official NASCAR capacity.”
Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon both expressed last weekend their disapproval of the flag.
“I think it is offensive to an entire race,” Earnhardt said. “It really does nothing for anybody to be there, flying. It belongs in the history books and that’s about it.”
Follow @dustinlongGyges was a shepherd in the service of the king of Lydia; there was a great storm, and an earthquake made an opening in the earth at the place where he was feeding his flock. Amazed at the sight, he descended into the opening, where, among other marvels, he beheld a hollow brazen horse, having doors, at which he stooping and looking in saw a dead body of stature, as appeared to him, more than human, and having nothing on but a gold ring; this he took from the finger of the dead and reascended.
Now the shepherds met together, according to custom, that they might send their monthly report about the flocks to the king; into their assembly he came having the ring on his finger, and as he was sitting among them he chanced to turn the collect of the ring inside his hand, when instantly he became invisible to the rest of the company and they began to speak of him as if he were no longer present. He was astonished at this, and again touching the ring he turned the collet outwards and reappeared; he made several trials of the ring, and always with the same result-when he turned the collet inwards he became invisible, when outwards he reappeared.
Whereupon he contrived to be chosen one of the messengers who were sent to the court; where as soon as he arrived he seduced the queen, and with her help conspired against the king and slew him, and took the kingdom.
– The Ring of Gyges, Plato [1]
What would you do in the place of Gyges upon finding a ring that would turn you invisible? Would you use it for a greater good? Or for your own personal benefit? What can we expect from humans to do with power over others?
These are some of the questions about human nature arising from Plato’s thought experiment in the Republic, and they remains as valid today as they were 2,400 years ago. The ring of Gyges has been used as a paradigmatic example when discussing ethics and it can be the perfect starting point towards a discussion about the ethics of quantum computation.
Although it is still not clear what the full extent of the power of quantum computers might be, there are some very particular examples of quantum algorithms that can largely outperform their classical counterparts. One of them is Peter Shor’s factorization algorithm [2], which can factorize any number exponentially faster than any classical algorithm on a classical computer.
Factorizing a number entails the determination of all prime numbers which multiply together to result in the original number. For instance:
The possibility to factorize large numbers efficiently might seem as a handy mathematics trick your nerdy friend might want to pull out as a closing number for his one man show, but its implications are far more complex. One of the most widely used cryptography systems is the RSA public key crystosystem, which is used to encrypt your emails, your bank transactions and your credit cards numbers via the internet. The security of the messages encoded via this encryption method relies on the fact that factorizing a large number is an extremely difficult task to accomplish using your everyday computers. This means that given a sufficiently large quantum computer (i.e., with enough qubits), you could easily break the RSA public key crystosystem and decipher the contents of its message.
I’m hopping that by now you are starting to realize as I do that a quantum computer is just as powerful as the ring of Gyges, and that we should start discussing the ethical challenges that this new era of quantum information processing is producing.
It baffles me that so little is being said about the ethics of quantum computers, while the so-called “threat” of quantum computing has been so widely broadcasted [3-6]. Almost every major nation in the world acknowledges that we could be heading towards a major internet security crisis if a hacker gets its hands on a quantum computer. Most of those governments have joined Google, D-Wave, Microsoft, IBM, Toshiba, any many other private companies in the race towards a quantum computer but no one has raised the issue of ethics so far.
It is quite obvious that whoever wins the “race” and has the ability to harness the power of quantum computers will hold an incredible advantage over those who don’t have access to these new technologies. The issue of cryptography is only one of many that arise when considering that a scalable quantum computer might be developed in the nearby future. How do we handle the intellectual property of scientific discoveries? What could happen if a government acquires a quantum computer and has the ability to decipher private messages? What if a company manages to construct one? Who could they sell it to? Won’t their profits margins bias their decisions? Wont’ they use their ring of Gyges for their own personal benefit?
As a physicist working in the field of quantum information and quantum computation I believe that these are some questions that need to be addressed not only in the scientific community, but along with private companies and nation governments. I know that with so much at stake it is a sensitive subject, but fortunately quantum computers are still in their infancy and we still have time to raise the issue.
If you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside me.
[1] Plato, the Republic, Book II, 358d—361d.
[2] Peter W. Shor, Polynomial-Time Algorithms for Prime Factorization and Discrete Logarithms on a Quantum Computer
[3] NSA Says It “Must Act Now” Against the Quantum Computing Threat
[4] NSA memorandum
[5] Australia: Govt Prepares for Quantum Computing Threat to Encryption
[6] Prepare for Threat of Quantum Computing to Encrypted Data, Canadian Conference Told
[7] Here, There and Everywhere, Quantum technology is beginning to come into its own
All text copyright © Marco Vinicio Sebastian Cerezo de la Roca.
Why we should be talking about the ethics of quantum computation by Marco Vinicio Sebastian Cerezo de la Roca is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://entangledphysics.com/.
AdvertisementsNational Security Adviser Susan E. Rice said Friday that President Obama’s Washington critics often lack “perspective” and that the U.S. no longer faces threats akin to World War II.
“Too often, what’s missing here in Washington is a sense of perspective. Yes, there is a lot going on. Still, while the dangers we face may be more numerous and varied, they are not of the existential nature we confronted during World War II or during the Cold War,” Ms. Rice said at the Brookings Institution in Washington, The Hill reported.
The Obama administration released its new national security strategy Friday, which in part shifted the focus from destroying the Islamic State group to “a comprehensive effort to degrade and ultimately defeat” it.
Ms. Rice said the White House would pursue a “comprehensive approach” to its counterterrorism efforts, with a caveat that “there will be setbacks,” The Hill reported.
Ms. Rice will appear Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” to talk with host Chuck Todd about the president’s new foreign policy.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Image copyright AP Image caption The Thai king, seen here in a 2012 photo, is greatly revered in his country
Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej is improving following an operation at a Bangkok hospital to remove his gallbladder, said palace officials.
The 86-year-old king is revered as a near-deity in Thailand and news of his latest illness has sparked concern across the country.
He is often seen as a unifying force in Thailand which has seen political deadlock in recent years.
A stand-off between the government and royalists ended in May with a coup.
Since then, coup leader General Prayuth Chan-ocha has been appointed prime minister, a move which was endorsed by the king.
Mr Prayuth visited the Siriraj Hospital on Monday to sign a book of support for the monarch, said AFP news agency.
'Fever lowered'
A palace statement said surgeons removed the king's gallbladder on Sunday night after it was found to be swollen.
"The operation was satisfactory and His Majesty returned to his room at 20 minutes past midnight. This morning the heartbeat has lowered, blood pressure is normal and His Majesty's fever is lower," the statement said.
Many Thais are praying for the king's health and several showed up at the hospital wearing pink and yellow which are colours associated with the king, reported The Nation.
Image copyright EPA Image caption Many are praying for the king's recovery in Thailand
The king has been admitted to the Siriraj Hospital several times in recent years. He was treated there for stomach inflammation last month.
In 2009 he was admitted for a lung infection, and spent nearly four years living in a special suite in the hospital.Reliable sources report that the Canadian Labour Congress is set to consider a policy resolution that would dramatically alter its approach on copyright and intellectual property policy. The resolution will apparently be brought forward to the Congress Executive Council next Monday with the possibility of consideration by the full CLC Council immediately thereafter. It should be noted that the CLC has traditionally recognized the need for a balanced approach and that support for ratification of the WIPO Internet treaties comes primarily from U.S. pressure.
For example, consider the CLC's comments on IP policy within the context of the Security Prosperity Partnership with the United States and Mexico. Following the Montebello meeting in 2007, the CLC said the following:
In what appears to be a war against copyright infringement, Leaders have committed multiple law-enforcement agencies at different levels of government to collaborate on this apparently critical threat to North American competitiveness. The Action Strategy will depend upon the sharing of best practices from the private sector and “new innovative border enforcement techniques” to detect the trade in pirated and counterfeit goods within North America and arising from “third countries”.
Once again, we must ask why this issue has been raised as the focus of this highly militarized discourse and concerted effort on the part of industry and government security forces. The answer is that IPR protect business interests and the right of corporations to sell products. The increasing reliance on security forces, however, is not going to protect freedom of speech or nourish the creative spirit in North American communities by committing public support to cultural industries, schools for the creative arts, educational institutions. Nor have Leaders redoubled their efforts to ensure freedom of expression. Rather, as if they hadn’t already been granted more than enough protection from NAFTA, the largest corporations who own copyrights, trade marks, patents and claim protection for trade secrets will be able to count on the full support of state security forces to protect and extend their already extensive private property rights. As a society, Canada would benefit from an open debate on whether or not to strengthen IPR protections, especially when it comes to issues of social concern. For a society, it is not helpful for a debate over the production of knowledge wrapped in a discourse of criminality, piracy, theft and counterfeit as the NACC suggests. The issues of law-making and law enforcement should not be conflated in this way.
While some might quibble with some aspects of this statement, it is clear that the CLC recognizes the need for an open debate and the preservation of free expression. Yet the CLC proposed resolution reportedly states the following:
WHEREAS, counterfeiting and copyright piracy continue to harm Canadian workers. Counterfeiting and piracy – also known as intellectual property (IP) theft – cost the Canadian economy an estimated 22 billion dollars each year;
WHEREAS, IP theft also exacts an extensive human toll. IP theft robs Canadian workers of jobs and wages, as income that could have been used to expand the workforce or pay higher salaries is siphoned off to pad the coffers of international organized crime
syndicates;
WHEREAS, counterfeiting also poses a grave threat to the health and safety of Canadian workers;
WHEREAS, since counterfeiters and copyright pirates don't pay taxes, governments at all levels are deprived of tax revenues our workers rely on for vital services;
WHEREAS, the evidence that Canadian workers are harmed by IP theft is powerful;
WHEREAS, this critical issue requires a far-reaching response involving legislative and regulatory reform, policy change, and allocation of proper resources to combat the problems. The Canadian government must be given the structure and resources to mount a sustained attack on this pervasive problem, both within Canada and internationally. The criminal and civil laws in Canada must provide adequate deterrence. And consumers must be educated that counterfeiting and piracy are not victimless, nuisance crimes, but instead strike at the heart of our long term economic security;
WHEREAS, as unions representing thousands of these workers, we urge the Canadian Government and all Members of Parliament and the Senate to work together to pass comprehensive legislation and enact the policy changes that would bolster the ability to address this growing threat;
NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, accordingly, we urge the enactment of broad legislative measures that can really make a difference. Any such measures should include:
Amending the Copyright Act consistent with international standards to (i) conform with the World Intellectual Property Organization’s “Internet” Treaties and ratify the Treaties; (ii) enact a strong legal framework governing the responsibility and liability of online service providers that ensures they play a role in preventing copyright infringement, including providing rightsholders with an expeditious and effective means to stop the widespread dissemination of infringing material;
This is a remarkable about-face for the CLC, which would moves from an open discussion approach to quoting with support the counterfeiting claims that have no evidentiary basis, calling for the ratification of the WIPO Internet treaties that is strongly opposed by consumer and education groups, and moving toward the enforcement-based approach that they have long criticized. With only a few days left before this unbalanced resolution is considered, those concerned with the resolution should voice their views with the CLC.The Bank of England apologised last night after a crucial payments system collapsed, forcing Mark Carney to launch an urgent investigation following the delay of hundreds of thousands of payments, including for homebuyers waiting for money to be transferred to pay for their new homes.
The Bank of England governor promised a “thorough, independent review” after MPs demanded answers into how the system which processes payments worth an average £277bn a day had failed for nearly 10 hours.
An 88-year-old woman in Sheffield was among those caught up in the collapse of the behind-the-scenes payment mechanism, which failed to open at 6am and remained shut until 3.30pm – usually the cut-off point for money to be transferred for house sales.
The Bank of England did not admit the shutdown had taken place for more than five hours after the system had been due to open, and was later forced to extend opening hours by four hours to 8pm to clear the backlog of 143,000 payments.
More than 10 hours after first admitting to the problem with the clearing house automated payment system (Chaps) the Bank of England eventually apologised “for any problems caused by the delays to the settlement system”.
While Chaps was down, there were fears that homebuyers and sellers around the country would be left unable to complete purchases on time and that big businesses, which also use the system, would fail to make payments. Only weeks ago the Bank said it had a new contingency plan for the collapse of the payments system. The Bank of England will subject the system to additional monitoring when it reopens at 6am on Tuesday.
The systems for processing direct debits and internet transactions are not affected by the problem, which is thought to have been due to an attempt to add a new bank to Chaps over the weekend.
Estate agents were among the first to raise concerns, with the National Association of Estate Agents warning of the “cascading” effect of the delay on payments scheduled for later in the week, and a knock-on effect on van hire and transferring gas and electricity services.
Kaye Orwin of Andersons estate agents in Sheffield had been dealing with two families aiming to complete their moves. She said her day had started with a call from solicitors to say that “money had been put in the system from the purchase at the bottom of the chain but then it couldn’t come out”.
By 4pm, when the money had still not been transferred, the solicitors arranged a legal undertaking agreeing that payments would be made as soon as the system recovered. This allowed the buyers to get their keys.
The sellers who were next up the chain, the 88-year-old woman and her son, were already packed when things went wrong. “The removal van was sat on the driveway,” said Orwin. “We’ve opened the garage and they are putting things in there for now. The buyers at the bottom of the chain have to be out of their rental home today.” She said that in more than 20 years of selling homes she had never experienced this kind of problem.
“It is stressful enough moving house anyway without this kind of thing happening.”
Other sellers and buyers took matters into their own hands. In Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, Amanda Hart let her buyers borrow the keys even though the money had not arrived. Banks also took steps to alleviate any problems. Barclays said it usually processed transactions 24 hours early for homebuyers, while Royal Bank of Scotland said that payments for five customers it knew were facing difficulty were processed through a different system. Nationwide building society said it had staff working late.
It was not immediately clear how many homebuyers people were affected by the glitch but last October nearly 2,500 house purchases a day were completed on a Monday, according to analysis of Land Registry data by Neal Hudson at property firm Savills, making Monday the third most popular day of the week to move house. Transaction levels are up markedly on 2013, suggesting more deals will have been caught in the chaos.
Chaps is a key part of the financial system, processing 92% of transactions between banks in terms of value, and is used in large-value transactions. The average payment is £2.1m. It is rare for it to be out of action for almost a whole day. It was shut for six hours in 2007 and briefly last year.
Andrew Tyrie, who chairs the Treasury select committee of MPs, wrote to Carney to demand answers.
“A crucial part of the UK’s financial infrastructure failed for several hours today,” he said. “I will be writing to the Bank of England to find out why. The whole economy depends on a reliable payment system. We need to have confidence that the cause has been found and addressed.”
The Bank said its independent review would “cover the causes of the incident, the effectiveness of the Bank’s response and the lessons learned for future contingency plans” and pledged to publish the findings.
The Law Society was also concerned. Its vice-president, Jonathan Smithers, said: “We are talking to the relevant bodies to see if we can obtain some understanding of why the system has failed and assurances that this will not occur again.”
The Bank of England gave few clues other than to say at 11.15am that it had been hit by a technical issue “related to some routine maintenance of the RTGS (real-time gross settlement system)”. By 4.05pm it said the system was working and would extend hours to “maximise the opportunity for settlement”. It has a backup system but did not use it.
Chaps said all payments submitted had been processed.
Phil Kenworthy, managing director of Chaps, urged customers to contact their banks with queries and said he “would like to apologise for any delays any customers may have experienced with their payments”.
How Chaps works
The clearing house automated payment system known in City circles as Chaps describes itself as the “unsung hero” of the banking world, as it processes about 140,000 transactions a day, worth on average £277bn.
It means the system, part of the behind the scenes plumbing of the financial world, that moves larger size payments around the financial system, turns over the equivalent of Britain’s annual GDP every five working days.
Money is moved instantly between banks handling transactions for big companies, foreign exchange deals for big players in the financial markets and short-term loans between banks, companies paying their staff and. But most people will only come across the system when they need to move the significant sum required to buy a house.
While homebuyers were concerned when the system stopped working for almost 10 hours on Monday, the money it processes for them is just a fraction of the transactions it handles daily. The Bank of England manually processed transactions that were crucial to the smooth running of the financial system.
It is one of a number of processing systems used by the Bank to shift money seamlessly. The Link system used to process cash machine payouts; Bacs, the system to process direct debits; and the fast payment system used to process internet transactions were not affected. Neither was Crest, the system used to handle share trading.Buy Instagram Likes to become Instagram Celebrity
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Most people use the conventional method of gathering likes. The most popular way is to entertain the viewers. A funny picture will surely gather likes. A picture of a cute cat would surely gather the likes of many. If you’re someone famous, a picture of you would be enough to gather a lot of likes. These are some of the effective methods of gathering Instagram likes. However, it may not work for everyone since thousands of pictures are uploaded on Instagram. It’s easy for a picture to be unnoticed. To get noticed, most people buy Instagram likes for all pictures in their profile. This allows them to get a sudden boost of attention. It’s hard to be unnoticed if you’ve got a lot of likes.
The main point is to buy Instagram likes for all pictures that you have in order to get the attention of the whole Instagram community. This allows more views and more likes. This adds to the popularity that you possess. You can use your newfound fame however you want. Being famous is a good thing, it may have its cons but the number of benefits that you get overshadows it especially if you plan on doing social media marketing. Having a lot of viewers behind your back would really help you in your career. If you just want the extra attention than buying will still work great for you. That’s the main point of buying likes, you buy Instagram likes for all picture on your profile to grow famous and gain more attention. It’s also a good ego booster. Compared to most of your friend, the number of likes within your profile is way better. Thanks to the likes that you originally bought.
You can do whatever |
’s General Manager in 2010, he recruited Murray away from his position as head scout for Hockey Canada, where he had won a pair of IIHF World Junior Championship gold medals (2008, 2009) and one IIHF World Under-18 Championship gold medal (2008).
Al Murray has been at the helm of Tampa’s amateur scouting department since the 2011 NHL Draft. 42 of the 46 players drafted by Murray are still with the organization (three were traded away and one went unsigned). If you include the three undrafted free agent signings, Murray has brought in a total of 49 players and the Bolts have kept 46 of them. That 94% retention rate speaks to the idea that Yzerman trusts Murray’s selections to develop into valuable players. That trust combined with patience has put the team in a position to succeed both now and well into the future.
Let’s take a look at what Murray has accomplished, year by year.
2011 Draft Picks Rd No. Player Pos GP G A PTS League Team Rd No. Player Pos GP G A PTS League Team 1 27 Vladislav Namestnikov C 190 32 43 75 NHL Tampa Bay Lightning 2 58 Nikita Kucherov RW 272 99 119 218 NHL Tampa Bay Lightning 5 148 Nikita Nesterov D 128 9 21 30 NHL Montreal Canadiens 6 178 Adam Wilcox G AHL Springfield Thunderbirds 7 201 Matthew Peca C 10 1 1 2 AHL Syracuse Crunch 7 208 Ondrej Palat LW 293 71 130 201 NHL Tampa Bay Lightning N/A N/A Tyler Johnson C 306 89 121 210 NHL Tampa Bay Lightning
Honestly, we can just stop right here. This is a near-perfect draft.
Murray’s work in 2011 laid the foundation for the infamous Triplets line of Ondrej Palat - Tyler Johnson - Nikita Kucherov that dominated the NHL in the 2014-2015 season, and continues to produce. Those three players, along with Vladislav Namestnikov, are consistently in the Bolts lineup. For most of the past three seasons, they have constituted 1⁄ 3 of the Lightning’s forward corps.
Matthew Peca could make the NHL roster next year, and Adam Wilcox will likely develop into at least a solid NHL back-up goalie.
This draft is exactly what you want — picking up first-round talent in the second round (Kucherov), late round steals (Palat), and some undrafted talent just for good measure (Johnson). Peca is doing well for a seventh-round pick, and Wilcox was involved in a trade that Yzerman used to strengthen the farm team. Every draft pick netted a valuable asset.
2012 Draft Picks Rd No. Player Pos GP G A PTS League Team Rd No. Player Pos GP G A PTS League Team 1 10 Slater Koekkoek D 41 0 5 5 AHL Syracuse Crunch 1 19 Andrei Vasilevskiy G 78 NHL Tampa Bay Lightning 2 40 Dylan Blujus D AHL Syracuse Crunch 2 53 Brian Hart RW ECHL Kalamazoo Wings 3 71 Tanner Richard C 3 0 0 0 AHL Syracuse Crunch 4 101 Cedric Paquette C 180 22 19 41 NHL Tampa Bay Lightning 6 161 Jake Dotchin D 21 0 5 5 NHL Tampa Bay Lightning 7 202 Nikita Gusev LW KHL SKA Saint Petersburg N/A N/A JT Brown RW 251 17 39 56 NHL Tampa Bay Lightning
If 2011 was about maximizing forward talent, 2012 was about doing everything else. The Lightning selected three defensemen. Slater Koekkoek should arguably be playing in the NHL this year, Dylan Blujus has unfortunately been repeatedly sidelined with injury, but then there is the real surprise — sixth-round pick Jake Dotchin. Dotchin started the year in Syracuse but worked his way onto the NHL roster, and is currently on the Lightning's top pairing with Victor Hedman. His arrival allowed the Bolts to move defensive stalwart Anton Stralman to the second pairing, strengthening the top four in Tampa. That balance has been crucial to the Lightning's recent resurgence.
The real stand-out pick here is starting goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy. It is a perfect example of solid drafting complimenting savvy management. Yzerman conducted a three-way trade to land the 19th overall pick. He sent Steve Downie to Colorado for Kyle Quincey, and then promptly flipped Quincey to Detroit for a first-round pick. Murray and his team maximized the extra first round pick by selecting Vasilevskiy and securing the Bolts future in net.
Brian Hart hasn't panned out as expected. Tanner Richard is doing fine in the AHL. Cedric Paquette and JT Brown are regularly in the lineup. Nikita Gusev needs to come over from Russia (please?).
2013 Draft Picks Rd No. Player Pos GP G A PTS League Team Rd No. Player Pos GP G A PTS League Team 1 3 Jonathan Drouin RW 150 25 60 85 NHL Tampa Bay Lightning 2 33 Adam Erne LW 12 1 0 1 NHL Tampa Bay Lightning 5 124 Krister Gudlevskis G 3 AHL Syracuse Crunch 6 154 Henri Ikonen LW AHL Syracuse Crunch 7 184 Saku Salminen C Liiga SaiPa 7 186 Joel Vermin RW 17 0 4 4 AHL Syracuse Crunch N/A N/A Andrej Sustr D 260 7 45 52 NHL Tampa Bay Lightning
Yzerman was a busy man in 2013, making several trades, including dealing away many of the draft picks to strengthen the team.
Murray did well with the picks he was given. Drouin is a force of nature and continues to grow and develop well in the NHL.
Erne is also in the Bolts lineup this year and will likely remain there. Erne is the type of player that allows Yzerman the freedom to deal away pending unrestricted free agents (like Boyle) because he knows that young NHL-caliber players are ready to step into the spotlight.
Free-agent signing Andrej Sustr has been a fixture on the Bolts’ blue line for a few seasons.
The late round picks are okay, just okay. Gudlevskis is a solid starting goaltender for the AHL team. Vermin is a consistent contributor in Syracuse and was helpful during his call-ups this year. Ikonen is in and out of the AHL lineup, and Salminen is still playing in Finland.
2014 Draft Picks Rd No. Player Pos GP G A PTS League Team Rd No. Player Pos GP G A PTS League Team 1 19 Anthony DeAngelo D 28 4 7 11 NHL Arizona Coyotes 2 35 Dominik Masin D AHL Syracuse Crunch 2 57 Johnathan MacLeod D NCAA Boston University 3 79 Brayden Point C 54 11 15 26 NHL Tampa Bay Lightning 4 119 Ben Thomas D AHL Syracuse Crunch 6 170 Cristiano DiGiacinto LW CHL Windsor Spitfires 7 185 Cameron Darcy C ECHL Kalamazoo Wings
This is where it gets a little tricky. If you want to criticize a choice, look no further than DeAngelo. He had a troubling history at the junior hockey level, including multiple suspensions for using racial slurs. The Bolts took a risk on him, hoping that he would mature as well as become more defensively responsible. For whatever reason, it didn't work, and he was traded away last summer.
Cristiano DiGiacinto, drafted in the sixth round at 170 overall, is the only player since 2011 that the organization has lost rights to with nothing in return. It's possible that Saku Salminen joins him this summer.
All is forgiven because the Bolts used their third round pick to select Point. It's difficult to explain just how important Point has been this season. With four centers injured and two more traded away, he has moved up to the first line between Palat and Kucherov. He's handled the transition well and is making the case to remain in the top six, even when the injured players return.
We cannot yet assess the remaining players because it is still early in their development.
2015 and 2016 Draft Picks Year Rd No. Player Pos League Team World Juniors 2017 Year Rd No. Player Pos League Team World Juniors 2017 2015 2 33 Mitchell Stephens C OHL London Knights Team Canada 2015 2 44 Matthew Spencer D OHL Peterborough Petes 2015 3 64 Dennis Yan LW QMJHL Shawinigan Cataractes 2015 3 72 Anthony Cirelli C OHL Erie Otters Team Canada 2015 4 118 Jonne Tammela C OHL Peterborough Petes 2015 4 120 Mathieu Joseph RW QMJHL Saint John Sea Dogs Team Canada 2015 5 150 Ryan Zuhlsdorf D NCAA Univ of Minnesota 2015 6 153 Kris Oldham G NCAA Univ of Nebraska-Omaha 2015 6 180 Bokondji Imama LW QMJHL Saint John Sea Dogs 2016 1 27 Brett Howden C OHL Moosejaw Warriors 2016 2 37 Libor Hajek D WHL Saskatoon Blades 2016 2 44 Boris Katchouk LW OHL Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds 2016 2 58 Taylor Raddysh RW OHL Erie Otters Team Canada 2016 3 88 Connor Ingram G WHL Kamloops Blazers Team Canada 2016 4 118 Ross Colton C NCAA Univ of Vermont 2016 5 148 Christopher Paquette C OHL Peterborough Petes 2016 6 178 Oleg Sosunov D NMHL Loko-Yunior Yaroslavl 2016 7 206 Otto Somppi C OHL Halifax Mooseheads 2016 7 208 Ryan Lohin C NCAA UMass-Lowell
The most recent drafts feature players who have yet to play any professional games. It's way too early to tell if these players will pan out, but the fact that five of them were selected to play for Team Canada in the IIHF World Junior Championships is a good sign.
Al Murray has proven to be a brilliant Director of Amateur Scouting. Steve Yzerman was wise to hire him and has given him the tools to succeed.
Yzerplan Rating - The Draft: Success! It makes Steve Yzerman happy enough to laugh merrily on the phone.
Trust the Yzerplan.Getty Images
With Los Angeles closed (for now) to the Raiders and no other immediate options available for a team that currently has no lease to play anywhere, the Raiders will soon try to work out a deal to extend their stay in Oakland by at least another year.
Via Matt Artz and Rebecca Parr of the Bay Area News Group, a meeting is set for Monday.
“The Raiders and ourselves have agreed to sit down and have discussions about a lease extension,” Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority executive director Scott McKibben recently said.
McKibben will meet with Raiders president Marc Badain, and the negotiations will remain confidential.
“We will talk to the press once we have something to talk about,” McKibben said.
The Raiders will have a chance to move to L.A. with the Rams if the Chargers choose not to do so. The Chargers have until January 15, 2017 to make a decision.Warning: Graphic language
Updated: May 11, 2:46 p.m.
A Portland liquidation store has removed Confederate flag rugs and hopes to apologize to a woman who filmed employees of the store intimidating her after she asked about the rugs.
On Wednesday morning, according to Heather Franklin, 33, she dropped one of her children off at school and took another, as well as a child she was babysitting, to Everyday Deals Extreme on Southeast 146th Avenue. Franklin said she goes to the store, which is a discount liquidator that carries a variety of different products, as often as twice a week, and she was shocked when she noticed a Confederate flag rug on display.
Even more surprising was the reaction of several store employees when she asked them about the rugs. Franklin said Wednesday over the phone that she began filming the store's employees after they dismissed her concerns about the rug.
"Don't care about having hate flags on your wall?" Franklin says in the video.
"How's that a hate symbol?" asks one man in a blue shirt.
"Read your history," he adds as he walks away.
Rug display at Everyday Deals Extreme.
As Franklin was filming the store and walking out with what she said was on toddler on her back and one holding her hand, another man in a red shirt who later identified himself as an employee, flips her off and says, "Bye bitch. Get your kids out of here."
Then, the man in the blue shirt reappears, now filming Franklin. "Look at this liberal," he says.
"Yeah look at this liberal whiny bitch here," the man in the red shirt responds.
"Hillary supporter? Bernie supporter?" he asks. "Which one did you vote for that lost. Is that why you're in a bad mood?"
In a second video, the two men and Franklin yell at each other across the parking lot. Franklin said the men were approaching her in the parking lot.
"I felt like they were going to come and physically hurt me," Franklin said later.
In the video, Franklin becomes visibly distressed and the two men mock her for crying.
Confederate flag rug at Everyday Deals Extreme.
Andrew Toolson, the CEO of Everyday Deals, said over the phone Wednesday that he does not condone the behavior of his employees or the Confederate flag rugs.
Toolson said the inventory of Everyday Deals is in constant flux.
"We receive thousands of different products," Toolson said, including a load of a 150 rugs this week.
"On that load were a few of these rugs with symbol of Confederate flag," he said.
Toolson said the rugs had been taken down, adding, "We've contacted the rug supplier and said please don't send us those."
Toolson said that since the videos went up on Wednesday morning, he has received calls from across the country.
"I was sick to my stomach when I saw that video," he told us. He said that he considers his company to be "as far from a racist organization" as it can be.
"I've talked to those employees," he said. "They've handled it very poorly."
Toolson told KGW on Thursday that the employees involved in the incident are on indefinite leave. He said that he had reached out to Franklin and hopes to apologize.
"I just want everyone to know that's not who we are and what represent here at all," he said.
Franklin, however, remains concerned. She said the men in the parking lot were taking pictures of her license plate and that she has seen employees sharing her video and mocking her on social media.
When asked if she would ever shop there again, Franklin responded, "Never," adding, "It seems that store is full of terrible people."
A protest organized by Direction Action Alliance is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Thursday in front of the store.
"When a mother and her children are harassed and intimidated in our neighborhood, it will not just be business as usual," the Facebook event page reads.
As of 4:55 p.m. Wednesday, 23 plan on going while another 70 say they're interested.
-- Lizzy Acker
503-221-8052
lacker@oregonian.com, @lizzzyackerBy Brandon Fralic and Rachel Wood
Special to The Herald
A favorite ritual for many hikers, the post-trail beer is something residents of the Pacific Northwest might take for granted. We Washingtonians in particular are spoiled with some of the best trails and ales in the country. Here’s a pairing of two easy day hikes — just a short drive from a family-operated brewery — right here in Snohomish County.
Barclay Lake
Cool down this summer with an easy backpacking trip to Barclay Lake. Located north of Baring, just 4 miles off U.S. 2, Barclay Lake offers a taste of wilderness for minimal effort.
Perhaps this explains its popularity. Summer weekends are buzzing with beginner backpackers and casual day hikers. On a recent July weekend, we counted no less than four separate dad-and-kid camps, along with a Boy Scout troop, a dog or two and various other groups.
Yet despite its popularity and ease of access, Barclay Lake can be surprisingly peaceful. Campsites are large and spread out, so noisy neighbors aren’t a worry. The only sounds we heard overnight were Barclay’s resident frog population and the drizzle of rain upon our tent — typical tunes in a place that receives up to 200 inches of annual precipitation.
Hike here early in the morning, during weekdays, and when the skies are too cloudy for views from nearby Heybrook Lookout. Or come for sunset, when Baring Mountain — towering over the lake at 6,125 feet — is illuminated by alpenglow.
The trail itself follows Barclay Creek for 2.2 miles, rolling rather gently with just 500 feet of gain. You’ll pass big trees and stumps along this wide, well-maintained path, beneath forest cover all the while.
Getting there: Drive east on U.S. 2 past Baring. Near milepost 41, head left on 635th Place NE. Keep left on Forest Road 6034. The trailhead is at the road’s end in 4 miles. Northwest Forest Pass required.
Bridal Veil Falls and Lake Serene
Lake Serene and Bridal Veil Falls are classic Washington hiking destinations. It’s no wonder. Due to their convenient trailhead located just 0.3-mile off U.S. 2 — and the irresistible appeal of Instagram-ready cascades paired with picturesque Mount Index soaring high above Serene — the parking lot is guaranteed to be overflowing by 10 a.m. on summer Saturdays.
Hike in 1.7 miles along an old forest road to a signed junction. Bear right to climb the half-mile to Bridal Veil Falls, which drops 205 feet, draping the sheer dark cliffs in what looks like, well, a bridal veil. Returning to the junction, call it a day after the falls or continue up a series of steep switchbacks to Lake Serene for an 8.2-mile round trip hike with 2,000 feet of elevation gain.
This trail requires sturdy footwear, as it is riddled with roots and sharp rocks. Once you reach Serene, it’s photo-and-lunchtime. Mount Index stands proudly overhead, just shy of 6,000 feet high. Enjoy the views, then return to the trailhead for some Index-inspired brews.
Getting there: Drive east on U.S. 2 from Monroe. About 21 miles east of Monroe, turn right onto graveled Mount Index Road (FR 6020). Continue 0.3 miles on FR 6020. The trailhead parking is just ahead to the right, signed for Lake Serene. Northwest Forest Pass Required.
Mt. Index Brewery &Distillery
There’s a large white sign with simple block letters reading, “NOW WITH BEER ON TAP” in the window of Mt. Index Brewery and Distillery. Located just off U.S. 2, eight miles east of Gold Bar, you might easily miss the chalet-style taproom, but it makes for an ideal spot to grab a post-hike pint. The brewery is located around the corner on the backside of the building. Inside, Owner/Brewmaster Charles Tucker offers a rotating selection of ales.
The cozy, wood-paneled taproom invites you to pull up a chair, relax with your brew of choice and marvel at the dozens of craft beer six-pack holders lining the walls. Or head for the outdoor seating on a raised deck out back. On a clear day, views of Mount Index’s craggy peaks rise from behind the brewery. Friendly resident Black Cat may even join you for a welcomed scratch under the chin, stretching out on a picnic table to soak up the sun. The brewery doesn’t offer a food menu yet, but there is complimentary soup on Sundays, homemade by Tucker’s mother.
When we stopped in, the taplist included a Bavarian Wheat, Ginger Beer, and a Barrel Aged Blueberry Abbey Ale. The Ginger Beer is a taproom favorite, with a refreshing bite of citrusy spice sure to perk up even the weariest of hikers. Aged in bourbon and rum barrels, the Blueberry Abbey Ale was an indulgence, coming in at 14 percent ABV. Big whiskey, and warm nutty rum flavors complimented the wine-like aromas of blueberry and hibiscus.
Out front, the distillery tasting room offers visitors the chance to sample (and purchase) a few of Mt. Index’s award-winning spirits. The distillery took home first place for their Black Cat Coffee liqueur and second for their Wild Sky Pot Still gin in Sip Northwest’s Best of the Northwest 2015.
Getting there: Mt. Index Brewery &Distillery is located less than a mile from the Lake Serene Trailhead. Follow signs for Index, turning north on Index-Galena Road from U.S. 2, where the brewery will be immediately on your left.
Brandon Fralic / For The Herald Mount Baring Peaks through the mist above Barclay Lake.
Bridal Veils falls is a lovely and easy hike just off U.S. 2. For a longer hike, continue to Lake Serene. (Brandon Fralic / For The Herald)
Rachel Wood looks at Baring Mountain, which rises high above Barclay Lake. (Brandon Fralic / For The Herald)
The Mt. Index Brewery and Distillery is an excellent place to stop for a pint after a hike. (Brandon Fralic / For The Herald)
Black Cat at Mt. Index Brewery may come greet you while you’re enjoying a beer. (Brandon Fralic / For The Herald)You suck at driving. Well, I mean, not you specifically. You are great at driving. And me, I’m also great at driving. But everyone else? Everyone else sucks at driving. This is especially disconcerting for those of us who travel on two wheels, because while automotive safety has been steadily improving for vehicle occupants, it is still quite dangerous to be outside the car that drifts into oncoming traffic while the driver is liking his friend’s swipe-chat, or whatever it is you kids do these days. I mean, not you, but, you know, other people.
I’ve been dodging lunatic four wheelers for 15 years now and managed to not get hit by any of them up until a couple months ago when another driver decided my left leg should have 17 degrees of freedom.
I’m usually the guy telling everyone that motorcycles are not as dangerous as everyone says they are. Two weeks in the hospital make it tough to stand by that, but I still believe it. A huge number of motorcycle wrecks and injuries fall under a small number of causes. If you know what these causes are, and you prepare for them appropriately, your risk goes down significantly, and you can protect your femur from the scourge of shitty Ford Mustang drivers, and from yourself.
Okay, without further delay: the top four things that will kill you:
Being a new rider
Being a drunk rider
An oncoming car turning left in front of you
Your un-helmeted face bouncing off the oncoming car turning left in front of you
There are many other ways that motorcycles are dangerous, but these four things account for the majority of motorcycle injuries. Avoid these four things and you are way more likely to make it home safe. Two of these things are suuuuper easy to avoid. Can you guess what they are? If you guessed “Being a drunk rider” and the face thing, you win a prize.
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Drunk Riders
Guess how many motorcycle fatalities involved a rider who had been drinking?
A third.
Hey, guess what? Don’t ride drunk and your statistical chance of dying on a motorcycle just went way down. Easiest thing ever.
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Full Face Helmet
Second easiest thing ever? Full face helmet. Helmets are estimated to be about 40% effective in preventing fatal injuries for motorcycle riders. The data also shows them to significantly reduce not only head injuries, but also neck injuries, so for those of you that think the helmet will just cause whiplash, the data is not on your side. Also, just for fun, take a look at the windshield of this Mustang.
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Now take a look at my helmet.
Now back at the Mustang.
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Now look at my face.
Notice that my face doesn’t look like it got smashed up by a windshield at 40 MPH.
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I’m not going to be the All-The-Gear-All-The-Time guy here because this is an article focusing on the really statistically significant things, but I’ll just note that everywhere I wasn’t wearing protective gear has road rash. I only slid for a short distance and my legs and feet had road rash scattered all over. My torso, head, and hands literally don’t have a single scratch because of the helmet, gloves, and jacket. So make your own decision on your other gear, but the data says your helmet is mandatory.
New riders
Have you ever gotten in your car and driven somewhere while thinking about something, and you arrive at your destination without any recollection of the drive there? Me too. This is because you and I are wizards.
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Not really. It’s because your subconscious knows how to drive because you’ve been doing it for long enough that (as long as everything goes normally) it’s just a reaction. If you haven’t been driving for more than a few years, this doesn’t apply to you, and you are an indiscriminate death missile. Riding a motorcycle has a totally different set of subconscious programming that needs to happen. The cool thing is, you won’t even know what you’re reacting too sometimes. I notice this when my subconscious expects something to happen but then it doesn’t. Something like the driver in the lane next to me will make some slight movement, and before I know it I’m reaching up to grab the brakes because a few times before a different driver has made the same movement and then changed into my lane without looking or using a turn signal because his subconscious has been programed to be an asshole.
You know those big white rectangles at crosswalks? They’re really slippery when wet. I’m not sure why I know that, but my brain figured it out for me at some point and I slow down without even thinking about it. There are a million little dangers like this that you pick up over time, but you just have to ride and experience them to program them in there, and while you’re programing them, you need to be prepared for them with extra space, extra time, and extra traction, because your subconscious doesn’t know about them yet.
So, for the first year at least, you need to be super aware and be a lot more careful than you think you need to be.
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Oncoming cars making a left hand turn in front of you.
Okay, final thing. This seems really specific but is the cause of a huge number of motorcycle wrecks and often leads to serious injuries for the motorcyclist because it results in a head-on or near head-on collision. This exact thing has almost happen to me enough times that I always ride with my high beam on during the day, and I recommend you do the same. Just remember to turn it off at night.
Just as a quick bonus, two other things that are significant enough to mention. The first happens to me a lot: cars changing into your lane (or through your “lane” if you’re splitting lanes). Adjust your speed and spacing to be prepared for any of them to do it at any time. And the second not so common, but near to my heart given my current handicapped situation: When your light turns green, make sure the cross traffic is slowing down before you go, because sometimes they will ignore the red and accelerate directly into your foot.
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So that’s it. Four things, two super easy, two you just need to keep in mind while riding, that will significantly reduce your chances of being injured on a motorcycle:
Don’t drink and ride
Wear a full face helmet
Be very careful for your first few thousand miles
Watch out for oncoming cars turning left in front of you
Riding is still dangerous. Life is dangerous. But it’s worth it. Yes, I’m getting another bike when I can ride again; probably two. I love motorcycles, and I’ll be out again, a little bit more cautions, and hopefully a little bit safer, looking forward to the day when the roads are filled with self-driving cars.
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Also, if you drive a Mustang, you are a terrible driver. You suck at driving.
Seriously, this is not a joke, you are a menace to civil driving, and you should have your license revoked.
Matt Brown is a sometimes writer, occasional engineer, and guy who barely keeps up SuperfastMatt.comBAREILLY: Meritorious students belonging to the minority section of society who are looking forward to study abroad can now avail of an education loan under a central government scheme, ‘Padho Pardesh’ (study abroad), wherein interest subsidy will be given. Students belonging to economically weaker section of notified minority communities —Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis — can avail of the scheme.Another scheme, ‘Nai Udaan’, targeting minority students who have cleared their preliminary exams conducted by the Union Public Service Commission, Staff Selection Commission and others has also been introduced. Under the scheme, a sum of Rs 50,000 will be given to them.According to sources, the Centre had announced the ‘Padho Pardesh’ scheme for economically weaker section of notified minor communities. Under the scheme, interest payable by the eligible student during the period of moratorium will be borne by the central government. Those students who have secured admission in approved courses at Masters, M.Phil or Ph.D levels abroad are eligible under the scheme.An unemployed candidate whose parents’ total annual income (from all sources) does not exceed Rs 6 lakh would be covered under the ‘Padho Pradesh’ scheme.Some of the prominent courses covered under the ‘Padho Pardesh’ scheme include bio-technology/genetic engineering, engineering, nano technology, cryogenic engineering, Arts, humanities, social sciences, commerce, industrial environmental engineering, optometry and mechatronics.Talking to TOI, Jagmohan Singh, deputy director, minority welfare education, Bareilly, said, “Both schemes are aimed at promoting education level among minority sections of society. The objective of the scheme is to award interest subsidy to meritorious students belonging to economically weaker section of the notified minority communities so as to promote and provide better opportunities for higher education aboard and enhance their employability too.“Interest subsidy will be available to eligible students only once either for masters or Ph.D. levels. However interest subsidies will not be available to those students who discontinue the course mid stream. Moreover, if the student violates any conditions of the scheme, the subsidy will be discontinued forthwith. Only one child in the family can avail the benefits of the scheme.”Sanjeev Malhotra, general secretary, Bareilly Bankers Association, told TOI,“The schemes are really good and will definitely bring more meritorious students interested in studying abroad forward. So far, several people opt out of education loan due to moratorium period (the course period, plus one year or six months after getting a job, whichever is earlier) as prescribed under the education loan scheme of the Indian Banker’s Association (IBA). Under the ‘Padho Pradesh’ scheme, the Centre would bear the interest cost, bringing relief to both students and their parents.”Another scheme, ‘Nai Udaan’, aims at promoting education among minority sections of society. Under the scheme, financial aid will be provided to minority candidates clearing prelims conducted by the Union Public Service Commission ( UPSC ), Staff Service Commission ( SSC ) and other state public service commissions (SPSC) to adequately equip them to compete for appointment to civil services in both Union and state governments.Singh clarified, “A maximum 800 candidates will be given financial support under the scheme across India after they fulfill the eligibility criteria. The selection will be based on merit.”Under the scheme, financial assistance of maximum Rs 50,000 would be granted for gazetted post while Rs 25,000 for non gazetted post only as a support to minority candidates. However, the financial benefit would be given to only one candidate for one examination only. Cent per cent financial support would be provided to selected candidates through a nationalized bank under the Central Sector Scheme (CSS).A man was fatally shot Friday night in Fridley after he pulled away from a traffic stop on Interstate 694 and dragged an officer, police said Saturday.
The 13-year veteran of the Lino Lakes Police Department was working a drunken driving detail when he stopped a vehicle for speeding on westbound I-694 at University Avenue about 10:50 p.m. Friday.
According to the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the officer, Sgt. William Owens, attempted to arrest the driver, Sam Matthew Holmes, 31, of New Brighton, on outstanding warrants and suspicion of driving under the influence.
A struggle ensued, and Owens tried to subdue Holmes using his Taser. During the struggle, the BCA said, Holmes got back in his vehicle and took off, dragging Owens a short distance. At that point, the officer shot Holmes, the BCA said, and the vehicle careened off the road, ran through a fence and came to a stop in a nearby Cub Foods parking lot.
Owens was taken to Regions Hospital in St. Paul, where he was treated for injuries and released.
The BCA said the Midwest medical examiner’s office in Anoka will conduct the autopsy on the suspect, who had numerous traffic citations and misdemeanor convictions, according to court and traffic records.
In 2003, he was convicted of consuming alcohol and driving under age 21. In both 2009 and 2010, he was convicted of driving with a suspended license.
In 2012, he was convicted of driving while impaired. He was cited on seven different occasions for failure to appear on various charges.
Westbound I-694 lanes were closed Friday night while law enforcement investigated. The lanes reopened Saturday morning.
The State Patrol, the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office and the Fridley and Lino Lakes police departments joined the investigation. The BCA said it will turn its findings over to the Anoka County attorney’s office for review.Download Slide Deck ▸ Here
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Introduction to Blockchain
In his keynote at 18th Cloud Expo, Andrew Keys, Co-Founder of ConsenSys Enterprise, provided an overview of the evolution of the Internet and the Database and the future of their combination - the Blockchain.
Speaker Bio
Andrew Keys is Co-Founder of ConsenSys Enterprise. He comes to ConsenSys Enterprise with capital markets, technology and entrepreneurial experience. Previously, he worked for UBS investment bank in equities analysis. Later, he was responsible for the creation and distribution of life settlement products to hedge funds and investment banks. After, he co-founded a revenue cycle management company where he learned about Bitcoin and eventually Ethereum.
Andrew's role at ConsenSys Enterprise is a multi-faceted approach of strategy and enterprise business development.
Andrew graduated from Loyola University in Maryland and University of Auckland with degrees in economics and international finance.
DXWorldEXPO LLC, the producer of the world's most influential technology conferences and trade shows has announced the conference tracks for CloudEXPO | DXWorldEXPO 2018 New York.
DXWordEXPO New York 2018, colocated with CloudEXPO New York 2018 will be held November 11-13, 2018, in New York City.
Digital Transformation (DX) is a major focus with the introduction of DXWorldEXPO within the program. Successful transformation requires a laser focus on being data-driven and on using all the tools available that enable transformation if they plan to survive over the long term.
A total of 88% of Fortune 500 companies from a generation ago are now out of business. Only 12% still survive. Similar percentages are found throughout enterprises of all sizes.
Register for Full Conference "Gold Pass" ▸ Here (Expo Hall ▸ Here)
Sponsorship Opportunities ▸ Here
Speaking Opportunities ▸ Here
Sponsorship and Speaking Inquiries: [email protected].
2018 Conference Agenda, Keynotes and 10 Conference Tracks
DXWordEXPO New York 2018 and Cloud Expo New York 2018 agenda present 222 rockstar faculty members, 200 sessions and 22 keynotes and general sessions in 10 distinct conference tracks.
Cloud-Native | Serverless
DevOpsSummit
FinTechEXPO - New York Blockchain Event
CloudEXPO - Enterprise Cloud
DXWorldEXPO - Digital Transformation (DX)
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Hot Topics | FinTech | WebRTC
Register for Full Conference "Gold Pass" ▸ Here (Expo Hall ▸ Here)
DXWorldEXPO | CloudEXPO 2018 New York cover all of these tools, with the most comprehensive program and with 222 rockstar speakers throughout our industry presenting 22 Keynotes and General Sessions, 200 Breakout Sessions along 10 Tracks, as well as our signature Power Panels. Our Expo Floor brings together the world's leading companies throughout the world of Cloud Computing, DevOps, FinTech, Digital Transformation, and all they entail.
As your enterprise creates a vision and strategy that enables you to create your own unique, long-term success, learning about all the technologies involved is essential. Companies today not only form multi-cloud and hybrid cloud architectures, but create them with built-in cognitive capabilities.
Cloud-Native thinking is now the norm in financial services, manufacturing, telco, healthcare, transportation, energy, media, entertainment, retail and other consumer industries, as well as the public sector.
CloudEXPO is the world's most influential technology event where Cloud Computing was coined over a decade ago and where technology buyers and vendors meet to experience and discuss the big picture of Digital Transformation and all of the strategies, tactics, and tools they need to realize their goals.
FinTech Is Now Part of the DXWorldEXPO | CloudEXPO Program!
Financial enterprises in New York City, London, Singapore, and other world financial capitals are embracing a new generation of smart |
found HERE.
Shayda Diavol unlocked at the following funding goals...
Pin Up - £21,000
Skyclad - £22,000
Winter - £24,000
The Winter version will 'not' have the same pose as the artwork. She will be adjusted to remove the more 'Pin Up' elements of her stance, specifically her legs. She will also likely have a little more armour/covering and may look more stern than coquettish.
Larger Images for Shayda Diavol can be found HERE.
Stop laughing!
Alright, once you've stopped laughing, pay closer attention to the descriptions than usual :)
Matthias da Brum unlocked at the following funding goals (see Update for more details)...
Pin Up - £26,000
Skyclad - £28,000
Winter - £30,000
As you can tell, there's not actually any 'I spent a load of time on this' artwork for old Matthias here :) There is a good reason for that, you lot blew through the earlier stretch goals before Kev had a chance to do more work on the mini. We were hoping he could cover for me on this one. So you'll have to make do with the detailed descriptions below...
Pin Up - The concept of Matthias da Brum is that of a fantasy 'da Vinci'. It's based on a self portrait of Matt Dixon himself and the idea is that he is flamboyantly painting. The gnarled paintbrush he uses, with a simple snip off the brush end, instantly become a wand and instead he is now a medieval wizard flamboyantly spellcasting instead. This Pin-Up one will be wearing a stylish leather jacket, an 'incredibly' deep V shirt, showing as much torso as possible, and may even have a separate weapon to attach at the belt. He will definitely come with a separate palette for his left hand for those who assemble him as a painter.
- The concept of Matthias da Brum is that of a fantasy 'da Vinci'. It's based on a self portrait of Matt Dixon himself and the idea is that he is flamboyantly painting. The gnarled paintbrush he uses, with a simple snip off the brush end, instantly become a wand and instead he is now a medieval wizard flamboyantly spellcasting instead. This Pin-Up one will be wearing a stylish leather jacket, an 'incredibly' deep V shirt, showing as much torso as possible, and may even have a separate weapon to attach at the belt. He will definitely come with a separate palette for his left hand for those who assemble him as a painter. Skyclad - He's naked with paintbrush/wand. Works with either!
- He's naked with paintbrush/wand. Works with either! Winter - Same concept but in a long flowing coat, waistcoat, high collared shirt etc. Something a little more renaissance/WFRP/city wizard than the usual robes and pointy hat :D
- Same concept but in a long flowing coat, waistcoat, high collared shirt etc. Something a little more renaissance/WFRP/city wizard than the usual robes and pointy hat :D Signed Art Card - Would be of the self portrait artwork, by Matt of course, in the bottom left.
This is 'just' for Bambi, 'Thumper''may' appear later :D
Bambi has proven herself the true Queen of Beasts by bonding with a Hunter Demon who appeared one day in her lands.
Bambi, and just Bambi, unlocked at the following funding goals..
Pin Up - £32,000
Skyclad - £33,000
Winter - £35,000
Thumper 'is' being worked on by one of our guest sculptors :)
Is Katarina the sacrifice or the sacrificer?
Katarina unlocked at the following funding goals...
Pin Up - £37,000
Skyclad - £38,000
Winter £40,000 (Ok, the idea behind the winter sketch is that she is wearing a long figure hugging black dress with a v neckline, that's a vial around her neck, and a large fur coat of the 'bubble' variety, She doesn't have a tiny left arm, that's just my flu brain being unable to handle perspective properly and fudging it with a big pile of fur :) We hope to make her look in such a way that she can be used cross genre, Fantasy, Modern or Pulp/ Cthulhu Femme Fatale)
Katarina is the last of our originally planned characters and unlocks her 3rd variant on a wargames appropriate total :)
But do not worry! We 'planned for success' and have an emergency batch of characters and variants still to unlock 'and' there seems to still be a couple of missing Companions ;)
Interesting times, still to come!
Pronounced 'Kee-va', yes really.
Ok, this is the first of our 'prepared for success' emergency mini basket of characters. Each of them had some kind of 'not quite like the others' about them that pushed them out of the original set. As you can tell, this one was that, well, she's floating :)
Caoimhe unlocked at the following funding goals...
Pin Up - £42,000 (As the artwork, except we will probably extend the dress tendrils to meet the tab so she is floating, rather than her feet touching the tab)
(As the artwork, except we will probably extend the dress tendrils to meet the tab so she is floating, rather than her feet touching the tab) Skyclad - £43,000 (This one'may' have 2 versions to choose from for the resin lovers. She will 'likely' be made as is first, resin cast, then for the metal version she will be rising out fo the floor so will be a mist effect from the calves down to the tab)
(This one'may' have 2 versions to choose from for the resin lovers. She will 'likely' be made as is first, resin cast, then for the metal version she will be rising out fo the floor so will be a mist effect from the calves down to the tab) Winter - £45,000 (Her 'Banshee' form. Obviously it won't match the art exactly (It's hard to sculpt an overuse of the smudge tool ;) ) but hopefully you can see what we're going for. Layered skirt, wrapped clothing, all flying backwards as an effect of her scream. Kev may decide to add a split or a rise to the skirt as the legs will already be sculpted, shame to cover them up entirely (This version will 'definitely' not be £5 as the final RRP, so is already a bargain)).
The 'clear resin' versions are difficult. Clear resin is very tough on moulds, tearing them much sooner, especially with a miniature like this with tendrils and the like. We're offering them at a higher price and will run a special master mould for them, we'll make sure we get everyone from the Kickstarter one but we have no idea if they'll continue to be viable outside of the KS. Obviously the Clear Resin master cannot be included in the pledge level choices.
by guest sculptor, Fancagne Didier of Kaha Miniatures
So there was a little miscommunication between myself and Fancagne, which resulted in 'a' Leopard, just not 'the' Leopard being started :) So to turn lemons into lemonade we came to an agreement and now we will be offering 'two' Snow Leopards!
Just pretend the second one is just offscreen, so to speak :D
Tylmesta now has a sister, Taranau.
The Snow Leopards unlocked together at £48,000
Alright, let's chat about this one :D
First off, yes, it's very odd, we know. Secondly, this is something Kev and I chatted about and Kev fancied doing it as a sort of anatomy study, a female Wight. Luckily the art isn't clean bone, it has desiccated flesh/skin, so that'll be a little easier than having to point out the minute differences on a 30mm skeleton. She'll also be a nice palette cleanser from the regular, constant, female curves Kev will be sculpting for this, and help protect against burnout.
Then I had the even weirder idea of making the 'Winter' version, alive :) Think of it as a sort of Pirates of the Caribbean vibe. She's cursed so that by day she's her old self and by night she's a Wight.
As the art is a bit iffy, this is going to be one of those 'trust in Kev' ones. Kev's a fan of making some Undead and doesn't get much of a chance to.
Queen Ksenia unlocked at the following funding goals...
Pin Up - £49,000
Skyclad - £50,000
Winter (Living) - £52,000
Pin Up Shamanic Boudi, on the left, has already been unlocked!
One of our 2 guest sculptors, Tre Manor of Red Box Games, has agreed to work with us to create 'Frost' variants of some of the Kickstarter characters. It won't be all of them, some are already 'wintery' enough and thus the change isn't worth it.
More info can be found in the Updates HERE, HERE and HERE
Frost Shaman Boudi unlocked at £54,000
Pin Up Shayda, on the left, has already been unlocked!
One-handed partner axe to her original two-handed one and a shield, scale mail armour with fur and leather coverings accompanied by Tre's patented 'doodads' :)
Frost Shayda unlocked at £55,000
Pin Up Katarina, on the left, has already been unlocked!
Fur trimmed coat with attached cape over a long dress and holding a frost staff.
Frost Katarina unlocked at £56,000
Pin Up Aneira, on the left, has already been unlocked!
Leather, scalemail, fur covered cape.
Frost Aneira unlocked at £57,000
Padded gambeson under a Breastplate, full plate leg armour and a sword/shield combo.
Aenglish Glory unlocked at £59,000
Matt's Self Portrait on the left!
Furs, pouches, a dagger or two, more pouches, a bedroll and some pouches! :D
Ice Mage Matthias unlocked at £60,000
Ignore the dolly, it's just there for size comparison purposes :)
Thumper unlocked at £63,000
Pin-Up, Skyclad, Mythic & Winter - All with optional shields
Our final character unlock - Helen, Mythic Warrior through the Ages!
All variants will be sculpted by Kev, and are as follows...
PIn-Up - As Matt's original artwork but with a right forearm strap for the optional broken wooden shield. Pin-Up unlocked at £65,000
As Matt's original artwork but with a right forearm strap for the optional broken wooden shield. Skyclad - Naked, with broken spear and arm straps for the optional broken wooden shield. Skyclad Unlocked at £66,000
Naked, with broken spear and arm straps for the optional broken wooden shield. Mythic - Dressed as the greek warriors of old. Short sword and optional metal hoplite style shield. Mythic Unlocked at £68,000
Dressed as the greek warriors of old. Short sword and optional metal hoplite style shield. Winter - The baddest woman on the Northern Tundra! Metal hunting spear, Celtic shield and fur trimmed. Winter unlocked at £70,000
All variants will come with the shield separate.
Ok, here's the big one...
Read the description below if confused :)
This one is an extra bonus for those of you who backed us big during this Kickstarter period.We know we that we haven't got that many WIP's or finished minis and we appreciate your support and trust :)
So, for anyone who ends this Kickstarter tomorrow on a Dixon's Dozen pledge, they will be able to select 13 miniatures instead of 12. That applies to both Metal pledgers and those of you going for the Resin Masters.
And for those of you with multiple Dixon's Dozens pledges then yes, if you have 2 pledges then you get to pick 26 instead of 24 and so on.
If unlocked, this would mean that the Dixon's Dozen pledges (depending on the final RRP of your chosen minis) will be anywhere from a 25-40% discount! Throw in the current terrible exchange rate because of the crash of the pound and all of you from outside the UK will be getting our minis at the cheapest prices in a decade!
As our final big goal, this unlocked at £75,000! :D
Thanks for your support everyone!
Arty.
You may be wondering which material to purchase your miniatures in. You may even be wondering what a 'Resin Master' is and why are they different to resin figures. So, let the knowledge flow...
Resin Masters - These are the highest quality resin figures, cast by the maestros of resin at Grey Matter Figures, direct from the initial mould cast from Kev's green. They are the closest thing you can get to owning the green itself. They are not reproductions of another master casting. They are held to our highest standard and should contain zero air bubbles and the most minimal of mould lines, if any.
- These are the highest quality resin figures, cast by the maestros of resin at Grey Matter Figures, direct from the initial mould cast from Kev's green. They are the closest thing you can get to owning the green itself. They are not reproductions of another master casting. They are held to our highest standard and should contain zero air bubbles and the most minimal of mould lines, if any. White Metal - Our metal miniatures are moulded direct from special, metal infused, resin masters. We don't master in metal first and make a copy of a copy. This means that our regular production metal is the same quality as normal metal masters. They are moulded and cast by the experts at Griffin Moulds.
You can find excellent examples of both at our website HF Minis
An example of a signed card with a Resin Master
We will be producing a number of art cards (120mm x 80mm) for those who wish to purchase them, and Matt and/or Kev (Your choice) have agreed to sign them, for those of you who'd like to turn your minis into a more collectible item.
Obviously these will be more popular for the original Pin-Up artwork, with the full backgrounds, but should any of you want one of the Sketches then we are more than happy to oblige. If any of you are crazy enough to want a Skyclad card signed by me too then why the Hell not, Go Nuts!
Some Examples of Kev's work (A fantasy representation of his own family)
Kevin James White (He loves it when we use his full name), also known as 'Hasslefriesian' (NSFW link, will contain nude sculptures of both males and females), is one of the world's best miniature sculptors. Particularly known for his mastery of the female form and his decade long push to make female miniatures more realistic and believable. With over 20 years of experience under his belt he has won numerous industry awards and has done work for so many companies there is almost no way to list them all, but I'll give it a go...
Games Workshop / Forgeworld, Privateer Press, Warlord Games, Reaper Miniatures, CMON, Studio McVey, Wizards of the Coast, Dark Sword Miniatures, Mantic, John Blanche / Femme Militant, Cthulhu Wars, Kaha Miniatures, Crooked Dice, Otherworld, Heresy Miniatures, Ground Zero Games, Harlequin, Target, I-Kore, Brigade Games, Forge of Ice, FU-UK, Grey Matter Figures, Clarecraft, Heartbreaker, TFT, Custom Hobby *whew* And those are just the ones I remember without asking him.
For the last 13 yrs or so he has been the primary sculptor for his own range, Hasslefree Miniatures i.e. Us :D
Some examples of Matt's other Pin Up work
Matt Dixon is a freelance artist and illustrator from Birmingham (The UK one, not Alabama or any of the others around the world).
He is recognised as one of the world's most talented Pin Up artists and is probably best known in that genre for his own artbooks, Girls on Top 1 & 2.
He has also done extensive concept artwork in both the gaming and video gaming industries and has worked on such high profile game and movie franchises as Harry Potter, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon and Pirates of the Caribbean. His recent clients include Electronic Arts, Sony Online Entertainment, Hasbro, Future Publishing and Blizzard Entertainment. For those of you into CCG's, you've probably seen his art on MTG cards, Warcraft cards and numerous other games.
Although this is unrelated to the Kickstarter, we would be remiss if we didn't take the opportunity to mention it. Matt was recently diagnosed with Macular Dystrophy, an eye condition that means his central vision is going to get slowly but progressively worse. We feel privileged that he took the time he has to work with us in this way.
To allow Matt to spend more time on more personal art, he has set up a Patreon. We link it here purely for your information and no obligation is intended.
Some 'Merch' from our illustrious artist. If you're of the impatient type you can always just jump directly to Matt's site.
Signed by Matt, obviously :D
A bundle of Six A2 ( 420 x 594mm ) pin-up posters. Bazooka Betty, Gone Fishin', Love Is, Broom of Doom, Death Metal Darlin', and Blood Angel. All posters will be hand signed on the front by Matt.
Postage may increase if you purchase these as they need to be shipped in tubes for their protection.
Six different Halloween themed, shaped pin-up stickers in each pack. Printed full colour onto durable vinyl. Each sticker measures approximately 10cm along the longest edge.
'Dixon's Vixens' trading cards.
Limited edition trading cards from Cult Stuff.
Set 1 packs contain the full 18 card set ( numbers 1-18 ) plus either a signed card or an additional special autograph card.
Set 2 packs contain the full 18 card set ( numbers 19-36 ) including at least one signed card, plus a special card. Special cards include canvas printed cards and a very limited number of original sketch cards.
Double set bundle includes a pack from each set, giving you a complete set of trading cards plus the chance at some cool extras.
We have some amazing sculptors who have agreed to work on a few of our stretch goals with us. Kev will be making all of the human minis but there are also some 'companions' planned as Stretch Goals, and if we're lucky enough to unlock them then these guys will be putting their putty to work for us...
Some examples of Fancagne's work
Fancagne Didier, Kaha Miniatures - Fancagne is fast becoming known as the 'Beast Master' of our industry. Anyone browsing through his work will soon see why, with all manner of amazingly sculpted animals and anthropomorphs.
Some examples of Tre's work, 'The Nightwatch' painted by Roman Lappat of Massive Voodoo
Tre Manor, Red Box Games (UK / USA) - Tre is the 'King of the North'. A fantastic sculptor with a love of all things Northern, both historical and fantasy. Vikings, Barbarians & Beasts, if they belong in the cold, then Tre has made them :)
Important - Do NOT add shipping to your pledge. We will be contacting everyone for shipping when your pledge is ready to fulfill. The main reason for this is that exchange rates and costs may change between now and the fulfillment date, either positiveley or negatively.
(Thanks Obama!/Brexit!, delete according to political standing ;) )
Shipping 'estimates' are as follows...
UK - £4
- £4 EU - £5
- £5 Rest of World - £6
Very large orders may require tracking/insurance, this will be handled at fulfilment also.
As all orders will be fulfilled from the UK then we get to include this snazzy little logo...The TARDIS lands on a planet at war with itself! It's the past versus the future in our latest Fourth Doctor Adventure!
The spirit of Season 17 continues in a brand new adventure for the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker), Romana (Lalla Ward) and K9 (John Leeson); who find themselves on board a time-travelling war machine...
Whilst travelling in the vortex, the TARDIS is struck by an advanced war machine - a Time Tank! Losing Romana, the Doctor and K9 pursue the Tank to Aoris, a world quite literally at war with itself.
Soldiers from the future are attacking the past of their own planet - gathering resources and stealing endangered species. But the past is not without weapons of its own - leaving deadly devices ready to trigger many years ahead after their enemies have been born.
Trapped at opposite ends of a temporal war, the Time Lords have two time zones to save. But who is in the right, and who in the wrong? And when history itself is against you, can anybody actually win?
Written by Jonathan Morris and starring Tom Baker, Lalla Ward, John Leeson, Simon Rouse, Tom Chadbon, Paul Panting, Emma Campbell-Jones, Laura Rees, Bryan Pilkington, Jane Slavin and John Banks, Doctor Who – The Fourth Doctor Adventures: The Paradox Planet is available to buy and download today from the Big Finish website. And remember, when you choose to buy this release on CD directly from Big Finish, you will also unlock instant access to a digital copy for download.
The adventure continues in April with Doctor Who: Legacy of Death. Can the Doctor save the same planet twice in the same day?
You can subscribe to the entire series today to enjoy additional savings. Four previous series of Fourth Doctor Adventures are still available to order now, with special bundles also available. Check out the entire range on our Fourth Doctor Collected page.This is a new and exciting day. I have been sitting in the ”Mickey Mouse”-bar (because it looks like Mickey Mouse, although I have come to question that: it does not look like a Mickey Mouse head) at the European parliament talking to Marina Lähteenmaa and Björn Källström from Europaparlamentet i Sverige for a while about the Lisbon treaty and the ascension of the new MEPs into the European parliament. The questions are plentyful and the answers are none.
Basically:
When will full ascension happen?: The full ascension could happen at any time between 2010-2014. An amending protocol to the Lisbon treaty needs to be ratified by the Council and perhaps by the Parliament. This depends on whether or not the Parliament will ask for a ”convention” or not. They will ask for a convention if the Sarkoszy plan for Lisbon MEPs goes through. If it doesn’t, the entire process might be over in as short a time as a 15 minute coffee break. When will observer status happen? This again depends. Follow-up questions the haven’t been settled are: Will all the new MEPs become observers at the same time or will they become observers as they are nominated (I have for instance already been nominated by the Swedish department for elections)? If they are appointed, who will pay? Allegedly, a parliament protocol paragraph says that the parliament will pay, but some people still argue it’s on the responsibility of national parliaments. National parliaments are not keen on assuming the responsibility. Again, it’s an issue still to be settled. How will the new MEPs be nominated? For Sweden this was an easy question because we have a proportional election system: because the Pirate Party got a certain percentage of the votes, we get two MEPs under the Lisbon treaty. But in the UK they will have to settle which electorial circuit (term?) gets a MEP under the new treaty (they’re not currently all represented). In France, it’s even more complicated and slightly ugly. The president, beloved and utmost democratic minded president Sarkoszy has decided that the parliament will pick from their own ranks a socialist and a conservative to fill the places. The Greens are outraged, and so are the socialists, because this does not conform with the will of the voters. Furthermore, the European Parliament are outraged because if the French president decides who becomes an MEP they can hardly claim to be a publically elected institution. The president does not constitute the public.
The Spanish presidency will want to prioritize the issue of ascension since they gain four new MEPs under the treaty. Other nations will not be in such a hurry, because they don’t really gain anything. Germany ought to be happy, because they’ll have three MEPs too many for a full 4,5 years (starting now).
I will not be so happy, because I’m very short on money and have a lot of work to do.
So far I have worked with my future assistant Mab (also on Twitter!) on setting up a calendar with my appointments. I have written a blogpost (obviously), and answered a couple of e-mails.
This afternoon I’m hoping to get to know my provisorial office, work on competition policies in the telecoms sector (including the current situations in Spain, Germany, France and the UK: any help would be welcome), and have the time to read up on the Spanish bill on shutting down internet sites that facilitate copyright infringement.
I also have a date with pettter at 1400. We will be working on an appeal to the Consilium Register after having been turned down when requesting for documents late last year. Blagh. Secrecy.
AnnonserPaul “Pablito” Underhill is a partner and farmer at Terra Firma Farm in Winters, California. The 200-acre certified organic farm sits 70 miles outside San Francisco, has a vibrant CSA community (serving 1,200 people) and harvests 20 acres and 30 varieties of tomatoes a year.
On his blog, Underhill writes: “Heirloom tomatoes may be a tomato-lover’s dream, but they are very close to being a farmer’s nightmare. We have spent almost twenty years growing them, and yet each year is like spinning a giant roulette wheel. Each year there are certain varieties that perform well, while others fail almost completely to produce. The next year, the varieties might flip-flop on their performance. While we generally understand the correlation with certain weather patterns — some varieties like cooler weather, others like it hot — there is absolutely nothing we have figured out to do about it.”
Modern Farmer: So you guys are big into tomatoes.
Paul Underhill: Tomatoes are our biggest wholesale crop. It’s our main focus in the summer. Everything else is a rotation crop.
We harvest mostly by hand. Tomatoes are an extremely labor intensive crop to grow. Depending on the variety, there are two main kinds ”“ determinate tomatoes, which grow like a bush, and indeterminate, which are a vine and have to be trellised. Most of our varieties are indeterminate: To grow those you have to tie them up as they grow. Those tomatoes take a huge amount of labor.
And then the harvesting and sorting is also done by hand, and is also extremely labor intensive. On an average summer day we have 30 people harvesting tomatoes, and another 15 sorting them. It takes a lot of people.
MF: How many pounds of tomatoes do you harvest in a day?
PU: We have 20 acres of tomatoes, but we’re not harvesting 20 acres at same time. The most we’re ever harvesting is 8 or 10 acres at a time. Off of that, it’s really ”“ well, now, I’ve never really sat down and figured it out! ”“ but something like 20,000 pounds in a day at the peak of our season. Cherry tomatoes aren’t measured by the pound, though. And they take 10 times as long to pick.
And then there’s the flip side of growing tomatoes, the days when you’re having people do a lot of walking and not getting any tomatoes at all. The same exact size field can go from producing 20,000 pounds of tomatoes one week to 5,000 pounds the next.
MF: What makes the difference?
PU: With tomatoes, it’s mostly the weather ”“ the weather effects tomatoes when they’re ripening, and if you have hot weather when setting fruit, the harvest is reduced. If it’s hot when harvesting, that accelerates the harvest. Summer tends to be like that for all tomato growers in the area. It goes in spurts. For a week or two everyone is going crazy, then a week or two sitting around wondering what happened to all the tomatoes. Tomato buyers are freaking out, too, because the week before they got 200 boxes, this week only 50.
MF: What’s the ideal weather for tomatoes?
PU: A mild spring. Not a wet spring. A normal spring — not too hot, not too cold, a Goldilocks-y kind of spring. And then a summer that is hot but not scorching. You want the nights not to get too cool. If nighttime temps are in 50s, it’s like putting tomatoes in a cooler every night, which keeps them from ripening. If nighttime temps are in the 80s, though, they ripen so fast you can’t keep up with them. We’ve had years like that. You can go through a month of tomatoes in 2 weeks.
MF: So tomatoes move fast?
PU: Your average supermarket tomato is picked green and then ripened with ethylene gas. We’re in the niche market of vine-ripened tomatoes, so we don’t pick tomatoes when they’re green, but you can’t pick one that’s ready to eat, either. If you pick a tomato that’s ready to eat, a perfect tomato to have on my sandwich, at 6am on Monday (which is when we begin harvesting), then by Tuesday middle of day it’s no longer usable. You can’t stop a tomato from ripening. You can slow it down or speed it up, but even though some farmers lie and tell people they got up at 3am to pick that very tomato they sold, they had to have picked the tomatoes at least the day before.
Recipe Honey-roasted cherry tomatoes Serves 4 1 pound / 500g cherry tomatoes
2 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon clear honey
3 tablespoons olive oil
Flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper Preheat the oven to 375°F / 190°C. Lightly oil a roasting pan. Halve the tomatoes and place them, cut side up, in the dish. They should fit snugly with little or no space between them. Crush the garlic with a pinch of salt, then beat it with the honey, olive oil, and a good grinding of pepper. Spoon this sticky, garlicky mixture over the cherry tomatoes. Roast for about 30 minutes, until golden, juicy, and bubbling.
Reprinted with permission from River Cottage Veg by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, copyright (c) 2011. Published by TenSpeed Press, a division of Random House, Inc.
Photography (c) 2011 by Simon WheelerAn original translation by Nash Montana with much thanks!
Internal report tells of feces in pool and attempts to storm the women’s locker rooms
Outrageous accusations coming from the Zwickau Townhall: According to Bäder GmbH, (Baths Inc.) refugees are masturbating and defecating into the water. And they also harass women in the Sauna and have tried to storm the women’s changing rooms.
All this and more is written in a report from January 19th. Rainer Kallwait, ordinance department leader for Bäder GmbH, wrote the report for the safety related services of Bäder GmbH. The city administration has confirmed the authenticity of the report.
Kallweit writes of a memo from Johannisbad Swimming Pool. In it it says, among other things: One asylum seeker masturbated in the whirlpool and ejaculated into the water. It is recorded on surveillance camera.” And, “The swimming pool supervisor threw him out. The asylum seeker came back with comrades to get his cell phone. Together the “visitors”, hooting and jeering, took a selfie in the whirlpool.”
The day before “8 foreign men… were in the Sauma”. “The local people felt harassed. When women are in the Sauna, asylum seekers are now told that the Sauna is closed.”
In general refugees only have free access to the swimming pool. They would have to pay for the use of the Sauna. But they won’t do that, according to Bäder GmbH: “When they were prompted to pay up at the register, they turned around, laughed and left.”
Similar can be read in a memo of „Glück-Auf-Schwimmhalle“, Halle, in Kallwait’s report. A group of “youths, single men and children with guardians” visited said pool in Halle on January 9th. Since none of them could swim, “they used the kids pool.”
”The users contaminated the pool by way of emptying their intestines. Local guests immediately left the pool.”
The report continues: “Furthermore the pool supervisors have to protect women and girls from the asylum seekers. Young men try to forcibly gain access into women’s and girls’ changing rooms. Those acts so far could be deterred.”
Ordinance leader Kallweit wrote, that the Glück-Auf-Schwimmhalle will not let any asylum seekers inside in the future.
First, “they have to be told about user regulations and what is appropriate behavior towards women and girls in swim suits.”A new ruling would allow the killing of wild horses for their meat the first time since 2007
Getty Images
A federal judge opened the door Friday for horse slaughterhouses to resume operations as soon as next week, throwing out a lawsuit from animal protection groups.
U.S. District Judge Christina Armijo in Albuquerque rejected the lawsuit from the Humane Society and other groups that alleged the Department of Agriculture did not conduct the right environmental studies when it issued permits to two companies that slaughter horses for human consumption for the first time since 2007.
Congress restored funding for inspections at horse slaughterhouses in 2011—effectively approving the practice after five years—but the USDA did not approve the first permits until this summer, when the animal activist groups won a temporary restraining order.
The Humane Society, along with the state of New Mexico, filed an appeal Friday to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. Wayne Pacelle, president of the organization, said in a statement, “With today’s court ruling and the very real prospect of plants resuming barbaric killing of horses for their meat in the states, we expect the American public to recognize the urgency of the situation and to demand that Congress take action.”
MORE: The American Horse Slaughter Lobby Fights to Hold Ground
[AP](CNN) The economy's in the tank, the currency's crumbling, and he's risking diplomatic isolation for doubling down on Ukraine.
So how is it that Russian President Vladimir Putin's popularity is at a whopping 86%?
That's the conclusion of a poll conducted this month by the Levada Center. Last month, Putin's approval rating was at 85%.
The Levada-Center describes itself as an independent, non-governmental polling and sociological research organization.
And it has found that Putin's approval ratings have been holding steady in the mid-80s since around May last year, which incidentally is when the Ukraine/Crimea conflict bubbled up.
What gives?
The answer is simple, says Ben Judah, author of "Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell In and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin."
The numbers lie
"An opinion poll can only be conducted in a democracy with a free press," he explained. "In a country with no free press, where people are arrested for expressing their opinions, where the truth is hidden from them, where the media even online is almost all controlled by the government -- when a pollster phones people up and asks, 'Hello, do you approve of Vladimir Putin,' the answer is overwhelmingly yes.
"So what that opinion poll is, is not a poll of approval but it's a poll of fear."
There's another factor at play.
Putin has remained defiant in the face of Western sanctions and political pressure to stand down in Ukraine. And that defiance is earning him political points at home despite the impact on the Russian economy.
The numbers don't
Henry Hale, an international affairs professor at The George Washington University specializing in Russian politics, said on the whole, the polls reflect the reality on the ground of popular support for Putin.
"I don't think Russians are really hiding their feelings," Hale told CNN in December, adding that the polls indicate support for Putin, but not necessarily the depth of that support.
Media propaganda plays a key role in bolstering Putin's popularity, Hale said, especially in the portrayal of Ukraine's popular revolt as a fascist takeover and in portraying the annexation of Crimea as, essentially, a rescue mission.
The numbers may change
Nationalism's OK, but families have mouths to feed.
And if Russia's economic problems get worse, that could bode ill for Putin.Wood instead of petroleum: New approach to producing chemical substances solely from renewable resources
Scientists create a new international research consortium to develop a sustainable chemical infrastructure
26.10.2015
Petroleum might well be replaced by wood soon when it comes to manufacturing chemical substances. Research has now made significant progress towards using sustainable biomass, like wood, as an alternative raw material for chemical production. Scientists at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, USA, recently managed to synthesize two complex chemical substances from wood-based starting materials. The process can be as cost-effective as the conventional petroleum product-based process and is less damaging to the environment. "Our aim is to manufacture everyday products from renewable resources without an impact on the environment while at the same time ensuring that the process is economically competitive," explained Professor Till Opatz of Mainz University. The results of their research have been published in the prominent journal Angewandte Chemie.
The German research team led by Professor Till Opatz at JGU's Institute of Organic Chemistry participates in the interdisciplinary research consortium Chemical BioMedicine (ChemBioMed) funded by the Carl Zeiss Foundation and works on the synthesis of substances that can inhibit tumor cell growth. The US research group under Professor Anthony J. Arduengo III is particularly interested in developing industrially applicable methods for using materials derived from |
about “suspicious women” shouldn’t be headline news, and the Daily Express’ totally false ‘gunman outside Royal Oldham hospital’ report was irresponsible in the extreme.
In the wake of an attack, people need to feel safe going to hospital, not afraid. Professional contrary bigots like Tommy Robinson and Katie Hopkins (who dared to use the phrase “we need a final solution”) have even been trending online.
Alongside this the Daily Mail’s has published graphic images of victims, The Sun has capitalised on the bombing to bring up Jeremy Corbyn’s supposed relationship with the IRA, and a freelance journalist made jokes about the tragedy just an hour after it happened.
.@David_Leavitt thinks it's acceptable to make jokes about the terrible attack at Manchester Arena. Disgusting pic.twitter.com/KWcXE1rhjf — Edward Hardy (@EdwardTHardy) May 23, 2017
In the coming days, as names and ages of victims and survivors become well known, I am dreading the seemingly inevitable reports of grieving families being essentially stalked by journalists trying to speak to them. The media needs to do better, and more than that, this callous disregard for peoples’ wellbeing needs to stop.
As a journalist, there’s a certain level of invasive behaviour I’ve needed to reconcile myself with doing in order to pay the bills. Asking people personal things, requesting to take photos of their faces or homes, and even researching (and subsequently finding out) things I wouldn’t necessarily know otherwise about their lives.
While I’d like to think I don’t cross the line, there are times when I’ve wondered if what I’m asking or writing about is morally justifiable. The answer, before I publish anything, needs to be ‘yes’, but with online news and features comes the ever increasing need to capture an audience’s attention. Too often this ends up seeing editors desperate to shock.
We need to ask ourselves: is this something the public really needs to know, in this much detail? Once the facts of the Manchester attack are established, who are the thousands of personal accounts really for?
We know that those who commit acts of terror, from gunmen to organised groups, feed off the incessant media cycle that now is part and parcel of any attack. We know that survivors can report feeling deeply traumatised after the coverage is over, as they attempt to go back to their normal lives. We even know that watching hours and hours of graphic coverage isn’t good for our mental health as a society, and leaves us feeling far more vulnerable and afraid than we should be considering how rare terrorist attacks still are. So why do we continue?
The news is an important medium, and the media has a responsibility to tell share it to the best of their ability. But the media also has a responsibility to the people – both its audience and the human beings who make up any story.
Newsrooms need to not just discourage bad, invasive reporting but ban it entirely, and stop sending their employees to help traumatise victims. The media culture we’ve fostered is a toxic one, and its no wonder people the world over find themselves with a deep-seeded hatred of what we do.
In these trying times, good media is needed more than ever – not sensationalist cruel hate that is anything but in the public interest. What we’ve witnessed from our press has been a disgrace.
Bridget Minamore is a journalist based in London, follow her on Twitter.
Enjoyed this article? Like Huck on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.UFC mixed martial arts event in 2016
UFC 207: Nunes vs. Rousey was a mixed martial arts event produced by the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) held on December 30, 2016, at the T-Mobile Arena in Paradise, Nevada, part of the Las Vegas metropolitan area.[3]
Background [ edit ]
The event was headlined by a UFC Women's Bantamweight Championship bout between current champion Amanda Nunes and former champion Ronda Rousey.[4]
A UFC Bantamweight Championship bout between then champion Dominick Cruz and Cody Garbrandt co-headlined the event.[5]
A potential heavyweight title eliminator bout between former UFC Heavyweight Champions Fabrício Werdum and Cain Velasquez was expected to take place on the card.[6] The pairing met previously in June 2015 at UFC 188, with then interim champion Werdum unifying the title with Velasquez's undisputed title, as he won the fight via submission in the third round.[7] However the Nevada State Athletic Commission, after analyzing physical examinations and interviews, deemed Velasquez unfit to compete due to prior injuries, and pulled him from the event on December 24. The bout was eventually scrapped, and Werdum was removed from the card as well.[8]
Another potential title eliminator included a bantamweight bout between former champion T.J. Dillashaw and John Lineker.[9]
Matt Brown was expected to face former Strikeforce Welterweight Champion Tarec Saffiedine at the event.[10] However, Brown was pulled from the fight on November 11 in favor of a matchup with former UFC Lightweight Championship challenger Donald Cerrone three weeks earlier at UFC 206.[11] Saffiedine instead faced Dong Hyun Kim.[12]
Maryna Moroz was very briefly linked to a fight with Jéssica Andrade at the event.[13] On December 7 Moroz was replaced by Invicta FC Strawweight Champion Angela Hill.[14] Hill was then ruled out of fighting at UFC 207 because of a rule in the UFC's anti-doping policy with USADA, but not because she had failed a drug test. The pair eventually fought at UFC Fight Night 104, with Andrade winning by unanimous decision. [15] Subsequently, Andrade was removed from the card and was rescheduled for that event.[16]
Sabah Homasi was linked to a fight with Brandon Thatch at the event.[17] However, Homasi pulled out due to injury and was replaced by promotional newcomer Niko Price.[18]
This was the last event in which longtime play-by-play commentator Mike Goldberg participated. He made his debut in 1997 at UFC Japan: Ultimate Japan.[19]
At the weigh-ins, former UFC Welterweight Champion Johny Hendricks and Ray Borg missed weight for their bouts, weighing in at 173.5 lbs and 129.5 lbs, respectively. As a result, they were fined 20% and 30% of their respective fight purses, which went to their respective opponents Neil Magny and Louis Smolka. Later, Hendricks would move up in weight to the 185 pound division, as a result of consistent weight misses.[20]
Results [ edit ]
[22]
Bonus awards [ edit ]
The following fighters were awarded $50,000 bonuses:[23]
Fight of the Night: Cody Garbrandt vs. Dominick Cruz
Performance of the Night: Amanda Nunes and Alex Garcia
Reported payout [ edit ]
The following is the reported payout to the fighters as reported to the Nevada State Athletic Commission. It does not include sponsor money and also does not include the UFC's traditional "fight night" bonuses. The total disclosed payout for the event was $4,683,000.[24]
Amanda Nunes: $200,000 (includes $100,000 win bonus) def. Ronda Rousey: $3,000,000
$200,000 (includes $100,000 win bonus) def. Ronda Rousey: $3,000,000 Cody Garbrandt: $200,000 (no win bonus) def. Dominick Cruz: $350,000
$200,000 (no win bonus) def. Dominick Cruz: $350,000 T.J. Dillashaw: $200,000 (includes $100,000 win bonus) def. John Lineker: $43,000
$200,000 (includes $100,000 win bonus) def. John Lineker: $43,000 Dong Hyun Kim: $134,000 (includes $67,000 win bonus) def. Tarec Saffiedine: $40,000
$134,000 (includes $67,000 win bonus) def. Tarec Saffiedine: $40,000 Ray Borg: $30,600 (includes $18,000 win bonus) def. Louis Smolka: $37,400 ¹
$30,600 (includes $18,000 win bonus) def. Louis Smolka: $37,400 ¹ Neil Magny: $114,000 (includes $47,000 win bonus) def. Johny Hendricks: $80,000 ²
$114,000 (includes $47,000 win bonus) def. Johny Hendricks: $80,000 ² Antônio Carlos Júnior: $42,000 (includes $21,000 win bonus) def. Marvin Vettori: $12,000
$42,000 (includes $21,000 win bonus) def. Marvin Vettori: $12,000 Alex Garcia: $36,000 (includes $18,000 win bonus) def. Mike Pyle: $55,000
$36,000 (includes $18,000 win bonus) def. Mike Pyle: $55,000 Niko Price: $24,000 (includes $12,000 win bonus) def. Brandon Thatch: $22,000
$24,000 (includes $12,000 win bonus) def. Brandon Thatch: $22,000 Alex Oliveira: $28,000 vs. Tim Means: $35,000 ³
¹ Ray Borg was fined 30 percent of his purse ($5,400) for failing to make the required weight for his fight with Louis Smolka. That money was issued to Smolka, an NSAC official confirmed.
² Johny Hendricks was fined 20 percent of his purse ($20,000) for failing to make the required weight for his fight with Neil Magny. That money was issued to Magny, an NSAC official confirmed.
³ Both fighters earned show money; no win bonus since fight ended in a no-contest.
Records set [ edit ]
The final attendance was 18,533, a record for Nevada, which had hosted 107 prior UFC events.[1] Rousey's fight purse equaled the highest in history, which was Conor McGregor's record from UFC 202. Despite that, McGregor's UFC 205 purse is widely known as the highest one (no value is officially disclosed), even though the NYSAC does not release fight purses from events held in their jurisdiction.[24]
See also [ edit ]Winter is coming. And so is Galactic Civilizations III v2.7. This version has been in the works for a long time as a general, all around, polish pass on everything in the game.
New Data Manager
This is a boring feature that most people won't care about, but for those of you who have a lot of custom civilizations, you will find game load times to be much faster. This is because the data management used to be handled by an external process that was single threaded. This caused some headaches because some anti-virus programs would flag this behavior. The new data manager integrated with the game and multi-core.
Procedural Planet AI first past
This is a feature we've been working on for a long time that is finally starting to get integrated into the public version. Essentially, the AI looks at the state of the galaxy, its empire, its planet, and uses this data to prioritize what should be built on its planets. The AI still uses the governors.xml as a guide but is no longer at its total mercy.
Bug fixes
As we've added bigger map sizes, more modding support, and more steam workshop support, we've also uncovered bugs that these features expose. Thus, the vast majority of the work on 2.7 has been put into fixing things that would come to bite players way late in the game. This also has a significant benefit for multiplayer fans who will find the game a lot more robust in late game MP.
Fan Service
Features like being able to toggle between turn number and date, making planetary improvements more destructible, more AI focus on farm production, and balance updates have been added based on player feedback, plus lots of other little touches.
Future DLC
Since the game's release over two years ago, we've released 9 DLC and 2 expansion packs for the game. The DLC does do pretty well, but they cause us a lot of PR grief.
Expansions are made by the engineering team and take about a year to do each. DLC is made by the artists so that they have sufficient work to do during this time.
Some of the DLC has to do with providing more story based campaigns to fill out the game universe. In order:
Rise of the Terran Alliance (basically the GalCiv I story) Altarian Prophecy (remainder of GalCiv I story) Revenge of the Snaithi (pre-GalCiv II story)
We had planned:
Dread Lords (GalCiv II story)
Dark Avatar (rest of GalCiv II story, would bring back the Korath)
But like I said, we take a lot of grief online because people just see a bunch of DLC and think the game is just incomplete or something.
So for now, we've made staffing changes and we are currently in full development towards the next major expansion. We're pretty excited about this as it lets us do some really interesting things.
The next expansion
We will be announcing the next expansion in January. It will focus overwhelmingly on politics and governance. It will also have some goodies for those who have Mercenaries and Crusade.
The Crusade & The Apocalypse
Most people play Galactic Civilizations because it provides a deep and engrossing sandbox experience. When I wrote the first Galactic Civilizations game 25 years ago from my dorm room, I thought it important that the game not have random, generic species to go up against. I was a big fan of Sid Meier's Civilization and my love of history allowed me to instantly connect to the Mongols (those bastards), Gandhi, etc. Thus were born the 5 core races that make up Galactic Civilizations: The Drengin, the Arceans, the Altarians, the Torians, and the Yor.
I wasn't able to do much work on GalCiv III itself but I did provide the outline for the first half of the story I wanted it to tell. When I took over the GalCiv III project, I called my version "Crusade" (hence GalCiv III: Crusade). The second part of the story, which hasn't been told yet, is called the Apocalypse.
If you've kept up with the GalCiv story all these years, you know that the Terran Alliance is a contradiction at times. The Drengin have routinely commented that the humans are hypocrites because they hold out the velvet glove of diplomacy but underneath it is an iron fist. For GalCiv I and GalCiv II, the humans tried really, really hard to rise above their more brutal tendencies. And what was their reward? Betrayal, and near-total destruction at the end of GalCiv II.
Thus, GalCiv III begins with our main character returning from a pocket universe brimming with Precursor weapons. The humans are outraged and have the means to exact total vengeance. Thus between now and when GalCiv III is "completed" - in the sense that it won't have a dedicated dev team on it anymore - some day in the future, the second half of that story must be told.
Next up
Galactic Civilizations III has reached around 600,000 units sold on Steam alone (not counting other channels like GOG and overseas). Because of the nature of digital distribution (versus the old retail model), it sill almost certainly become the most successful version of the game yet. It was also the first game made on Stardock's new game engine (Cider), which is a native 64-bit, multi-core engine. If one looks at where the game was at 1.0 and where it is today (2.61) it's a pretty dramatic progression thanks to the team getting better and better at using the new engine. We are incredibly excited about where things will go in the future with it.
Cheers!By Timothy Fitzpatrick
June 23, 2014 Anno Domini
In Is Alex Jones externalizing the hierarchy?, I discussed how Alex Jones serves as cathartic relief for those resisting the New World Order and how he helps to get the masses comfortable with the NWO, thereby diffusing their opposition to it, making for a smoother transition to the one-world government.
To expand on that, I will break down some of the more technical methods Jones uses to psychologically traumatize his audience into accepting the New World Order, including his use of subliminal messages and neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), which is basically the manipulation of communication to provoke at the subconcious level (here is a good video example of how powerful NLP can be). NLP is most prominently used by salesman and mind programmers.
Suggestive Programming (NLP), Affirmations, and double meaning
The most obvious and ubiquitous programming Jones uses is the power of suggestion. You can set your watch by it. As of the writing of this article, Jones did it today on his show. He does it every single show. And that suggestion is the seemingly snide imitation of the elite. If you are listener, you know what I am talking about. It’s when Jones raises his voice and assumes the personality of one of the “elite” and then goes on to mock us victims of the NWO. He does not do this merely to entertain you. It is subtle suggestion and mockery of the victim—you, the listener. It’s a sort of psychodrama. What results from this process is the instilling of fear and learned helplessness into the listener (see Learned helplessness through the alternative media). And if I and many others are correct that Jones is working for the bad guys, then this suggestive programming is to mock us, which feeds their appetite as they destroy us with their world takeover.
As the mountebank delivered his harangue, the clown would repeatedly poke his head out from bemacabrehind the curtain, making fun of everything his master said, parodying his patter and twisting the meaning of his words. The mountebank played the perfect straight man, meanwhile. Here he was, trying so hard to hawk his wares, and his own assistant was doing everything possible to undermine sales. The merriment was of course intentional. While the clown seemingly encouraged the public not to buy the proffered merchandise, the mountebank knew full well that the bystanders would easily be converted into customers as soon as they forgot that they were, in fact, supposed to be buying. Once the audience had been effectively hypnotized, once its judgment and willpower had been weakened, the real sales pitch could begin…[i]
Does not John H. Townsen’s quote above remind you of Jones as he disingenuously mocks the NWO elite, specifically when he dressed up in clown makeup in a seeming mockery of US President Barack Obama? Researcher Michael Hoffman describes this suggestive programming as part of the Judeo-Masonic revelation of the method:
The alchemical principle of the Revelation of the Method has as its chief component, a clown-like, grinning mockery of the victim(s) as a show of power and macabre arrogance. When this is performed in a veiled manner accompanied by certain occult signs and symbolical words and elicits no meaningful response of opposition or resistance from the target(s), it is one of the most efficacious techniques of psychological warfare and mind-rape. This ceremonial nose-thumbing, this perverse jesting and clowning is taken to the highest level of intensity by the Truth or Consequences principle which ultimately hinges upon the issue of consent.[ii]
In other words, as it applies to this case, Jones is mocking the victims of the NWO whilst gaining their consent to the tyranny.
In case you doubt that Jones uses or is even aware of NLP, the proof that he at least knows about it is in his film 911 The Road To Tyranny, in which he accurately points out George W. Bush using an NLP technique on the American people. Jones has also admitted to being well read in Edward Bernays’ book Propaganda. Bernays, a pioneer in public relations, was the nephew of Jewish kabbalist Sigmund Freud, who created the black art of psychoanalysis—something Jones also admits to using, at least on himself.
Another type of suggestion that Jones uses is to speak from the point of view of an elitist telling us how we must obey. Again, he does this nearly every show. To this conscious mind, this may seem harmless, but the unconscious mind interprets this message as a command, no matter how facetious the message may appear. In this example, Jones says “You will accept the love of Lucifer.” Again, if you pay close attention to his speech patterns, you will notice and example of this this in almost every show he does. He is breaking you, the listener, down. Here is another example where Jones assumes the role of Satan. Someone discovered yet another clip of Jones, in reverse speech, saying “I am Satan.”
Another, less used, technique Jones uses is the classic repetition command. At times you will hear him repeat a word or phrase. In mind control, a repetition count of three is the most common. See if you can find it in Jones’ dialogues. In just one example, in 911 The Road To Tyranny, you can find a repetition count of three in a few instances. Here us another example. He probably does it every show.
Trauma-based mind control
The element of fear can never be overstated. If you put aside Jones’ loud-mouthed, charismatic act, all you are left with is bad news, fear, and negativity. Between all the bad news going on with the New World Order takeover and Jones’ shouting fits, the listener hasn’t got a chance.
One form of trauma involves opposites (alternating leniency with harshness, simultaneously endorsing two opposing positions). Jones will speak very calmly and eloquently one minute, and the next minute, he is shouting at the top of his lungs, snarling and flailing his arms about. He will go back and forth between these two extremes. This is designed to traumatize the listener: hot and cold, violence and peace, stress and calm.
When leniency is alternated with harshnessness, the effect is devastating and disconcerting because the person looses the ability to predict what is going to happen. Everyone likes to control his or her life. Predicting what is going to happen is part of a person’s mind gaining control over their environment. Even that control is stripped from a slave. They soon learn to quit trying to protect themselves, and they quit trying to think for themselves but docilely submit to whatever fate assigns them…. The slave must reorganize reality through identification with aggressor (Illuminati master). Strong identification is created with the master. The slave is programmed to protect the master.[iii]
See how many times Jones will take you through this process in one show. This is further breaking you down, weakening your spirit, and strengthening the state of helplessness in you. Note in the above quote how the trauma aids the victim in identifying with their aggressor, in this case, Alex Jones. Could this by why his followers hang on his every word and defend him as if he is completely infallible?
Another aspect of fear that I must mention is subliminal messaging. We have proof that Alex Jones has used this at least on one occasion. My guess is that there are probably many more such instances; we just haven’t detected them yet. In the following clip from Jones’ documentary Police State 4: The Rise of Fema, a subliminal is flashed that is read by the subconscious mind as “submit to fear.” But it’s not like Jones needs to use a lot of these, as his show is already saturated with fearmongering messages.
Hollywood programming
The first thing one hears when they tune in to the Alex Jones show is the theme for the imperial forces of Darth Vader in the kabbalist-based Hollywood film The Empire Strikes Back, part of the Star Wars franchise. According to CIA MKUltra mind control researchers, Star Wars and even Star Trek are recurring themes in mind control programs. The music for the empire in Star Wars represents evil and darkness, at least as far as kabbalists understand it. Why would Jones use such a dark theme as the theme for his supposed resistance to the New World Order world empire? Contradictory, no? It is likely more suggestive programming.
Few people seem to have any problems with Jones’ close connections with Hollywood, whether it’s his friendship with the decadent drug addict Charlie Sheen, Jones appearing in two Zionist Hollywood films,[iv] or Jones making frequent analogous references to movies during the Infowars show. Anyone with any wisdom knows that television and Jewish-masonic Hollywood are key channels of control for the world conspirators. For Jones to be so closely tied to Hollywood is hypocritical at best or sinister at worst. Either he is in on the scam or just a dupe. But for someone as intelligent as Jones—one who executes the sophistication of such things as neuro-linguistic programming, the case seems to by the former.
Jones was featured as a “street prophet” in the 2006 film Scanner Darkly, starring Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr., and the Winona Ryder. Those who have studied Hollywood mind control know that sigil magic is frequently used, so they shouldn’t be surprised when they see a character in Scanner Darkly wearing a T-shirt with a picture of the all-seeing eye encompassed by a pyramid. Apparently, Jones has no problem being a part of this. He also doesn’t seem to have a problem with the technocratic theme of the movie, even though he claims to oppose the “scientific dictatorship” and the technocracy.
Hypnotic spiral, Mnemonic circles
There are several ways to induce a hypnotic trance. Some of the more popular ones include the hypnosis spiral, the use of an object that glitters such as a piece of jewelry or a gold watch, and progressive relaxation.[v]
Most of you are probably familiar with the black and white spiral of the hypnotist that goes around and around until the viewer is lulled into a trance. Today the Zionist controlled press uses these hypnotic spirals, just in a much more sophisticated way. This example from TSN/ESPN sports show, SportsCenter, shows the hypnotic circles being flashed continuously at the introduction of the show, during, and at the conclusion of the show. You can find these mnemonic circles just about everywhere on TV, but mainly on news channels. BBC, Russia Today, and NBC are some of the many who are using them. You would expect it from the mainstream media, but not from alternative media. Sadly, Jones’ Infowars and PrisonPlanet presentations are chock full of them. Below are some examples with links to actual video showing animated swirling, designed to put Infowars listeners into a trance. The effect is that the trance will allow certain parts or all of the message to bypass the critical portion of the brain—where we analyze for truth what we are seeing and hearing—and seep into the subconscious. You might say that trances reaffirm other forms of mind manipulation—a sort of insurance policy on propaganda.
Sigil magic
Sigils are symbols. And when used by occultists, these symbols are believed to induce spells and trances. Hand gestures, NLP body movements, and symbols—Jones uses them all. Most notable are his use of the “V” symbol, the 666 (A-OK), and baphomet hand gestures. According to one astute observer, Jones use the 666 sign any time he is talking about the elite (specifically the government or the European Union). In Is Alex Jones externalizing the hierarchy? I documented Jones’ fomenting of violence among his listeners. One observer has apparently discovered a call to violence through and NLP technique. One thing to note about the “V” symbol that Jones is always pushing is that in the TV series V, the alien subversion of Earth is represented by “V”. The V people are a euphemism for fifth column insurgents.
All of this is just too coincidental, especially considering what we already know about Jones, namely that he has close ties to the intelligence community and the Israel lobby. His tactics are becoming more and more transparent.
Alex Jones trained in NLP at Stratfor?
It is interesting that Stratfor—an Israeli-CIA intelligence gathering firm established in Austin, Texas in 1996— was on the mailing list of the International Hypnosis Research Institute, an organization that offers neuro-linghuistic programming training. The anonymous hack of Stratfor’s emails a few years ago also revealed that Marko Papic, a geopolitical analyst with Stratfor, discussed NLP with Kevin Leahy of Knowledge Advocate. With what we already know about Alex Jones’ connections to Stratfor, it wouldn’t be a stretch to see him getting trained through Stratfor. The various NLP groups could have contracts with the CIA.
Another Stratfor-Infowars-NLP connection is with a visual effects artist named Michael McWhirter, who worked on several of Alex Jones’ films, including TerrorStorm, The Obama Deception, and Fall of the Republic. Mcwhirter has also contributed to Hollywood films, but he is currently listed as systems developer for a company named Aon Hewitt, a provider of human capital and management services, in Austin, Texas. At the time of the hack, Stratfor had membership with Aon Hewitt. What’s more, McWhirter is a member of an NLP meetup in Austin, Texas. In his meetup profile, McWhirter writes of himself, “I’ve studied/practiced NLP and related therapies for about 8 years and have applied my studies towards my own system of personal navigation and belief pattern exploration.”
Notes
[i] Towsen, John H., “Clowns”, E P Dutton (November 1976)
[ii] Hoffman, Michael A., “Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare”, Wiswell Ruffin House, Dresden, New York, 1992. p. 90.
[iii] Wheeler, Cisco; Springmeier, Fritz “The Illuminati Formula Used to Create an Undetectable Total Mind Controlled Slave”, Ch. 9
[iv] Alex Jones (III), Internet Movie Database (IMDB) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1093953/?ref_=fn_al_nm_2
[v] Bergen, D. “Hypnosis Spiral and Other Methods to Induce Hypnotic Trance” http://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/33138/alternative_medicine/hypnosis_spiral_and_other_methods_to_induce_hypnotic_trance.htmlBisexual members of the LGBT community on Monday are celebrating the 15th Annual International Celebrate Bisexuality Day — also referred to as “Bi Pride Day” or “Bi Visibility Day” — to encourage bisexuals and their allies to be visible and proud of their bi identity.
The annual occasion raises awareness about bisexuality, educates the community about bisexual issues, and encourages bisexual people and their allies to be visible and proud of the bisexual identity.
Bisexuality is one of the three main classifications of sexual orientation along with heterosexuality and homosexuality, and is used in the context of human attraction or sexual feelings toward both men and women.
A bisexual identity does not necessarily equate to equal sexual attraction to both sexes; commonly, people who have a distinct but not exclusive sexual preference for one sex over the other also identify themselves as bisexual.
Often referred to as the “invisible majority,” several studies indicate that self-identified bisexuals make up the largest single population within the LGBT community in the United States. In each study, more women identified as bisexual than lesbian, and fewer men identified as bisexual than gay.
In a 2010 study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found that among adults (5,042 respondents), 3.1 percent self-identified as bisexual, compared to 2.5 percent who self-identified as either gay or lesbian.
And despite the overwhelming data that bisexuals exist, other people’s assumptions often render bisexuals invisible. Two women holding hands are read as “lesbian,” two men as “gay,” and a man and a woman as “straight.” In reality, any of these people might be bisexual, perhaps all of them.
Article continues below
The first bisexual pride day is said to have occurred in 1990 when the city of San Francisco proclaimed Bi Pride Day in honor of the 1990 Conference on Bisexuality.
Since 1999, “Bi Pride Day” has been held yearly on September 23, and was the brainchild of three United States bisexual rights activists: Wendy Curry of Maine, Michael Page of Florida, and Gigi Raven Wilbur of Texas.
Organizations and individuals have marked the occasion with film festivals, community forums on various issues important to the community, drag shows, art displays, performance events, and other celebrations.
Events celebrating Bi Pride Day are scheduled in many major U.S. cities and elsewhere the world. BiNetUSA has a partial list.
This Story Filed Under5 Minute Guide to Clustering - Java Web Apps in Tomcat
Published Fri, 20 Aug 2010 • 77 comments
I've been taking a break from posting for the last couple of weeks. I was starting to get a bit run down, and feel like burn out was about to set in. The kind of blog posts I do take quite a bit of time, both in terms of the technical background work and the time to write and proof read the posts. Balancing that with work, plus personal projects, family life something had to take a break, and it's not going to be work or family life :)
Anyhow, I'm back with another 5 minute guide. This time, how to set up clustering with Apache Web Server and Apache Tomcat.
For the purposes of the rest of this article, when I say "Apache" I mean the web server, and when I say "Tomcat" I mean Tomcat.
There are pretty much two ways to set up basic clustering, which use two different Apache modules. The architecture for both, is the same. Apache sits in front of the Tomcat nodes and acts as a load balancer.
Traffic is passed between Apache and Tomcat(s) using the binary AJP 1.3 protocol. The two modules are modjk and modproxy.
mod_jk stands for "jakarta" the original project under which Tomcat was developed. It is the older way of setting this up, but still has some advantages.
modproxy is a newer and more generic way of setting this up. The rest of this guide will focus on modproxy, since it ships "out of the box" with newer versions of Apache.
You should be able to follow this guide by downloading Apache and Tomcat default distributions and following the steps. No funny business required.
Clustering Background
You can cluster at the request or session level. Request level means that each request may go to a different node - this is the ideal since the traffic would be balanced across all nodes, and if a node goes down, the user has no idea. Unfortunately this requires session replication between all nodes, not just of HttpSession, but ANY session state. For the purposes of this article I'm going to describe Session level clustering, since it is simpler to set up, and works regardless of the dynamics of your application........ After all we only have 5 minutes! :)
Session level clustering means if your application is one that requires a login or other forms of session-state, and one or more your Tomcat nodes goes down, on their next request, the user will be asked to log in again, since they will hit a different node which does not have any stored session data for the user.
This is still an improvement on a non-clustered environment where, if your node goes down, you have no application at all!
And we still get the benefits of load balancing across nodes, which allows us to scale our application out horizontally across many machines.
Anyhow without further ado, let's get into the how-to.
Setting Up The Nodes
In most situations you would be deploying the nodes on physically separate machines, but in this example we will set them up on a single machine, but on different ports. This allows us to easily test this configuration.
Nothing much changes for the physically separate set up - just the Hostnames of the nodes as you would expect.
Oh and I'm working on Windows - but aside from the installation of Apache and Tomcat nothing is different between platforms since the configuration files are standard on all platforms.
Download Tomcat.ZIP distribution, e.g. We'll use a folder to install all this stuff in. Let's say it's "C:\cluster" for the purposes of the article. Unzip the Tomcat distro twice, into two folders - C:\cluster\tomcat-node-1 C:\cluster\tomcat-node-2 Start up each of the nodes, using the bin/startup.bat / bin/startup.sh scripts. Ensure they start. If they don't you may need to point Tomcat to the JDK installation on your machine. Open up the server.xml configuration on c:\cluster\tomcat-node-1\conf\server.xml There are two places we need to (potentially) configure - The first line is the connector for the AJP protocol. The "port" attribute is the important part here. We will leave this one as is, but for our second (or subsequent) Tomcat nodes, we will need to change it to a different value. The second part is the "engine" element. The "jvmRoute" attribute has to be added - this configures the name of this node in the cluster. The "jvmRoute" must be unique across all your nodes. For our purposes we will use "node1" and "node2" for our two node cluster. This step is optional, but for production configs, you may want to remove the HTTP connector for Tomcat - that's one less port to secure, and you don't need it for the cluster to operate. Comment out the following lines of the server.xml - Now repeat this for C:\cluster\tomcat-node-2\conf\server.xml Change the jvmRoute to "node2" and the AJP connector port to "8019".
We're done with Tomcat. Start each node up, and ensure it still works.
Setting Up The Apache Cluster
Okay, this is the important part.
Download and install Apache HTTP Server. Use the custom option to install it into C:\cluster\apache2.2 Now open up c:\cluster\apache2.2\conf\httpd.conf in your favourite text editor. Firstly, we need to uncomment the following lines (delete the '#') - These enable the necessary mod_proxy modules in Apache. Finally, go to the end of the |
scars never go away.
"It's very hard to get the guys back in the locker room if you cost them the playoffs. I just wasn't going to put him in that situation. Right or wrong, it just was my decision."
Who can find fault with that logic from one of the NFL's preeminent quarterback gurus?
Thomas is a developmental project. Success stories in that category are few and far between, but that won't stop Arians from attempting to refine the former Virginia Tech star's immense physical gifts as an alternative to Palmer down the line.
The latest Around The NFL Podcast discusses C.J. Spiller's potential with the Saints and features the return of Win Wess' Toaster! Find more Around The NFL content on NFL NOW.Summary
Gemfile source 'https://rails-assets.org' do gem 'rails-assets-interact' end
application.js //= require interact... var dragMoveListener; dragMoveListener = function( event ) { var target, x, y; target = event.target; x = (parseFloat(target.getAttribute( 'data-x' )) || 0 ) + event.dx; y = (parseFloat(target.getAttribute( 'data-y' )) || 0 ) + event.dy; target.style.webkitTransform = target.style.transform = 'translate(' + x + 'px,'+ y + 'px)' ; target.setAttribute( 'data-x', x); return target.setAttribute( 'data-y', y); }; window.dragMoveListener = dragMoveListener; interact( '*[data-draggable="true"]' ).draggable({ inertia: true, autoScroll: true, onmove: dragMoveListener }); $(document). on ( 'turbolinks:load', function(){ interact( '#favorite_foods' ).dropzone({ accept: '*[data-draggable="true"]', overlap: 0.75, ondropactivate: function( event ) {}, ondragenter: function( event ) { event.target.classList. add ( 'drop-target' ); event.relatedTarget.classList. add ( 'can-drop' ); return $. get ( event.relatedTarget.attributes[ 'data-url' ]. value, { favorite: true }); }, ondragleave: function( event ) { event.target.classList. remove ( 'drop-target' ); event.relatedTarget.classList. remove ( 'can-drop' ); return $. get ( event.relatedTarget.attributes[ 'data-url' ]. value, { favorite: false }); }, ondrop: function( event ) {}, ondropdeactivate: function( event ) { event.target.classList. remove ( 'drop-active' ); return event.target.classList. remove ( 'drop-target' ); } }); var ingredients = []; interact( '#have_ingredients' ).dropzone({ accept: '*[data-draggable="true"]', overlap: 0.75, ondropactivate: function( event ) {}, ondragenter: function( event ) { event.target.classList. add ( 'drop-target' ); event.relatedTarget.classList. add ( 'can-drop' ); ingredients.push( event.relatedTarget.attributes[ 'data-ingredient' ]. value ); return $. get ( event.relatedTarget.attributes[ 'data-url' ]. value, { ingredients: ingredients }); }, ondragleave: function( event ) { event.target.classList. remove ( 'drop-target' ); event.relatedTarget.classList. remove ( 'can-drop' ); ingredients = jQuery.grep(ingredients, function( value ) { return value!= event.relatedTarget.attributes[ 'data-ingredient' ]. value ; }); return $. get ( event.relatedTarget.attributes[ 'data-url' ]. value, { ingredients: ingredients }); }, ondrop: function( event ) {}, ondropdeactivate: function( event ) { event.target.classList. remove ( 'drop-active' ); return event.target.classList. remove ( 'drop-target' ); } }); });
coffeescript equivalent dragMoveListener = undefined dragMoveListener = (event) -> target = undefined x = undefined y = undefined target = event.target x = (parseFloat(target.getAttribute( 'data-x' )) or 0 ) + event.dx y = (parseFloat(target.getAttribute( 'data-y' )) or 0 ) + event.dy target.style.webkitTransform = target.style.transform = 'translate(' + x + 'px,'+ y + 'px)' target.setAttribute 'data-x', x target.setAttribute 'data-y', y window.dragMoveListener = dragMoveListener interact( '*[data-draggable="true"]' ).draggable inertia: true autoScroll: true onmove: dragMoveListener $( document ). on 'turbolinks:load', -> interact( '#favorite_foods' ).dropzone accept: '*[data-draggable="true"]' overlap: 0.75 ondropactivate: (event) -> ondragenter: (event) -> event.target.classList.add 'drop-target' event.relatedTarget.classList.add 'can-drop' $.get event.relatedTarget.attributes[ 'data-url' ].value, favorite: true ondragleave: (event) -> event.target.classList.remove 'drop-target' event.relatedTarget.classList.remove 'can-drop' $.get event.relatedTarget.attributes[ 'data-url' ].value, favorite: false ondrop: (event) -> ondropdeactivate: (event) -> event.target.classList.remove 'drop-active' event.target.classList.remove 'drop-target' ingredients = [] interact( '#have_ingredients' ).dropzone accept: '*[data-draggable="true"]' overlap: 0.75 ondropactivate: (event) -> ondragenter: (event) -> event.target.classList.add 'drop-target' event.relatedTarget.classList.add 'can-drop' ingredients.push event.relatedTarget.attributes[ 'data-ingredient' ].value $.get event.relatedTarget.attributes[ 'data-url' ].value, ingredients: ingredients ondragleave: (event) -> event.target.classList.remove 'drop-target' event.relatedTarget.classList.remove 'can-drop' ingredients = jQuery.grep(ingredients, (value) -> value!= event.relatedTarget.attributes[ 'data-ingredient' ].value ) $.get event.relatedTarget.attributes[ 'data-url' ].value, ingredients: ingredients ondrop: (event) -> ondropdeactivate: (event) -> event.target.classList.remove 'drop-active' event.target.classList.remove 'drop-target' return
visitors.scss.dropzone { height : 180px ; background-color : #ccc ; border : dashed 4px transparent; border-radius : 4px ; margin : 10px auto 30px ; padding : 10px ; width : 80% ; transition : background-color 0.3s ; }.drop-active { border-color : #aaa ; }.drop-target { background-color : #29e ; border-color : #fff ; border-style : solid; }.drag-drop { display : inline-block; min-width : 40px ; padding : 1em 0.75em ; color : #fff ; background-color : #29e ; border : solid 2px #fff ; -webkit-transform : translate (0px, 0px); transform : translate (0px, 0px); transition : background-color 0.3s ; }.drag-drop.can-drop { color : #000 ; background-color : #4e4 ; }
foods_controller.rb class FoodsController < ApplicationController def opinion_on_food @food = Food.find(params[ :id ]) @food.update_attribute( :favorite, params[ :favorite ]) @food.save head :ok end def what_to_cook @foods = Food.includes( :recipes ).all.select { |i| i.recipes.map(& :ingredient_id ).to_set.subset?(params[ :ingredients ].to_a.map(& :to_i ).to_set) } end end
models/food.rb class Food < ApplicationRecord has_many :recipes, dependent: :destroy, class_name: 'Recipe' has_many :ingredients, through: :recipes def self. favorite_foods where( favorite: true ) end def self. no_opinion_foods where( favorite: false ) end end
models/ingredient.rb class Ingredient < ApplicationRecord has_many :recipes, dependent: :destroy, class_name: 'Recipe' has_many :foods, through: :recipes end
models/recipe.rb class Recipe < ApplicationRecord belongs_to :food belongs_to :ingredient end
visitors_controller.rb class VisitorsController < ApplicationController def favorite_foods end def ingredients @ingredients = Ingredient.all end end
foods/_food.html.erb <li class='list-group-item'> <strong><%= food.name %></strong> <%= content_tag :span, 'and it is one of your favorites' if food.favorite? %> </li>
foods/what_to_cook.js.erb <% if @foods.size > 0 %> $('#foods').html('<%= j render @foods %>'); <% else %> $('#foods').html('<li class="list-group-item">Sorry, you may go hungry...</li>'); <% end %>
visitors/favorite_foods.html.erb <% Food.no_opinion_foods.each do |food| %> <%= content_tag :div, food.name, class: 'drag-drop', data: { draggable: true, url: opinion_on_food_path(food) } %> <% end %> <div id="favorite_foods" class="dropzone"> <h1>Favorite Foods</h1> <% Food.favorite_foods.each do |food| %> <%= content_tag :div, food.name, class: 'drag-drop can-drop', data: { draggable: true, url: opinion_on_food_path(food) } %> <% end %> </div>
visitors/ingredients.html.erb <% @ingredients.each do |ingredient| %> <%= content_tag :div, ingredient.name, class: 'drag-drop', data: { draggable: true, url: what_to_cook_path, ingredient: ingredient.id } %> <% end %> <div id="have_ingredients" class="dropzone"> <legend>Ingredients I have</legend> </div> <div class="panel panel-primary"> <div class="panel-heading"> <h3 class="panel-title">You have the ingredients to make</h3> </div> <ul id='foods' class='list-group'> <li class="list-group-item">Sorry, you may go hungry...</li> </ul> </div>Source: Nelson Pavlosky via Flickr
When I was a kid, my needed to find creative ways to keep me busy, or else I would be a cranky bored kid. For a while, they kept me occupied with word search games where you get a big grid of letters and have to find the hidden words in them. At the end of the book, there would be the answers to each puzzle. Sometimes, I would just give up on a puzzle and check out the answer.
Does having access to the answers to a question change the effort that people put in to solve a problem? This is not just an idle question. Textbooks also often put the answers to selected questions in the back of the book. the effect of having access to answers has implications for, then, as well.
This question was explored in a series of studies published in the December 2017 issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General by Evan Risko, Michelle Huh, David McLean, and Amanda Ferguson. The results are interesting, but they also show how hard it can be to give a clear answer to a seemingly simple question.
The set up for these studies was simple. Participants were given a set of 5-letter anagrams to solve. Anagrams are scrambled groups of letters like SRNEA, which can be turned into words. This anagram has multiple solutions like NEARS, SNARE, EARNS, and SANER. Participants were either told that they would get feedback about the correct answers immediately after working on each anagram (and then received feedback) or they were not given feedback. The researchers were interested in how much time participants spent on the anagrams and how many of the correct answers they got.
Across all of the studies in this paper, participants generally spent more time-solving anagrams when they were not going to get feedback about whether they were correct than when they knew they were going to get feedback. So, knowing that they were going to get the answers soon led to less time on the task. Interestingly, though, people got about the same proportion of correct responses in each condition (getting about 60 percent right).
Why did the time differ?
In several of the studies, participants were also asked at the end of each anagram whether they were confident they had gotten all of the answers correct and whether they felt that if they had more time they would get more answers. In general, participants were moderately confident that they had gotten all of the answers correct (averaging about 60 percent confident) and felt that they were unlikely to get more answers correct if they took more time. This was true regardless of whether they had access to the correct answers.
At first glance, this pattern of results seems to suggest that having access to the correct answers decreases persistence on a moderately difficult task. That would seem to suggest caution about providing answers to problems for students.
But, notice that participants got about the same proportion of answers correct in each condition, even though the time spent on the task differed. In some studies, participants spent about 10 seconds more on average per problem when they did not get the answers than when they did. These 10 additional seconds per problem did not improve their overall performance. So, perhaps the people who quit earlier were actually doing something more optimal here because they did not waste as much time.
A reason to think this might be the case is that in one of the studies, participants did two blocks of trials. Participants who were going to receive answers only took less time on the anagrams in the first block of trials and not the second. This suggests that eventually all participants figured out how much time they needed to complete the task, and at that point having available answers did not affect their performance.
It may be that participants are actually using the answers to learn how well they are doing the task. One thing everyone must learn is to put in the right amount of effort on the problems they solve. Too little, and they could have been more accurate. Too much, and they are wasting time that could have been spent on something else. When participants feel like they are just about done and have access to answers, they might just check the answers to see how well they did. While those participants who did not have access to answers might spend more time just to be sure there weren't any additional solutions to the anagram that they missed. More research will be needed to figure that out.
This set of studies addresses an interesting and important topic, in a straightforward and clever way. The results are consistent and are obtained repeatedly. And yet, despite that, the studies still raise as many questions as they answer. That is part of the joy of science.NEW YORK — Puerto Rico has defaulted on its debt by paying only a fraction of what was due on bonds due Aug. 1, showing the depth of the island’s economic and cashflow problems and potentially opening the door to litigation.
The commonwealth paid only US$628,000 of a US$58 million payment due on its Public Finance Corp bonds, the head of its Government Development Bank said in a statement on Monday.
“Due to the lack of appropriated funds for this fiscal year, the entirety of the PFC payment was not made today,” GDB head Melba Acosta said.
Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla shocked investors in June when he said the island’s debt, totaling $72 billion, was unpayable and required restructuring. The non-payment marks the first default by the commonwealth and is the most notable since Detroit defaulted on $1.45 billion of insured pension bonds before filing for bankruptcy in 2013.
“(They are) telling investors they are serious about this debt adjustment,” said Peter Hayes, head of asset manager BlackRock’s Municipal Bonds Group. “It may be a precursor to how they make payments going forward if they can’t reach amicable settlements with creditors groups.”
A default could open the door to a fight with investors. Daniel Hanson, analyst at Height Securities, said in a research note last week that market participants would probably file suit in San Juan as soon as Tuesday.
While Puerto Rico has argued that missing a payment would not constitute default because its legislature is not legally bound to appropriate the funds for payment, credit agencies and investors saw it differently.
“Moody’s views this event as a default,” said Moody’s analyst Emily Raimes in a statement. “This is a first in what we believe will be broad defaults on commonwealth debt.”
PFC bonds have weaker protections than many other Puerto Rico bonds such as general obligation debt.
Acosta said the decision reflected “serious concerns about the Commonwealth’s liquidity in combination with the balance of obligations to our creditors and the equally important obligations to the people of Puerto Rico.”
Acosta said that PFC made a partial payment of interest in respect from funds remaining from prior legislative appropriations. These funds of US$628,000 were applied to the Aug. 1 payment.
“A government’s primary responsibility is to provide services to citizens,” said Hayes. “When you finally make the determination not to pay, you know you’re effectively cutting yourself off from the capital markets, but from their standpoint they see it better of two evils.”
© Thomson Reuters 2015Using the most recent data on health spending published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), we explore reasons why U.S. health spending towers over that of other countries with much older populations. Prominent among the reasons are higher U.S. per capita gross domestic product (GDP) as well as a highly complex and fragmented payment system that weakens the demand side of the health sector and entails high administrative costs. We examine the economic burden that health spending places on the U.S. economy. We comment on attempts by U.S. policy-makers to increase the prices foreign health systems pay for U.S. prescription drugs.
For a brief moment in the early 1990s it seemed that the combination of “managed care” embedded in “managed competition” would allow the United States to keep its annual growth of health care spending roughly in step with the annual growth of gross domestic product (GDP). It was a short-lived illusion. By the turn of the millennium the annual growth in U.S. health spending once again began to exceed the annual growth in the rest of the GDP by ever-larger margins.
In the United States the impact on health spending of managed care and managed competition had been controversial from the start. Skeptics argued that these tools might yield a one-time savings, spread over a few years, but that by themselves they would be unlikely to slow the long-term growth in health spending thereafter. 1 It now appears that these analysts were right. In retrospect, and taking a longer-run view, the cost control of the early and mid-1990s merely represents an abnormal period in the history of U.S. health care.
Data for 2001, released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), show that over the period 1990–2001 the United States succeeded only in matching the median growth in inflation-adjusted health spending per capita in the other twenty-nine countries included in the OECD database (Exhibit 1 ). 2 Viewed in that context, the United States can hardly claim to have found the panacea for cost control during the 1990s.
Furthermore, as can be seen in Exhibit 1, U.S. per capita health spending continued to exceed per capita health spending in the other OECD countries, by huge margins, in 2001. After expenditures are converted into purchasing-power parity international dollars (PPP$), Switzerland spent only 68 percent as much on health care per capita in 2001 as the United States. 3 Neighboring Canada, with a health care delivery system and medical practice styles fairly similar to those in the United States, spent only 57 percent as much per capita as the United States. PPP-adjusted per capita spending in the median OECD country was only 44 percent of the U.S. level (PPP$2,161).
Finally, the median percentage of GDP absorbed by health care in the non-U.S. OECD countries in 2001 was only 8.3 percent, compared with 13.9 percent in the United States. Although that percentage remained more or less constant during the 1990s, during the previous two decades the average annual growth of health spending exceeded the growth of total GDP by 2.5–3 percent. 4 U.S. government actuaries now project that during 2003–2013 U.S. health spending will revert to its traditional, long-term trend. They project the annual growth in U.S. health spending to exceed the annual growth in GDP once again by about two percentage points, and total national health spending to absorb as much as 18.4 percent of U.S. GDP by 2013. 5
In this paper we examine data from the OECD database in detail. We begin with a brief review of the factors that can explain the relatively high U.S. spending on health care, drawing on earlier papers on the subject. 6 We then discuss international issues in pharmaceutical pricing. Next, we explore the ways that health spending trends might be a burden on the U.S. economy. We conclude that while these trends are not an imminent burden on the macro economy, they will place an increasing burden on the members of lower-income groups even within the coming decade. Furthermore, by 2040 these trends will force the United States to make do with actual reductions in the nonhealth GDP per capita overall. This prospect leads many observers to judge current trends in U.S. health spending “unsustainable” or “unaffordable,” although, as we argue further on, these terms are so highly subjective that they lose meaning in this context.
Factors Driving High U.S. Health Spending
GDP per capita.
No single factor explains the levels or rates of increase in health spending among industrialized countries. 7 However, ability to pay, as measured by GDP per capita, has repeatedly been shown to be one of the most important factors. 8 About 90 percent of the observed cross-national variation in health spending across the OECD countries in 2001 can be explained simply by GDP per capita. An estimated bivariate relationship between GDP per capita and per capita health spending predicts a U.S. per capita health spending level of $3,435 for 2001. The actual level, $4,887, is $1,452 or 42 percent higher than the predicted level. 9 Both policymakers and clinicians need to examine what other factors can account for that remaining differential.
Distribution of market power and prices.
In a previous paper we argued that Americans pay much higher prices for the same health services than citizens in other countries pay. 10 There are a number of reasons why this might be so.
First, the distribution of compensation in the United States is wider than in most of the other industrialized countries. The highly trained and highly talented health professionals employed in health care must be recruited from the same talent pool used by other industries offering high compensation, such as law and finance. Because health care is a labor-intensive industry, labor is one factor driving up the cost of producing health care in the United States.
Second, the highly fragmented organization of the financing of health care in the United States serves to allocate relatively greater market power to the supply side of the health system than to the demand side. As we have argued in previous papers, multiple purchasers of care allow U.S. prices to rise above the level attained in other industrialized countries that either endow the demand side of their health systems with strong, monopsonistic (single-buyer) market power (such as the Canadian provincial health plans) or allow multipayer systems to bargain collectively with the providers of health care, sometimes within government-set overall health care budgets (as, for example, in Germany). 11
The capacity of health systems.
The relatively greater market power on the demand side of health systems in other countries can explain why so many countries allocate a lower fraction of their GDP to health care even though they appear to be more heavily endowed with hospital capacity and health professionals than the United States. 12
Many industrialized countries have higher physician- and nurse-to-population ratios than the United States (Exhibit 2 ). 13 The supply of U.S. physicians per capita grew only 1 percent per year between 1991 and 2001; only six countries had slower growth rates during this period. A large part of the increase in the U.S. physician supply represents international medical graduates (IMGs), as the capacity of U.S. medical schools has stayed virtually constant since the 1970s. 14 The U.S. nurse-to-population ratio (8.1 per 1,000 population) also was below the OECD median (9.0) in 2001. Growth in the supply of nurses was relatively modest in the United States—about 1.3 percent per year—and below the median growth rate for the OECD (1.6 percent).
Previous comparisons indicated that in recent years the United States has had a relatively low supply of computed tomography (CT) scanners and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) devices relative to some OECD countries. The United States was an early adopter of these medical technologies and then tended to be relatively well endowed with the new technology by international standards. Ultimately, however, the United States did not acquire as large a supply as Japan and several other countries did. 15
Finally, the United States has a relatively small endowment of hospital beds per capita compared with most other OECD countries (Exhibit 2 ). The United States is in the bottom quartile of hospital beds per capita. The decrease in U.S. hospital capacity between 1991 and 2001—0.8 beds per 1,000 population—is at the median for OECD countries with available data.
Administrative complexity and costs.
By international standards, the U.S. approach to financing health care is extremely complex. Research suggests that a sizable fraction of higher U.S. health spending, not explainable by higher GDP per capita, can be traced to the higher administrative overhead required by such a complex system. 16 To quote economist Henry Aaron on this point: “Like many other observers, I look at the U.S. health care system and see an administrative monstrosity, a truly bizarre mélange of thousands of payers with payment systems that differ for no socially beneficial reason, as well as staggeringly complex public system with mind-boggling administered prices and other rules expressing distinctions that can only be regarded as weird.” 17
Aaron’s comment was part of his response to a recent paper by Steffie Woolhandler, Terry Campbell, and David Himmelstein, who find that administrative costs for insurers, employers, and the providers of health care in the U.S. health system (not even including the time costs patients bear in choosing health insurance and claiming reimbursement) were “at least” $294.3 billion in 1999, or about 24 percent of total U.S. health spending. 18
Aaron’s remarks may leave the impression that public insurance programs are the chief culprits in this “administrative monstrosity.” However, as Commonwealth Fund president Karen Davis observed in her recent testimony before Congress, administrative expenses for private insurance in the United States are two-and-one-half times as high as those for public programs. 19
Unwillingness to ration health care.
A country’s health care system—especially its research and development (R&D) infrastructure—continually gives society the option of purchasing, through health care, additional quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) at increasingly higher prices. Exhibit 3 illustrates the shape such supply curves are likely to have.
The hypothetical curve in Exhibit 3 reflects the fact that some relatively low-cost medical interventions can yield additional QALYs at relatively low incremental costs—for example, immunizations or prenatal care. At the other end of the spectrum, however, the health system can wrestle additional life years from nature’s course only at increasingly higher incremental costs. Examples of such high-cost procedures would be diagnostic tests broadly applied to populations with a low incidence of the disease targeted by the test, especially in the presence of many false positives. Heroic medical intervention at life’s beginning or end also falls into the high-cost range of the QALY supply curve.
The thrust of modern cost-effectiveness research—a distinct branch of health services research—is aimed at identifying the approximate shape of this curve for policymakers. In principle, policymakers should use that information to answer two morally troublesome questions faced by every country. First, how far up the QALY supply should the health system go to procure added QALYs? Second, should the maximum price to be paid for added QALYs be uniformly applied to all members of society or be allowed to vary with the individual patient’s ability to pay or with other factors, such as social status?
As Julian Le Grand suggests, the National Institute for Clinical Effectiveness (NICE) established by the Blair government in the United Kingdom appears to be using a cutoff price of £30,000 (about US$53,000 at the current exchange rate) per QALY beyond which treatments should not be publicly funded. 20 Above this threshold, U.K. patients with discretionary funds or supplemental private health insurance could procure more costly treatments from the country’s relatively small private health sector. That cutoff price is mentioned also by Nancy Devlin and colleagues, who write that “it is clear from papers presented to NICE’s Annual Public Meeting that £30,000 per QALY has effectively become the benchmark for cost-effectiveness,” although they add that “there have been no directions from the Department of Health or the National Assembly for Wales that they consider this to be an appropriate test.” 21
Policymakers in other countries typically have shied away from setting an explicit cutoff price per QALY (or other measure of outcome) above which collective funds will not be used to purchase additional output from the health sector. Such a pronouncement would undoubtedly be politically controversial and divisive. Instead, countries typically have sought to set that upper limit implicitly, through a mixture of price controls and limits on capacity. If one had to make a rough guess on the implicit prices that health systems are willing to pay for QALYs, the relative overall positions of the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States in Exhibit 3 seem plausible, although we make no pretense that the differentials suggested there are accurate. It might be illuminating in future cross-national research to extract through opinion surveys from various stakeholders in health care more explicit notions on the maximum price that should be devoted to wrestling an additional QALY from nature through the health care system.
In the United States neither private health insurers nor the publicly funded Medicare and Medicaid programs appear to observe any explicit guidelines on the maximum price per QALY procured through health care. Two possible exceptions are private health insurance policies that have lifetime upper limits and the Medicare program, which lacks catastrophic benefits. For low-income Americans without health insurance, there may well be much lower, haphazardly imposed, implicit upper limits on the price per QALY that society is willing to pay on their behalf. 22 A series of recent reports by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) has documented that uninsured Americans receive less care than insured Americans and that circumstance does affect their health status. 23
The Brewing Battle Over Pharmaceutical Prices
Although health care has not traditionally been a focus of U.S. foreign and trade policy, the relatively high concentration of market power on the demand side of foreign health systems appears to have become a major irritant to U.S. officials, at least with respect to pharmaceutical prices. These officials acknowledge that U.S. prices for pharmaceuticals are high by international standards; however, they accuse foreign governments of keeping those prices artificially and unduly low within their own health systems, thereby beggaring U.S. patients, who now fund the bulk of U.S. pharmaceutical R&D.
In a recent address to pharmaceutical executives, for example, former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Mark McClellan (now head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS) decried as “unfair” that other nations use market power on the demand side for prescription drugs to obtain lower prices. He was concerned that other countries are shifting the burden of financing the R&D cost of new drugs to the United States. “Some of the world’s richest nations are driving the world’s hardest bargains,” he remarked. “For example, many high-income countries regulate their prices by setting them equal to those in other countries that already have rigid price controls. This system is used in Canada, informally in Japan, and in some countries in Europe.” 24
This concern over unduly low drug prices abroad now finds expression in U.S. trade negotiations with other countries. As the International Herald Tribune recently reported, “In talks over a free-trade agreement with Australia, U.S. officials are pressing the Australian government to water down its system for negotiating the prices it pays for prescription drugs.” 25 Countries that use price controls to constrain the growth of their health spending can expect to be pressured by the U.S. government to raise the prices their health systems pay for drugs sold by U.S. manufacturers. Countries subjected to these tactics by U.S. trade negotiators may resent this intrusion by the U.S. government into what they may regard as purely domestic health policies.
The emerging posture among U.S. policymakers on drug prices raises a number of questions. First, by what mechanism would higher drug prices paid by foreign health systems for U.S.-manufactured drugs actually translate into lower drug prices for U.S. patients? Or would these price increases merely translate into increased revenues of U.S. manufacturers? Second, how much of the added revenue garnered by U.S. manufacturers from drug price increases abroad would flow through to R&D spending? In 2002 the thirteen largest U.S. pharmaceutical companies allocated their sales revenue to particular objects of expenditures and profits as follows: cost of goods sold, 25.3 percent; selling and administration, 32.8 percent; R&D, 14 percent; taxes, 7.3 percent; and net after-tax profits, 20.6 percent. 26 Would added revenues from increased drug prices abroad be similarly allocated? If so, can the U.S. government and U.S. drug manufacturers reasonably expect health systems abroad to underwrite with higher prices outlays by U.S. manufacturers on selling and administration, including the direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising that is not even permitted in many of these other countries?
Third, would the U.S. government permit other countries’s health systems to use approaches with tiered pricing, such as reference pricing, which can be and has been defended as a market-based approach to drug pricing but is profoundly feared by drug manufacturers in the United States and elsewhere? 27 How deeply into other countries’ health policy would U.S. policymakers penetrate to shore up the revenues of U.S. drug manufacturers?
Finally, it is not clear to what extent drug prices in other nations actually are inappropriately low. A recent study by Patricia Danzon and Michael Furukawa suggests that the differential in prices paid for drugs in different countries is smaller than a simple comparison of drug prices might suggest. They argue that simple comparisons of prices for particular drugs can be highly misleading and that such comparisons should be based on broader market baskets of pharmaceutical products sold in the various countries. Furthermore, they argue that such comparisons should be made with PPP dollars rather than at current exchange rates. On that basis, they conclude that “U.S.– foreign differentials for broad baskets of prescription drugs are in line with income [differentials across countries] and [are] smaller for drugs than for other medical services.” 28
Health Care In The Macro Economy
Health spending and GDP.
Health spending is included in the calculation of GDP. If spending on health care increases, other things being equal, then GDP rises, just as it does when there is increased spending on sport-utility vehicles (SUVs) or entertainment, other things being equal.
Other things, however, may not remain equal when one component of GDP grows over time. Under full employment of a country’s real resources, for example, added spending on health care would draw labor and capital away from other sectors of the economy, whose contribution to GDP would then shrink. That displaced contribution would be the opportunity cost of added health spending.
On the other hand, under conditions of pervasive unemployment, added health spending may not need to draw real resources away from other economic activities and GDP; the opportunity costs of added health spending would be low or close to zero. This is an important point during recessions. In a speech before the Commonwealth Club of California in June 2002, for example, President George W. Bush remarked, “Much of the growth we have seen in this quarter is the result of consumer spending, fueled by well-timed tax deductions.” 29 If one accepts this purely Keynesian strategy of kindling economic growth as appropriate, as evidently the president does, then added health spending, which will create jobs, is a good substitute for tax cuts designed to kindle added consumer spending. The main difference is that added health spending draws added real resources into the production of health care, while tax cuts draw real resources into the production of whatever consumers purchase with their extra disposable income, which may, however, include added production (and jobs) abroad from additional imports purchased by Americans.
Even under conditions of full employment, however, a diversion of real resources from other economic activities to health care might improve economic welfare in society. It would depend on the value of the added health care gained relative to the opportunity costs represented by the value of other output given up. In an efficiently operated economy, the benefit-cost ratios associated with marginal shifts of real resources from any one sector to any other would be the same for all pairs of sectors and would be close to or equal to one.
The fractions of GDP allocated to particular types of output could, of course, vary over time, in accordance with the relative valuations society attaches to particular types of output over time. In other words, the fact that in most industrialized countries health care has absorbed an ever-increasing fraction of GDP while other types of output—for example, agricultural products—have claimed a decreasing share does not by itself imply an excessive allocation of resources to health care.
Exhibit 4 illustrates this point with the changing distribution of personal spending in key sectors of the U.S. economy. 30 In 1970 medical care represented less than one-tenth of U.S. personal consumption spending, the fifth-largest component after food, housing, transportation, and household operation. In that year Americans spent roughly the same portion of their personal consumption on clothing as they did on medical care. Since that time, medical care has been a steadily increasing share of personal consumption. The only other major categories that have grown since 1970 are recreation and personal business (financial services and similar expenses). By 2001 medical care represented 18.2 percent of personal consumption spending and was the largest component. Even so, absolute real spending on every component of personal consumption spending—even food—increased from 1970 to 2001.
The alleged economic burden of health spending.
How serious a problem, if it is one at all, is the inexorable growth of health care as a component of GDP? On this question the responses of policymakers can vary, depending on their political purview. At the local level, policymakers usually give much |
, join Avengers?
I'm an actor and I'm not naturally blond, so I don't tend to think things through clearly. I fell into it. I got a call on a Friday night from Joss saying, "Hey do you want to be the Vision?" I can't explain the amount of luck that went into that. So no I hasn't gone about cornering some market and saying "I gotta get my niche in the superhero market." And frankly for ages, because I understood once you were one character in a Marvel series and you were never another, I kind of let it go. It was cool I'd be JARVIS, do my thing, and get my bag of cash and go. We all had so much fun. I'm eternally grateful.
What do you love about working with Joss?
There's a lot of dancing which goes on on set, which might be the reason he's bust his leg. Never have I been more certain making a movie, except maybe with Peter Weir, that somebody else had a better idea than I did about what I should be doing. It makes you feel very safe to have the ultimate fanboy also your director. He loves it, he loves that world. It's a huge amount of safety, so when he says "I think it should be more like this" you go, "I get it." And even if I don't get it, I believe you much more than I believe me, so let's do it your way. And he's incredibly relaxed and having the time of his life making the film.
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Was more shawarma eaten on set?
Simply can't talk about it.
Can you talk a little bit about what James Spader brings to Ultron?
We have a scene, and it was the first scene we shot together, towards the end of the movie, and it was just... even tough you're talking with these very far-fetched ideas, he found something that was very human about our relationship that was happening between his character and my character. It was really amazing. You look into his eyes, he's there working, it doesn't matter what he was talking about, you believe him. And he believe me. It was a great scene to work on. He was just so present, which is very difficult when you're in a fractal suit. He's got very arresting eyes and you believe everything he says.BTS has been traveling the United States a lot lately, be it for their WINGS tour, the BBMAs, or the AMAs, and each time, they also did a lot of interviews. Like, A LOT of interviews. And aside from interviewers not being able to keep the members apart, people asking for an English album, and “Despacito,” there were things that seemed to happen over and over again. What follows is basically a BTS U.S. interview in a nutshell. Let’s go!
1. The same questions
We’re not trying to drag anyone here, as recurring questions are to a certain degree a common thing in interviews, but the boys’ reactions to questions like “Who is your Hollywood celebrity crush?” and “What American artist do you wanna collaborate with?” have gotten too funny to not talk about. And honestly, no one can blame them. There’s been Namjoon hesitating a millisecond where he ponders if he really wants to translate the question yet again, Suga looking mad for some reason, and JK seeing RM’s expression and not being able to hide the fun he’s having. Over the last few months, some questions just went from being interesting to prompting a hilarious spectacle of awkwardness.
2. Interviewers trying to talk about girls and hilariously failing
When the interviewer tries to steer the conversation towards dating topics, the boys tense up for a second and then successfully avoid the whole issue, be it Suga explaining that there’s no time anyway, Jin saying he has no thoughts on it, or Tae finally putting his foot down once and for all, declaring that no, they did “not” ever get involved with an A.R.M.Y. Seeing them deflect those questions, it almost seems as if they were… bulletproof. (Sorry.)
3. Interviewers or crew being very relatable
In most cases, fans’ opinions on the interviewers range from “I probably could’ve done that better” to “Oh my god, same!” Sisanie, co-host of “On Air with Ryan Seacrest,” clearly is an example for the latter, reacting to Jin throwing kisses with a very accurate verbalization of our thoughts, giggling “Oh cute!” Also very relatable: the cast of The Morning Mess just going crazy with the boys in their short interview. And of course the usual, people not being able to hide their reactions like interviewers staring at the members for too long or the crew giggling behind the camera.
4. BTS declaring their love for A.R.M.Y
There are things in interviews that get old after some time, but one thing that surely never will is BTS showing their true colors and taking every chance they get to tell their fans how much they mean to them. When asked if they ever got hurt by fans, RM hilariously made very clear that he only gets hurt because he hurts himself. The boys kept on repeating that they never expected to see so many fans and that fanchants are the greatest thing A.R.M.Y does for them. And if that didn’t melt your heart yet: in a V Live after the AMA performance, Suga came forward and said the fanchants basically healed his nervousness before going on stage. As much as fans adore BTS, it seems the boys always make sure to give something back.
5. RM talks
The most obvious and important thing about Nams in these interviews is the fact that he’s translating to the members, translating back for the interviewer, and in addition to that still giving the smartest, most eloquent answers. One of the best examples is the really deep interview with Zach Sang, who asked intriguing questions, making RM actually thank him several times. Besides being the best leader BTS could ever wish for and translating like a professional, RM does find time to include just the right amount of jokes and sometimes even juicy clap backs, such as: “Will we produce [a] whole album in English? That’s the question?” Oh the saltiness.
6. Jin is handsome
The one thing Jin got asked about the most is certainly his looks, specifically about the “Third Guy From The Left” and “Worldwide Handsome” hype. It wouldn’t be Jin if he didn’t pick up on that, so of course on he goes, throwing kisses, looking amazing, and just “Worldwide Handsome”-ing away. The only questionable thing might be the ominous $400 ring, but hey, after working so hard, he deserves any expensive ring he wants.
7. Suga has mysterious English skills
It might just be Yoongi’s resting face, but we just love his expression during most of the interviews, listening intently to Nams translating away, or is he? He seems to understand a lot before the translation. The moment RM explained how the members can’t speak English, Suga decided to answer his calling and compliment the interviewer in pretty decent English. Priceless. By now there’s actually a full-blown conspiracy that he’s secretly fluent in English.
8. J-Hope being a pretty bundle of sunshine
The obvious thing Hobi does in interviews with U.S. media, besides being a ball of very energetic sunshine, is teaching people how to dance. While he of course always does his best, this situation gets more or less ridiculous depending on the dancing skills of the interviewer. But the undoubtedly hilarious thing Hobi does in interviews in the U.S. is being an incredibly relatable sassy version of himself without even saying a word. His expression just says it all. Also, we hope he got rich from advertising Stars and Stripes fidget spinners.
9. The two faces of Christian Chimchim
In the latest interviews, Jimin was going back and forth between being a player and being the shyest fluff. Sometimes it only felt like seconds between him teaching the 3:33 part of “Fire,” flirting with the camera, or joking around, and suddenly being shy, smiling away, and hiding his face. We couldn’t decide for our lives which one we liked better. Good thing we don’t have to because both extremes and everything in between is what makes Chim so precious.
10. V, language master
All of the members obviously improved their English skills, but Tae certainly takes it to the next level. RM’s teaching really seems to have paid off. Highlights of Tae’s English being “I’m proud of you” and his in-depth knowledge of the word “no” or it’s derivatives when they’re compared to The Beatles or confronted with dating questions. Another language Tae is obviously no stranger to is being a meme. Chin selfie? Sipping tea? Seems like when it comes to meme-ing, Tae can be the teacher for once.
11. You know nothing, Justin Seagull
Aka. Jungkook, aka. “I know her face but I don’t know her name.” Avoiding the question “Who is your favorite Hollywood celebrity crush?” might be a smart move, seeing as everyone knows our Kookie has only one single celebrity crush. He’s answered this question with the same name since debut: the one and only IU.
All jokes aside, the most important thing about those interviews is the reason why they do it, which is their love for the fans. They do it for A.R.M.Y, be it newcomers or fans that have been around since BTS’s debut. And even if the interviewers’ questions might be questionable at times, as long as it ends with everyone having a laugh (or a hilarious crack video being produced) it’s kind of a win-win situation.
Did you enjoy BTS’s interviews in the U.S.? What was your favorite situation? Tell us in the comments!
daisygonzo has several celebrity crushes and she actually knows their names. These seven guys are definitely some of them. She’s from the exotic, foreign lands of Europe, where no one ever goes to perform concerts. Looking at no one in particular. See her Instagram for more.Britain's Secretary of State for International Trade Liam Fox gestures as he leaves 10 Downing Street, London, January 17, 2017. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain expects to be able to adopt the European Union’s free trade agreements (FTA) with around 40 countries after it leaves the bloc rather than negotiate new deals, trade minister Liam Fox said on Wednesday.
Fox said the agreements were not all of equal value and Britain would prioritize the EU-Korea and EU-Switzerland deals as they accounted for about 80 percent of the trade by value.
“We see it as simply being transitions,” he told a committee of lawmakers.
“We have made it very clear to countries that we would like to see a transition of their agreements to a UK agreement when we leave the EU. So far we have not yet had a country that didn’t want to do that. That is a lot easier as a process than negotiating a new FTA.”In the opening gallery he does parlor tricks with his facial hair, shaping his mustache into a paint brush, bull’s horns and a dollar sign. The second gallery is devoted to his exuberant collaborations with the photographer Philippe Halsman. Dalí glowers at a rhinoceros; he leaps into the air amid a swath of flung cats and water. He paints a Medusa’s head on Gala’s forehead, and apes Velázquez’s painting “Las Meninas” against a woozy backdrop of gingham.
Further on, a typical exhibition documentary plays opposite a wall checkered with photographs of Dalí hanging out at Max’s Kansas City and admiring quotations from Alfred Hitchcock, Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons. Elsewhere Dalí appears in a television studio in 1960, lecturing and sketching on a blackboard and then, in a manner reminiscent of Yves Klein, orchestrating a Happening while Halsman adeptly serves as interviewer-straight man. Abstract Expressionism, abstract painting in general and the work of Mondrian in particular are extensively dissed throughout.
Then, suddenly, there’s something surprising: Dalí mentions his belief in the power of “strictly visual communication.” Strange words from a man who manipulated every aspect of his life and person to get attention. But the paintings bear him out. Each one is a furious little world — or a quite large one — unto itself, a visual rabbit hole of recognizable forms, motifs and symbols, from the structure of the atom to the Madonna and Child.
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Once the art takes over, this is a terrific, even shattering show. Organized by the Dalí expert Elliott H. King, it includes works from foreign museums that have not been seen in the United States for more than 50 years, as well as generous loans from the intrepid Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Fla.
At the exhibition’s center is an artist who spent most of his life dissecting and diversifying the almost freakish skill that first earned him his reputation as a painter, while also making prints, designing jewelry and even dabbling in holograms. He was motivated by many things: religious faith, love of the old masters, a striking interest in science and his passion for the austere landscape and shorelines of his beloved Catalonia. And always there was the desperate, desperate desire to be current, to be part of his own time and in step with or preferably a bit ahead of its art — and, of course, to best the competition. One of the earliest late Dalís here is “Debris of an Automobile Giving Birth to a Blind Horse Biting a Telephone” from 1938, a lush, witty riposte to Picasso’s “Guernica,” as well as a technical tour de force of scratching and rubbing through black paint laid over white.
Dalí mixed these motivations in different ratios from painting to painting. In works like “Christ of St. John of the Cross” (1951), for example, a very now crucifixion image, he comes close to being a modern Renaissance painter, with faith his chief subject. An astute balance of showmanship and restraint, this work seems to present a God’s-eye view, eerily evoking years before fact the famous “Earthrise” photograph taken during the 1968 Apollo 8 mission. The painting may show the cross ascending to heaven, with its occupant shedding his suffering as it goes. In any event, he is a healthy young man, with rippling muscles free of cuts and bruises and short wavy brown hair free of thorny crown. His face, while not visible, is surely movie-star handsome.
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In this work Dalí takes Renaissance perspective to new heights of strangeness; in others he attempts to reconcile religious belief with new threats to it, including the discovery of the atom and the God-like power of the atomic bomb. In “Madonna of Port Lligat” (1950), in which Gala is cast as the Virgin, everything is in suspension, like the floating atoms that make up matter, and both mother and child are rendered transparent by squares cut in their torsos. Before them on a dark, low altar widely spaced objects that can be read symbolically — a folded cloth, a shell, a fish, a bowl — form a still life out of Zurbarán.
You learn in this show that, jokes aside, little is actually superfluous. Dalí’s face-off with the rhinoceros, for example, is given weight by the frequent appearances of rhinoceros horns in paintings and drawings. Often they swirl and coalesce like oddly shaped atoms into the silhouettes of figures or heads, as in “The Maximum Speed of Raphael’s Madonna” (1954). Dalí was drawn to the horn because its growth patterns adhere to a mathematical formula — the Fibonacci series that would later attract Mario Merz and Donald Judd.
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Dalí’s anticipation of Pop, Neo-Expressionism and even photo appropriation in paintings like the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 1958 “Sistine Madonna” — which makes you think of both Roy Lichtenstein and Sigmar Polke — is well known. This show elucidates his constant dialogue with the loose, gestural brushwork of Abstract Expressionism, which in Dalí’s hands is often a kind of refined calligraphy usually executed in shades of white and gray. In “Saint Surrounded by Three Pi-Mesons” (1956) the suspended notational brushwork brings to mind Mark Tobey. In the gray, cloudy, “Portrait of Juan de Pareja, Assistant to Velázquez” (1960), which is full of delicate rivulets of thin paint, the competition may be Yves Tanguy, whose refined Surrealism was influenced by Dalí.
Dalí’s desperation may be at its feverish best in his paint surfaces. Born with a Renaissance touch, he never stopped trying out different ways of manipulating his materials. On one wall you find the grisaille “Beatrice,” a cloud, really, of grisaille textures that suggests the ghost of a gown on the ghost of a woman, and a colorful tour de force of Surrealist nastiness that sums up Dalí’s early work, painted in the same two-year span (1958-60). This is “Dionysus Spitting the Complete Image of Cadaqués on the Tip of the Tongue of a Three-Storied Gaudian Woman.” Look closely: it is all there.
Is late Dalí better than the early shining prodigy? This exhibition suggests that this comparison is almost apples and oranges. The point may be that although many artists produce great and historically important works while young, in modern times at least they don’t really know themselves, or art (which may be the same thing), until they are much older.
Had Dalí died in 1938, he would have had a very nice, neat, narrow niche in the history of art. By living and working as long as he did — he stopped painting in 1983 and died six years later — he left a legacy that is incalculably richer, psychologically and artistically, and much more instructive.
It is sad that this show will not travel and tantalizing to imagine its repercussions in big, artist-dense cities like New York or Los Angeles. It is well worth the trip to Atlanta.A special edition set of Star Wars stamps is being released to mark the latest film in the sci-fi franchise.
The set of eight are illustrated by artist Malcolm Tween and are available to buy ahead of The Last Jedi, which is out in cinemas in December.
Royal Mail says they'll feature images of new and classic characters with spaceships from the films.
Maz Kanata, Chewbacca, Supreme Leader Snoke, R2-D2 and C-3PO are among those who'll appear on the stamps.
Four of them will have details in fluorescent ink which will only be visible under a UV light.
The stamps will be on sale from 12 October.
Royal Mail issued a previous set in 2015 to mark the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
The Last Jedi will see one of Carrie Fisher's final onscreen performances after the actress died last year.
Co-star John Boyega, who plays Finn, says they've given her an "amazing" send-off.
"She is still kept alive in this franchise and that's the beauty of it - she lives forever in a sense."
Meanwhile, speaking to the Associated Press, Mark Hamill has explained what his role will be in the new film.
"Luke changed, I think, more than the other characters in the original trilogy, from callow farm boy to a Jedi in training to finally a Jedi master," he says.
"What you're talking about is what really fascinated me. Between Return of the Jedi and Force Awakens, there's just decades of history that's unknown.
"It's not about Luke any more, so it's not really important. But I had to make sense of it for myself. What [director] Rian [Johnson] came up with, I was stunned."
The UK's favourite toys from the past 100 years were being celebrated in a set of stamps last month.
If you didn't know, the price of a first class stamp is 65p and second class one costs 56p.
Find us on Instagram at BBCNewsbeat and follow us on Snapchat, search for bbc_newsbeatBrowse > Home Mass / Creepy Clown Masses On The Rise
Creepy Clown Masses On The Rise
Reports out of Cincinnati, Ohio today suggest sightings of Creepy Clown Masses are on the rise nationwide, and at levels not seen since the introduction of the 3rd typical edition of the Roman Missal five years ago.
While anecdotes abounded in the 1990’s, most Catholics had never seen a Creepy Clown Mass themselves until recently.
“I was ascending the side altar for my morning Latin Mass when I suddenly heard a calliope playing ‘All Are Welcome’ for a procession of creepy clowns in the nave,” said Monsignor Adrian Fitch. “They wouldn’t leave until I let them present the gifts. Another time I felt this hand on my shoulder and, at first, I thought it was just crazy ol’ Sister Ann [Provincial of the Congregation of Pant-Suited Pantomimes] extending her hand again for the Consecration, but nope, it was a freakin’ creepy clown with a chalice in one hand and a machete in the other.”
While some are calling the phenomenon a natural response to calls for more inclusive and diverse faith communities, others are calling it a publicity stunt for the upcoming Vigil of All Saints Day. A growing minority, however, are attributing it to the circus atmosphere of the current Pontificate.PUYALLUP, Wash. -- Fire investigators have determined a brush fire that eventually spread to a Puyallup storage facility on Friday was caused by someone tossing a hand-rolled cigarette.The fire broke out in the brush around 2 p.m. Friday near SR-512 and Canyon Road. Moments later, Air 4 showed thick smoke coming and flames up from one of the buildings at the nearby Public Storage business.One entire building, which housed 120 storage units, was completely destroyed, while some units in adjacent buildings suffered smoke and water damage. In addition, a neighboring apartment building suffered heat damage to some of its siding."Building burned because no defendable space," Central Pierce Fire Tweeted. "The trees were flush with the building. 30 ft needed around structures."No one was hurt.An Arizona couple says they lost nearly everything in the fire. They're now trying to get back to Washington to salvage anything they can."We thought there would be something left, not see the whole entire thing burn to the ground," said Joseph Name.Name and his wife Ashley moved to Arizona with their three kids in late March to be closer to his family shortly after his dad's death, he said.The couple only brought a few essentials with them to Arizona. Everything else was loaded up into a back storage unit, including baby photos, books, and furniture that was handed down from her grandmother."Just hoping that we'd be able to come back and get everything when the time came. And the time never came," Name said.Name said they had insurance, but it won't cover everything that was lost.Money is a struggle, too, he said. So, they're now asking for help to get back to Washington to assess the damage and file a claim, he added."We're coming up in the hopes that we can, you know, dig through maybe find something that survived. Even if it's just a picture. Just something," said Name.If you'd like to help the couple, you can make a donation here on their GoFundMe siteUnited Nations officials joined a leading relief agency on Thursday in exhorting European leaders to improve their planned response to the Mediterranean migration crisis and address root causes of the surge of people risking death at sea to reach Europe.
“A tragedy of epic proportions is unfolding in the Mediterranean,” they said in a statement released in Geneva, as European ministers prepared to hold an emergency meeting on the crisis in Brussels.
“The European Union response needs to go beyond the present minimalist approach in the 10 Point Plan on Migration.” The European ministers agreed to that plan on Monday.
The statement was issued by António Guterres, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees; Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, its high commissioner for human rights; Peter Sutherland, its special representative for international migration and development; and William L. Swing, director general of the International Organization for Migration, a 157-member intergovernmental group based in Geneva.
Their plea reflected what one United Nations official called an attempt to influence a debate that appeared to be driven by short-term political expediency at the expense of humanitarian principles.
A European 10-point plan outlined at the start of the week called for enhanced search and rescue efforts in the Mediterranean, but put the emphasis on border protection and action against traffickers rather than addressing the causes of the crisis or the plight of migrants.
{snip}
“The worry clearly is that the European response doesn’t look as if it will be sufficient by a long way and we will see more deaths,” said a United Nations official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment. “If you think you can close the gates to people fleeing war and repression, then you are clinging to a fantasy.”
More than 219,000 people crossed the Mediterranean seeking entry to Europe in 2014, a record. {snip}
{snip}
The U.N. statement on Thursday called on Europe to begin a “robust, proactive and well-resourced” search and rescue mission in the Mediterranean, to create channels for safe and regular migration and to make a firm commitment to take in significantly higher numbers of refugees.
{snip}
Original Article
Share ThisONE of the things I admire about Jonathan Bernstein's blogging on the political science of the presidential race is the determinative role he grants to media treatment of the candidates. Not because, as a member of the media, I like to feel important; if anything reporters and commentators usually like to pretend they play as small a role as possible in influencing the public's choices. Rather, it's because the analysis strips away the fiction that the media are a neutral communications channel between candidates and voters, and turns attention towards the real influence that the media's natural biases—the bias towards surprise, the bias towards cliched sentimental background stories, the bias against sophistication or complexity, etc—exercise on campaigns. This years Republican primaries have provided an excellent illustration of the power of a theory of presidential campaigns that grants media narratives a central role, because only such a theory can explain the apparently crazy swings in support we've seen amongst all the candidates except Mitt Romney.
Here's how Mr Bernstein describes what's at stake in Iowa.
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Perhaps the most important point of all: It probably doesn't matter what order the top three finish in, as long as Romney, Paul, and Santorum occupy the top three spots. The biggest consequence will be that the other three campaigns will be almost certainly irreparably damaged... As for the top three, what matters isn't the results in Iowa, but how those results are spun and how they affect the coming states. Three things produce post-Iowa spin: the raw difference between expectations, generally determined by polling, and actual results; how party actors react; and media biases. The first, the expectations game, will favor Santorum, since just a week ago he was still in a jumble for fourth place. Media biases that matter favor new things, unexpected things, and keeping the contest alive for as long as possible; all of those will tend to help Santorum. Another dynamic to watch: Will Santorum's surge persuade undecided conservatives to rally around him? If so, a strong pro-Santorum spin would lead to a big bounce in New Hampshire and make him competitive in South Carolina and perhaps beyond.
The critical issue, in this account, is the directionality of the storyline taking shape in the media. Media bias towards the unexpected plays a crucial role. Things that don't play a major role in this account include candidates' stances on issues, longstanding popularity of certain candidates with particular constituencies, or even the strength of candidates' efforts to sell themselves to constituents via advertising, organisation, and so forth.
Obviously, what Mr Bernstein is talking about here is the discrete effect of the Iowa caucuses on the campaign. Candidates' positioning on issues, organisational efforts, advertising and so forth may have been significant earlier in the campaign and may resume playing a role later, once the field is winnowed down. But if you take this view, the effects of the Iowa caucus, or rather how it is spun, will dwarf any such factors; and the spin will dwarf the actual results themselves. This view comports with Nate Silver's astute remarks just before Mr Santorum began his recent surge in Iowa:
This is also a case in which the polling may actually influence voter behavior. In particular, if one of these candidates does well in the highly influential Des Moines Register poll that should be published on New Year's Eve or thereabouts, that candidate might be a pretty good bet to overperform polling as voters use that as a cue on caucus night to determine which one is most viable. I'd also pay a lot of attention to the press coverage for each candidate. Right now, for instance, there seem to be a fair number of stories about Mr. Santorum, which suggests that it is his turn to “surge” in the polls.
Overall, this emphasis on the storytelling aspect of the campaign, and on the snowballing effects of rising popularity due to positive media coverage because your popularity is rising (or the converse, on the way down) seems to me to be the only theory of the primaries compatible with a year of polls that look like this:
The media has always had an interest in shaping the story of the campaign to produce an interesting horse-race narrative. But this year's primaries seem notable for how little has stood in the way of this effort. There seems to be no fundamental constituent attachment to any candidate other than establishment favourite Mr Romney and cult-hero Mr Paul. It's a weak field, and to some extent things are always like this during the primaries. But it is striking how the evolution in sympathies resembles the narrative arc of a season of an hour-format TV drama or reality show, where writers and producers are deliberately tweaking developments to sustain audience tension. Those wild swings in voter preference are clearly predicated on weak initial attachments to the candidates. But I think they also reflect the news-media industry's increasing competence at performing its core revenue-generating function of holding public attention by creating campaign narratives with frequent twists and turns and shifting audience perspective and empathy.
(Photo credit: AFP)VICTORIA, B.C. - Andrew Weaver, leader of the B.C. Green caucus, congratulated Premier John Horgan and his Cabinet on their swearing-in. Weaver attended the swearing-in ceremony at Government House in Victoria.
“I extend my sincerest congratulations to Premier Horgan and his new cabinet,” Weaver said.
“This minority government is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to do politics differently in British Columbia. We have an historic opportunity to put partisan politics aside and work together across party lines to advance good public policy that is in the best interests of British Columbians.
“For far too long, the B.C. Legislature has been mired in a combative, hyper-partisan status quo. The new government’s challenge will be to not just talk about doing things differently, but to actually put the good of British Columbians ahead of political calculation.
“As an opposition caucus, the B.C. Greens look forward to working with our colleagues on both sides of the house to advance solutions to the challenges facing our province.”
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Media contact
Jillian Oliver, Press Secretary
+1 778-650-0597 | newsroom@bcgreens.caIt's nice to know that the ancient mathematicians of India were able to come up with a divisibility test for all divisors, but the method they published way back then can be somewhat simplified. Also, wouldn't it be nice to know why it works?
Reduction to Prime Powers
To test for divisibility by any number that's the product of multiple different prime powers, you can just perform the divisibility rule for each prime power, and divisibility by their product will be established if all these succeed. So, for instance, a number is divisible by 6 if the divisibility checks for 2 and 3 both succeed.
So, we just need a way to generate rules for any prime power. To decide which method to use to generate a rule, we need only look at the remainder of the divisor when it is divided by 10, which is to say, its last digit.
Powers of Two and Five
Since 2 and 5 are both 0 (mod 10), they have special rules. Namely, that a number is divisible by 2^k or 5^k if the last k digits, taken as a number, are divisible by 2^k or 5^k. This follows from the fact that 10^k is always divisible by both 2^k and 5^k.
Prime Powers Ending in 1, 3, 7, and 9
All the rest of the residuals mod 10 (namely, 1, 3, 7, and 9) are relatively prime to 10, which means that we can divide the number we're testing by 10 without revoking its divisibility by whichever prime power we're interested in; if it was divisible by 17 before, it will still be divisible by 17 after we divide it by 10.
Which means we can just divide by 10 repeatedly until we get a number that's small enough we can check its divisibility at a glance! And dividing by ten is just as simple as chopping zeroes off the end of the number, so we don't even have to do any real math!
If only things were that easy, right? Unfortunately, the number we're testing might not be divisible by 10, which means no zero on the end to chop off. So how can we get a number that is divisible by 10? We can just subtract off the last digit, and we'll get a number that's divisible by 10! But...(of course there's a but...) subtracting an arbitrary number off the number WILL change the modulus; it might not be divisible by 17 after, even if it was before.
The Osculator (Explained)
All is not lost, though! If we can figure out exactly how subtracting off that number changes the modulus and do something which undoes that change immediately while still leaving us with a number that is a multiple of 10, we can continue with our digit-chopping program with no problems.
So here's the plan: We'll multiply the digit we're subtracting off by some multiple of 10 so that the result will have a modulus exactly equal to the modulus we're subtracting off, and add this new number to the multiple of 10 we got from subtracting the digit off. The result will be a multiple of 10 also (as it is a sum of multiples of 10), yet it will be divisible by n if (and only if) the original number was divisible by n, because the changes in modulus in the subtraction and the addition exactly cancel each other.
For instance, we want to test the number 3094 for divisibility by 27. We need to make 3094 into a multiple of 10, so we subtract four from it, yielding 3090. This reduces its remainder mod 27 by four, so we multiply the four we removed by -80, yielding -320, which is equal to -12*27+4. In other words, it's congruent to 4 (mod 27), which means if we add it on, we'll be increasing the remainder mod 27 by four. This exactly offsets the subtraction by four we did in the previous step. The result of the sum is 2770, which is a multiple of 10, and is a multiple of 27 if and only if 3094 was. Now, we can divide it by 10 to get the number 277. We can tell at a glance that this number is not divisible by 27 (because it is 7 more than 27*10), so we are done; 3094 is not divisible by 27.
So, the only question that remains is this: How do we know which number to multiply by in that second step? How did I know to pick -8?
Picking the Osculator
Let's go back and look at the residuals we don't yet know how to handle: 1,3,7, and 9. Since these numbers are relatively prime to 10, some multiple of each will yield a number which is 1 or -1 (mod 10). These are the easiest remainders to work with, and let us generate rules with ease. Why? Because, when considered mod any number that is 1 or -1 mod 10, multiplying by 10 is like multiplying by 1 or -1 respectively. Which is to say, in the former case, multiplying by 10 does not change its remainder, while in the latter case, it just swaps its sign.
As an example, let's let our modulus be 9. Since 10 is 1 (mod 9) multiplying by 10 is like multiplying by 1 (mod 9). For instance: 1 is 1 (mod 9). 10 is 1 (mod 9). 100 is 1 (mod 9) (=9*11+1). 1000 is 1 (mod 9) (=9*111+1).
Or as another example, let's let our modulus be 11. Since 10 is -1 (mod 11), multiplying by 10 is like multiplying by -1 (mod 11). For instance: 1 is 1 (mod 11). 10 is -1 (mod 11). 100 is 1 (mod 11) (=9*11+1). 1000 is -1 (mod 11) (=91*11-1).
So, remember what the second step was in the test-number-shortening process? Multiply the removed digit by a multiple of 10 that results in a number with the same exact same modulus as the digit removed. If we had a multiple of 10 that was known to be congruent to 1 (mod n), |
photos of captured regime tunnels (Figures 76 and 77) and more regime losses (Figure 78).
April 11, 2017
BM claims to capture the “15 Block” residential block and destroy a tank and kill three, including two Lieutenants (Figure 79).
Pause
Attack
April 14, 2017
After a brief pause in fighting, BM launches an 11-day offensive and reports eight pro-regime deaths (Figure 80), including the three men killed on April 11 and the destruction of a 23mm cannon. After a fourth explosive attack – this time with an explosive hose (Figures 81 and 82) – the rebels finally capture the Mauwiya School Checkpoint (Figure 83). The last major regime defenses in Manshiyah collapse under this final assault, as rebels capture the ‘Aqba Bin Nafa’ Mosque (Figure 84) in northwestern Manshiyah (Figure 85) as well as two headquarters belonging to Colonel Firas and Colonel Talal.
April 15, 2017
BM publishes a new map (Figure 86) showing near complete control over Manshiyah and reports nine more regime deaths on April 15 (Figure 87) and nine deaths on April 16 (Figure 88). Reported regime losses during the latest wave of attacks have increasingly come from coastal fighters, indicating the demographic shift that the regime garrison in the city has undergone since the start of the rebel offensive.
April 17, 2017
Rebels launch an Omar missile on a regime staging ground in the Sajnah District of Daraa (Figure 89). A picture of the aftermath appears to show several damaged vehicles (Figure 90).
April 19, 2017
BM publishes a picture of an explosive hose attack on the Salkhadi Block (Figure 91), just east of the Engineering School along the border of Manshiyah and Sajnah (Figure 92), and claims to destroy a tank. The following day, rebels release pictures of the destroyed checkpoint (Figure 93) and a list of 11 killed regime fighters (Figure 94).
April 22, 2017
BM releases a new infographic detailing all regime losses since February 12 (Figure 95), claiming to have destroyed eight tanks, seven Shilkas, and killing 155 Syrian fighters.
April 23, 2017
After advancing to the Salkhadi Block, rebel forces spend the ensuing days targeting regime positions in the north-east corner of the neighborhood with SPG-9s, at least one TOW, and another explosive hose. On April 23, BM publishes photos of a destroyed regime ATGM position (Figures 96 and 97).
April 25, 2017
BM releases a statement and photo report on their activities since April 23, claiming to have detonated another explosive hose just north of the Salkhadi Block (Figures 98 and 99), destroyed a 23mm cannon with an SPG-9 (Figures 100 and 101), and destroyed a Shilka with a TOW (no pictures provided). The following day, BM releases the names of 28 killed regime fighters (Figures 102 and 103).
Pause
May 5, 2017
On May 5 a ceasefire, brokered by Russia, comes into effect in four regions of Syria, including Dara’a.
Counter-Attack
May 17, 2017
Twelve days after the southern de-escalation zone is established, fighting breaks out in Manshiyah. Pro-regime media reports a failed rebel offensive in which two HTS and one FSA Saif al Haq commanders are killed, “Bilal Abu Zaid and Abu Hashem al-Tabuki (a Saudi national) of HTS, as well as Moetaz al-Nabwani.” BM claims that the regime attempted to regain lost positions under the cover of heavy shelling, calling the attack “a major breach of the agreement to ease the escalation” in the city. The Carter Center claims that regime forces failed to advance in the district.
May 22, 2017
After five days of clashes, BM releases another statement and photo report claiming to have repelled an intense regime attack in north-east Manshiyah. BM publishes photos of a destroyed BVP-1 AMB-S (Figures 104 and 105), the destruction of a regime ammo depot (Figure 106), and a damaged tank (Figure 108 and 109), along with the names of 11 killed regime fighters (Figure 107). The vehicles and ammo depot were all destroyed in the Sajnah District, which by now has become the regime’s only staging area for attacks on Manshiyah. However, the main staging point in Sajnah is separated from Manshiyah by more than 500 meters of open roads, with a clear line of sight to rebel positions in the north-west corner of Dara’a al-Balad.
May 24, 2017
BM releases its final map (Figure 110) showing the newly captured north-east corner of Manshiyah and only a small regime pocket in an open area in the north-west of the neighborhood.
Pause
Counter-Attack
June 2, 2017
The regime launches a new offensive on multiple axes. Fierce clashes occur along the Manshiyah-Sajnah border and throughout the Palestinian Camp north of Dara’a al-Balad. Frontlines remain unmoved by the end of June and a ceasefire settles over the city.
Conclusion
The rebel victory in Manshiyah and subsequent government counter offensive proved a decisive blow against the government in the south. Overstretched and preoccupied with higher priority fronts, Damascus cannot afford to devote the necessary resources to succeed on this front. It’s defense against the rebel offensive increasingly relied on foreign fighters, while its failed June offensive not only required the relocation of Damascus-based armored units but a further commitment from Hezbollah, which itself endured heavy losses.
The formation of al Bunyan al Marsous was the result of a fractured Southern Front following the coalition’s failures in 2016. However, BM’s success both in unity and on the battlefield appears to have inspired greater unity across Dara’a and Quneitra. As the government counter offensive began in June, several mergers and coalitions formed across the Dara’a countryside as the milieu of FSA groups came together to successfully defend their positions. In July, the Jaish Muhammad operations room formed in Quneitra. Although dominated by Jabhat al-Nusra, JM mirrored BM’s style and practices: media updates on the battle’s progress were tightly controlled, and the few infographics that were released loosely resembled those of BM.
Since calm has returned to Dara’a, more mergers have taken place. By July 30, as many as 57 factions had joined the newly formed National Front for the Liberation of Syria. It is entirely likely that BM’s successes have reignited the southern forces’ morale and helped ease tensions between independent groups and those who were previously closely aligned to the US-led Military Operations Center. This unity has enabled the southern forces to sideline HTS’s ambitions and will prove a renewed challenge for Damascus. Of more immediate importance, however, are the implications of the poor performance pro-government forces displayed in urban combat both here and in Ayn Terma, Damascus. Although Damascus has finally broken the Islamic State’s siege of Deir Ez Zor, the urban fight to liberate the city itself will surely prove tougher than either previously mentioned front. If the costs of liberating Mosul and Raqqa – and the failures in Dara’a and Ayn Terma – are any indication, Damascus risks unsustainable losses in its fight for the city.A Scarlet Witch Scene in Avengers: Age of Ultron Was Originally Meant for Captain Marvel
Thanos is the good 'Who's that,' because he's clearly a bad guy, for comic fans he represents a specific storyline, you can get the buzz started from fans to non-fans with that cameo - as opposed to a title character, who deserves their own story. Even Black Widow you don't meet in the last two seconds of Iron Man 2 wearing her costume - you evolve that going forward."
It's all well and good that Feige wants to give Captain Marvel a proper introduction because she's headlining her own movie, but some of his reasoning seems strange. First, the claim that 99% of the audience wouldn't know who she is seems like a huge overestimation, especially considering all the publicity surrounding Marvel's first female superhero movie. And considering how flippant Feige has been in the past about the need for a female superhero movie, that "even Black Widow" comment stings a little.
But in more positive news, Feige's description of Whedon's decision to use the footage for Scarlet Witch had a little piece of MCU news in it:
"Finally Joss was like 'Let's use those plates to let Scarlet Witch fly into frame, give her a big entrance?' And that makes sense - she's come to their side, and she deserves the cool intro, which will feed into another movie we start shooting in a few weeks."
As far as we know, the only film to which he could possibly be referring is Captain America: Civil War. This doesn't come as much of a surprise, since anyone who is familiar with the comics plotline knows that most of the Avengers will probably show up, but it's still pretty exciting.
Avengers: Age of Ultron comes out in theaters on May 1.
Remember all those rumors that Captain Marvel was going to be in Avengers: Age of Ultron? She isn't, as the actress hasn't been cast yet, but those rumors were true in a sense, as Captain Marvel was in an earlier draft of the script. Joss Whedon was so attached to the idea of including her, in fact, that he shot special effects footage specifically for her introduction, which was ultimately used for Scarlet Witch.This is barely even a spoiler, especially since that last TV spot explicitly showed Scarlet Witch becoming an Avenger, but here it is:Marvel president Kevin Feige told Badass Digest "Plate shots" are special effects footage that don't actually require an actor, so essentially, Whedon shot the plates and wanted to cast Captain Marvel before Age of Ultron finished shooting. Then, when that didn't happen, the scene was given to Scarlet Witch.Feige confirmed that Captain Marvel was in an earlier draft of the script, in which she would have been revealed in full costume, much like Scarlet Witch is in the final version:News Splendour In The Grass Lineup Gets Three New Acts Written by Greg Moskovitch on April 28, 2014 Splendour In The Grass organisers have confirmed the addition of three new acts to the 2014 lineup, having only just announced an Outkast-led roster last week. The three new artists are US rapper Childish Gambino, UK singer Sam Smith, and Aussie hip-hop stars Hilltop Hoods. While the festival typically only releases one major lineup announcement, Splendour co-producers Jessica Ducrou and Paul Piticco have explained that “too many cocktails over Easter” saw to it that the three names were not confirmed in time for last Wednesday’s lineup announcement. “Better late than never!” write Ducrou and Piticco. Gambino aka actor and comedian Donald Glover, Disclosure collaborator Sam Smith, and the Aussie hip-hop pioneers will be joining a highly praised Splendour roster that includes the likes of Lily Allen, Interpol, London Grammar, Kelis, and more. Keep up to date with all of the Splendour In The Grass 2014 news at our special Feed! Gallery: Secrets Of The Splendour 2014 Lineup 42b5cdfed2d1a44044aeacee967c03f1 Splendour 2014 is set to feature seven acts from Triple J's most recent Next Crop, with the station naming Splendour acts Cosmo’s Midnight, The Creases, D.D Dumbo, Dustin Tebbutt, The Kite String Tangle, Tkay Maidza, and Wave Racer among the ones to watch in 2014. 95e3e4f31e5dbb8dc5df9c967e33748b This year's lineup also has eight Splendour exclusives -- Outkast, Two Door Cinema Club, Interpol, Darkside, Chvrches, Danny Brown, Buraka Som Sistema, Parquet Courts -- a significant increase from the three organisers secured last year. 49cc8aef87f4e5378374348793835c35 As some on Twitter have noted, the 2014 lineup is a little light in the hip-hop department, with only four acts -- Outkast, Danny Brown, 360, and Illy -- there to sling some rhymes. 15f58929b72130e60241b2f4f9b58578 But there's a very solid contingent for the dance fans among you, including appearances from Nina Las Vegas, KLP, Yacht Club DJs, Touch Sensitive, Yahtzel, L D R U, Indian Summer, Wave Racer, and more. 663c1e4ab2745683b8f7de17f412142c Outkast‘s Splendour performance will be the 22nd show of their reunion tour if you include both Coachella performances. It’ll be the first Australian visit from the pair, who haven’t played live together in eight years, and who’ve previously only graced Australians with individual appearances. 6f5547bf0894bb81dcabab60329fddae The performance will also likely be their last Down Under. The pair have made it clear that their reunion is a 40-date affair to celebrate 20 years of the band. Since their hiatus, each member has regularly quashed rumours of new albums and full-fledged reunions. 9accf5d83f467458535fdb07b173bd75 If you’re wondering why they decided to go with Splendour, a reported seven-figure sum might have something to do with it. Source: News.com.au 7ed8a77ce33d86e54b16f57fa9627801 This year's lineup has quite a few names who visited earlier in the year, with speculation regarding recent visits from Sky Ferreira and Mikhael Paskalev serving as hype-building exercises confirmed after both appeared on this morning's lineup. 32b8c03dba69029fcacfdb6a01384e31 Each had alluded to upcoming Splendour appearances in interviews, with Ferreira claiming she was "definitely" coming for a festival in July (though later backtracking), and Norwegian troubadour Paskalev telling Music Feeds Podcast that he'd be back in the Norwegian summertime. 9b383a5c86a8856010d739cae6a0cd00 Another returning name is bouncy, communal Los Angeles indie outfit Grouplove, and Splendour In The Grass just so happens to be the first festival they ever played! 5c7ba4046d8a2d64718c49cd6725d975 See...? 427fa4a58dd6a87356e75334b093bbe6 Other names that have already played in 2014 include Chvrches, who along with City and Colour have each visited the country three times in the last year! 13ea04194b73e47959822588cd33b876 This year we got a couple of lineup clues from the Splendour In The Grass & Falls Festival Showcase at SXSW, with Skaters and Gossling appearing at Byron Bay this July. 89e87cddfd96457706bcfdea3bcaa184 And as per usual, there's also a few acts that Splendour will be sharing with Japan's Fuji Rock Festival, including Kelis, Foster the People, London Grammar, Darkside, Ásgeir, Parquet Courts, Jungle, and The Strypes. 556db211da1150d9f6b402d15562efa0 Some of the lineup's biggest secrets are the lesser-known acts, like DMA's, who'll be playing alongside a list of industry veterans, having only announced their debut tour last month. SITG is the next step for this young Sydney trio, whom everyone's hailing as the next big thing. ec9a1c8e266e3717479c39ac2a539046 Like DMA's, Kristy Lee Peters aka KLP is another act that's had a hectic few months. The young Sydney-based singer, producer, and DJ first turned heads after winning the Triple J Unearthed Field Day comp, though by then she'd already collaborated with the likes of What So Not and PNAU. Peters was recently announced as the new host of Triple J House party. f77e25d03690e7d37c60d3341fa8a692 As for Yacht Club DJs, while these boys could be considered veterans in their own right, having embarked on multiple tours -- including being handpicked by former Splendour headliner Mumford & Sons for a US run -- and releasing several mixtapes, they've only just unveiled their debut EP. Splendour In The Grass 2014 Lineup Friday Outkast (Exclusive To Splendour)
Interpol (Exclusive To Splendour)
Childish Gambino — NEW ADDITION
Angus & Julia Stone
London Grammar
Vance Joy
Kelis
Hoodoo Gurus
Ásgeir
Spiderbait
Ball Park Music
Buraka Som Sistema (Exclusive To Splendour)
Peking Duk
DZ Deathrays
The Strypes
The Kite String Tangle
The Acid
Saskwatch
The Head And The Heart
DMA’s
Fractures
Darlia
Yacht Club DJ’s
Wordlife
Indian Summer
Kilter
Charles Murdoch
Tkay Maidza Saturday Two Door Cinema Club (Exclusive To Splendour)
City And Colour
Rüfüs
Metronomy
The Jezabels
Tune-Yards
Violent Soho
Art Vs Science
The Preatures
Sticky Fingers
Sky Ferriera
Future Islands
Gossling
Hot Dub Time Machine
Ry-X
Wave Racer
Mas Ysa
Circa Waves
Dustin Tebbutt
Little May
Darren Middleton
Motez
Touch Sensitive
Yahtzel DJ’s
Basenji
Fishing DJ’s Sunday Lily Allen
Foster The People
Hilltop Hoods — NEW ADDITION
Darkside (Exclusive To Splendour)
Ben Howard
Chvrches (Exclusive To Splendour)
Grouplove
Wild Beasts
Danny Brown (Exclusive To Splendour)
Illy
First Aid Kit
Sam Smith — NEW ADDITION
Parquet Courts (Exclusive To Splendour)
Courtney Barnett
Phantogram
Skaters
Jungle
Mikhael Paskalev
Buraka Som Sistema (Exclusive To Splendour)
Kingswood
Broods
D.D Dumbo
Nick Mulvey
The Creases
The Wild Feathers
Chrome Sparks
Nina Las Vegas
Sable
Cosmo’s Midnight
KLP
Paces Friday, 25th; Saturday, 26th and Sunday, 27th July
North Byron Parklands, Byron Bay NSW
Tix: Via Moshtix Tickets go on sale 9am AEST on Friday 2 May through Moshtix. Prices are as follows: Three Day Event Tickets – $355 plus booking fees
Single Day Tickets – $149 plus booking fees
Onsite Camping Tickets – $99 plus booking fees
You have the option to offset your carbon emissions for $3 per ticket SHARE TWEETMANHATTAN, Kan. -- Collin Klein and Daniel Thomas ran for two touchdowns apiece and Kansas State intercepted Garrett Gilbert five times en route to a 39-14 victory Saturday night over struggling, mistake-prone Texas.
Thomas ran 34 yards for a touchdown on the second play from scrimmage, and things went downhill from there for the Longhorns (4-5, 2-4 Big 12), who are guaranteed their worst record in Mack Brown's 14 years as coach. The victory made Kansas State (6-3, 3-3) bowl eligible for the first time since 2006.
Klein, a surprise starter at quarterback over Carson Coffman, rushed for 127 yards and scored on runs of 12 and 10 yards.
Gilbert, the 6-foot-4 sophomore who replaced Colt McCoy this season, put more passes in Kansas State hands than did Klein, who was 2 for 4 for 9 yards. Klein's only completions were short tosses to Thomas, who went over the 1,000-yard rushing mark with 106 yards on 18 carries.
Thomas scored on a 9-yard run.
Gilbert was 32 for 59 for 272 yards and one touchdown. His interceptions led to 17 Kansas State points.
Another Kansas State touchdown drive was kept alive by two personal foul penalties against the Longhorns.
Stephen Harrison's interception of a tipped ball set up Josh Cherry's 30-yard field goal. Klein's 10-yard TD run followed Tysyn Hartman's first interception. Hartman's second interception led to Thomas' 9-yard scoring run.
Gilbert's 31-yard run in the fourth quarter set up Cody Johnson's 4-yard TD run, and with 31 seconds remaining, Gilbert tossed a 1-yard scoring pass to Dominique Jones.
Even when Texas did something right, it backfired. After William Powell made it 37-0 with an 8-yard run late in the third, Cherry's extra-point attempt was blocked. So Cherry simply picked up the ball, went to his left and carried it in for a 2-point conversion.
The Longhorns, who played Alabama last season for the national championship, lost for the fifth time in six games and fell below.500 for the first time since losing their 1999 opener. They will have to win their last three games -- home against No. 19 Oklahoma State, Florida Atlantic and Texas A&M -- just to match Brown's lowest victory total since going 7-5 at North Carolina in 1995. Also in jeopardy is Brown's string of taking 18 consecutive teams to a bowl.
At one point, Gilbert threw interceptions on three straight passes. With only seconds to go in the first half, Ty Zimmerman stepped in front of the receiver in the end zone and may have scored if Gilbert hadn't brought him down on the Kansas State 41.
Hartman then intercepted Garrett's first pass of the second half, returning it 34 yards to set up Thomas' 9-yard run.
Next, it was Zimmerman's turn again. He scooped in Garrett's underthrown ball on his next throw.
Personal fouls on Jordan Hicks and Marquise Goodwin kept Kansas State's last TD drive alive. Given a first down on the 28 after Goodwin slammed into punter Ryan Doerr, Powell picked up 20 yards on one carry and then scored from the 8 on the next.Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) are not sexy. Most people have no idea they exist; those that do know that they make the web snappier by replicating content on multiple servers, typically in different locations. Big names in the space include Akamai and Limelight. Some CDNs offer APIs that make common tasks like video streaming easier. Not exactly the sort of thing people talk about around the water cooler.
But CDNs may be about to get a lot more exciting.
Today a startup called 3Crowd is launching a new technology called CrowdCache. The gist of it is pretty straightforward: CrowdCache looks to turn traditional commercial CDNs on their head by letting anyone create a CDN of their own using their own servers and PCs. Or, as founder Barrett Lyon puts it, it’s essentially allowing you to create your own (benevolent) botnet and use it to serve up content on the cheap. And if it works, it could have some major implications.
The problem with current CDNs, Lyon says, is that none of them provide businesses with the software required to run a CDN on their own hardware — you have to pay them and use their infrastructure. 3Crowd is taking a completely different approach: you install a small, free Java client on any hardware you’d like to use as part of your CDN, then manage that hardware using 3Crowd’s web interface, which you can use to create complex rulesets (including load-balancing), keep an eye on stats, and more.
Lyon knows this space — he previously co-founded BitGravity (itself a traditional CDN), which he left in 2009 to start 3Crowd. The company has raised $6.6 million from investors, who include Kevin Rose, Jay Adelson, Canaan Partners, and Storm Ventures.
Initially, 3Crowd is catering primarily to an interesting mix of clients including carriers, hosting companies, businesses and universities. Using the software, Lyon says that a hosting company can now provide a streaming CDN service by simply throwing it on one of their servers (likewise, a customer of a hosting company could throw the software on their own instance and use that as their CDN). Big phone carriers who are frequently serving up content can now act as their own CDNs. And universities can take advantage of their excess bandwidth and use it to help distribute content and software they support.
3Crowd already has some very major clients, though it can’t disclose them yet. And its future plans are even more ambitious.
For the time being Lyon expects most of the CrowdCache Java client installs to come from institutions and companies that are running it on hardware they control. But in the next release (around six months from now), software companies will be able to offer the CrowdCache client to their users, who will be able to allocate some of their excess bandwidth to serving content for that application. This isn’t a new idea — Joost tried something similar to this with its P2P video app — but Lyon says this 3Crowd is using HTTP rather than a proprietary protocol, and it has broader applications.
Even further down the line, all of these CrowdCache client installs could eventually be used to serve content for a variety of websites, applications and services. Users will be able to sell their excess bandwidth, creating a federated CDN that could totally reinvent how content is distributed and lower bandwidth prices significantly.
But that’s still a ways off. For the time being 3Crowd is still in Phase One, and it seems to be going very well for them. The company makes money based on how many requests a client uses (you can see a breakdown here), and there’s a free package for ‘Garage Startups’ just getting off the ground.
CrowdCache is actually the second product 3Crowd has launched — it previously released CrowdDirector, a load-balancing service that can be used to manage content across more traditional CDNs.It's been almost two years since Vontaze Burfict laid out Antonio Brown in a playoff game that left Brown concussed.
This is just brutal pic.twitter.com/hBsIAJIBwO — The Cauldron (@TheCauldron) January 10, 2016
That hit was one of the reasons Burfict was suspended for the first three games of the 2016 season but the Bengals linebacker remains convinced that Brown wasn't really injured on the play. "He faked that," Burfict recently told ESPN The Magazine's Dotun Akintoye.
"I feel like [Brown] he looked at me," Burfict continued. "The ball tipped off his hands and he kind of put his head towards my area, and I tried to fade off of him at the last second, but he initially tried to make contact because he knew he could get the flag. And just the way he went down, it was just like -- I don't know man."
Burfict isn't the only Bengals defender who questioned Brown. Days after the hit, cornerback Adam Jones was convinced that Brown flopped. He told Brandon Marshall that Brown winked at him, adding, "Did you see him smile when he walked off the field? Go back and look at the film.... I said, 'AB, you all right?' Now if you're knocked out, you think you're going to be able to wink and think about all that at the same time."
Jones later apologized when Brown was ruled out of the Steelers' next playoff game with a concussion. Weeks later, Brown remained critical of Burfict's hit.
"When you hit a guy after the play, a defenseless guy in the helmet," Brown said, "there are a lot of things that aren't right about that."
But during that offseason, Brown said he bumped into Burfict and the Bengals linebacker apologized.
"[He was] just saying he didn't have no intentions of trying to injure, that it was a football move," Brown told ESPN.com in December 2016.
All that good will again goes out the window because the Bengals host the Steelers on Monday night. For Pittsburgh, it's a chance to move to 10-2 and remain the No. 1 seed in the AFC. For Cincy, it could be the last best chance to make a playoff run. As it stands, the Bengals are currently 10th in the conference, behind three teams (the Chargers, Bills and Raiders) for the final playoff spot, currently occupied by the Bengals.
When the Bengals and Steelers met earlier this season, Burfict appeared to kick Steelers fullback Roosevelt Nix.
Vontaze Burfict refused to shake the Steelers’ hands during coin toss and then tried to kick them. pic.twitter.com/a8qoqf4Mzu — Jordan Heck (@JordanHeckFF) October 22, 2017
He wasn't flagged or fined but it certainly didn't go unnoticed in Pittsburgh's locker room.
"He's doing dirty s--- every week," Steelers linebacker Ryan Shazier said, via ESPN.com. "You're going to kick someone in the face? He's doing dirty s---. I'm not worried about him, man."Editor's Note: With Donald Trump's campaign promises becoming reality via a series of executive actions, undocumented immigrants in the US face the greatest uncertainty they have in decades. We thought it timely to take a look back at this 2015 interview with an undocumented Irishman living in the Chicago suburbs. It offers a glimpse into the lives of an everyday man who's been in the US for decades and leads a productive life.
Gerry, an undocumented Irishman, recently spoke to NPR about his experience living in the U.S. as an illegal immigrant.
The 40-year-old bricklayer lives in a Chicago suburb with his wife and 5-year-old son. Originally from Co Tipperary, he sneaked into the United States 21 years ago by crossing at the Canadian border with a fake driver’s license.
Gerry, who doesn’t want to give his full name, owns a house and a small masonry business with six employees.
He says one of his employees is a Mexican man who is also in Chicago illegally. Gerry told NPR that he feels a kinship with the undocumented worker.
"He's got family, and he's worried about his family," Gerry says. "He's traveling into the city to the job. He's probably worse off than me, because he probably doesn't have a license."
Gerry says he’s speaking out because he wants people to know how the broken immigration system in the U.S. affects people like him and his Mexican worker.
"I want them to see that we're hard-working people, and we're here to make a living, not to take anybody's jobs."
Because Chicago is a sanctuary city, Gerry knows that if he gets stopped, the police won’t share his information with immigration authorities. Still, he says he knows to stay out of trouble.
"Saturday night I went to a party maybe an hour from here," he says. "I drove out, couple of my friends came with me. Never touched a drop until I came back closer to home, parked my car, went into the bar and had a few drinks and then got a taxi home."
Read more: Who are the Irish allies for immigration reform in the Trump era?
Gerry said he hasn’t been back to Ireland in 16 years. If he leaves the country he’ll be denied re-entry.
Three years ago when his grandfather died, he could only attend the wake virtually.
"It's an old tradition in Ireland, like when they're in their house everybody goes to the house. So I was on Skype to everybody. Everybody was there coming in and out, which was great," he says. "But at the same time, it wasn't good enough, you know what I mean."
There are an estimated 50,000 undocumented Irish living in the U.S., according to the Irish embassy in Washington, D.C. However, in 2014, only 33 Irish were deported compared to nearly 177,000 Mexicans.
"The number of deportations is relatively small," Irish ambassador Anne Anderson told NPR. "I think it's probably accurate to say they don't fit the profile that people consider for the undocumented."
She adds that the numbers of undocumented Irish in America are still significant for a small country like Ireland, which has a population of only 4.5 million.
Anderson says that immigration reform would benefit the entire unauthorized population – not just Latinos, who get most of the attention.
"We want people to understand that this is a multifaceted problem," she says. "It's an issue that also wears an Irish face."
Read more: Migratory mourning – the emotional distress of Irish families split apartThe North Korean dictator's first successful intercontinental ballistic missile test on Monday did more than shake up strategic calculations in the Pacific.
It presented Trump with his first real test on the global stage as he flies off to meet far more experienced leaders at the G20 summit in Germany, some of whom are ill-disposed to help him and don't have the US's best interests at heart.
It's a trip that will now be judged on Trump's capacity to secure not just international condemnation of North Korea's actions, but to advance US efforts to change the strategic calculation in Pyongyang.
The mission will test Trump's skill at wielding US power, building international coalitions behind American foreign policy goals and framing innovative policy approaches that haven't yet been tried and that don't fit neatly into the "America First" doctrine that is driving his foreign policy.
Forget the tweetstorms, slams at "fake news" journalists and morale boosting rallies before crowds who thrill to Trump's politically incorrect rhetorical blasts.
JUST WATCHED Why does North Korea hate the US? Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Why does North Korea hate the US? 01:53
This is what being President is really about.
In one sense, the July 4 pyrotechnics from the isolated state ushered in an alarming new reality, one Trump is the first President to face -- the prospect that in theory, Pyongyang could soon hit the US with a nuclear-capable missile.
But what makes Trump's job so difficult is the unpalatable set of options available to try to halt North Korea's nuclear and missile programs. If those fail, an equally unpleasant option would await -- accepting the reality the United States is in Pyongyang's crosshairs.
In other words, Trump is under intense pressure to solve what may be an insoluble foreign policy problem.
He would have to decide how to contain the threat from the North Korean program or to deter the use of a weapon, effectively accepting that in theory at last Pyongyang had the US in the crosshairs.
"There is an argument to be made that everything has changed and nothing has changed," said Jim Walsh, senior research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Security Studies Program, adding that the test had demonstrated new North Korean capabilities and taken the US across a psychological and political threshold.
But Walsh said the options for the US to respond "really haven't changed. Today's options are no different from yesterday's options, and yesterday's options weren't very good."
Given that military attempts to halt North Korea's nuclear march all risk a horrific confrontation that could kill millions on the Korean peninsula and beyond, Trump has few alternatives but to seek a diplomatic outcome to the showdown with Pyongyang.
Yet there are few approaches that other presidents have not already tried.
One route the administration is taking is a familiar one -- seeking a Security Council condemnation of the test launch on Wednesday at the UN and new sanctions on the already heavily sanctioned North. US and South Korean forces are also conducting exercises in the region in response to the test.
Trump came to office slamming the "strategic patience" strategy pursued by the previous Obama administration on North Korea -- involving tough sanctions and a refusal to talk to Pyongyang until it renounces nuclear development.
But he has yet to diverge substantially from the approach of the last few administrations.
His preferred initial tactic was also a familiar one -- a charm offensive to convince Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom he will meet in Germany, to pressure Beijing's recalcitrant neighbor into halting its nuclear and missile programs.
But now the President, only three months after meeting Xi at his Florida resort, appears to have concluded that effort has failed, further narrowing his options.
"North Korea has just launched another missile. Does this guy have anything better to do with his life?" Trump tweeted after Monday's launch.
North Korea has just launched another missile. Does this guy have anything better to do with his life? Hard to believe that South Korea..... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 4, 2017
"Hard to believe that South Korea and Japan will put up with this much longer. Perhaps China will put a heavy move on North Korea and end this nonsense once and for all!"
On Wednesday, Trump added: "Trade between China and North Korea grew almost 40% in the first quarter. So much for China working with us — but we had to give it a try!"
Trade between China and North Korea grew almost 40% in the first quarter. So much for China working with us - but we had to give it a try! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 5, 2017
There are differing interpretations as to how much Beijing has so far done to pressure the North Koreans, following its decision to halt coal exports to the Stalinist state and a temporary freeze on oil supplies.
JUST WATCHED North Korea missile test 'a startling development' Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH North Korea missile test 'a startling development' 09:25
And Washington may be overestimating China's capacity to change the behavior of the volatile North Korean leader.
Many experts also believe that China is reluctant to try the kind of prolonged oil embargo that could really pressure Kim because of a fear it could collapse his regime and ignite a chaotic situation on the peninsula. Beijing also has no interest in a solution that would lead to a unified Korea in alliance with the US on its borders.
Whatever China's motivations, however, it seems unlikely that its leaders will be swayed by Trump tweets, hence the need for a |
.
Again, SOS’s Eisenberg doesn’t deny that the Minnesota Orchestra may have a $6 million hole in its annual budget.
“We can solve that problem,” Eisenberg said. “In this market, $6 million is not that much money.”
Beyond finances, trust is big issue
Of all the issues, the big issue that must be resolved, Eisenberg said, is trust. He believes current MOA leadership has lost any claim to trust.
It is the belief of SOS that public officials should feel compelled to step into this mess because they were “deceived” by MOA leadership.
When the MOA wanted the state — and indirectly the city of Minneapolis — to come up with $14 million in bond money for the renovation of Orchestra Hall, the MOA had a set of numbers that showed a balanced budget. Two years later, when it wanted to justify its lockout, the MOA suddenly was claiming it was bleeding red ink.
“Financial statement manipulation,” said Eisenberg of the MOA’s easy switch from black ink to red. They had “good numbers when they need to look good and bad when they needed to look bad.”
It is the public on the hook for the bonds. But it is the pols who accepted the MOA’s rosy financial promises.
This charge, of course, brings strong denials from the MOA, and it says that the legislative auditor already has studied, and given a nod of approval, to the numbers used when the MOA was at the Capitol in search of bond funding.
It is Eisenberg’s belief that the whole concept of a $50-plus-million renovation of the Hall was an effort that has undercut the orchestra and set the stage, perhaps intentionally, for the lockout. Energy was spent hitting up that small donor base for the capital fund at a time when the focus needed to be on building the donor base and the endowment fund.
Not surprisingly, the MOA disputes that theory. Its view: The $50 million capital drive was only part of a $110 million drive: $50 million for the renovation, $30 million for the endowment, another $30 million for “artistic iniatives,” money to be used for such reputation-building things as European tours.
In fact, the MOA says, the capital fund drive inspired a wide-range of giving in which $98 million of the $110 million has been raised. Of that, $31 million has come from board members.
But the Hall remains empty.Ladies and gentleman, I present you with the FY 2011-2012 San Francisco parking and traffic statistics.
SF Resident Population 806,696
Autos 380,621
Trucks 56.407
Motorcycles 21,065
Trailers 8,355
Total Vehicles 466,448
Drivers' Licenses Issued 543,209
Total Disabled Placards 60,754
Vehicles/Square Mile 9,851
Vehicles Per Capita 0.58
PARKING SUPPLY
On-Street Vehicle Parking Spaces 281,700
Off-Street Parking – Downtown 34,433
Off-Street Parking - Remainder 132,086
Total Publicly Available Parking Supply 448,000
SF PARKING CITATIONS ISSUED FOR FY 2011-2012
Violation Code Quantity Percentage
Street Cleaning T37C 520,589 34.05%
Parking Meter T202 251,665 16.46%
Residential Permit T315A 149,895 9.80%
Parking Meter T202.1 128,869 8.43%
Block Wheels T58A 64,985 4.25%
Vehicle Registration V5204A 40,1659 2.63%
No Display Receipt TC 127(D) 35,223 2.30%
Driveway V22500E 29,384 1.92%
No Plates V5200 26,411 1.73%
Tow-away Zone DT T32A.1 26,217 1.71%
Tow-away Zone T32A.2 16,407 1.07%
On Sidewalk V22500F 23,562 1.54%
Overtime Parking T32C.2 23,459 1.53%
Double Parking V22500H 22,021 1.44%
Yellow Zone Not DT T38B.1 20,695 1.35%
Yellow Zone DT Core T38B 18,180 1.19%
Prohibited Parking T32B 13,380 0.88%
Red Zone T38A 13,323 0.87%
Truck Loading Zone T33.3 12,584 0.82%
White Zone T38C 8,493 0.56%
Overtime Downtown T32C.1 7,507 0.49%
Parking in Crosswalk V22500B 7,366 0.48%
+ 18 Inches from Curb V22502A 6,561 0.43%
Off Street Parking T32.10 6,099 0.40%
Fire Hydrant V22514 5,825 0.38%
Bus Zone V22500I 4,353 0.28%
Two Plates Required V5200A 4,100 0.27%
School/Public Ground V21113A 3,886 0.25%
All Other Violations* OTHER 37,616 2.46%
Total Citations Issued 1,528,820
Parking Ticket Revenue $83,290,02
David LaBua is a psychotherapist, systems theorist, and transportation consultant. He is the author of Finding the Sweet Spot and is the founder of VoicePark, the mobile app that guides you by voice to the closest available on-street and off-street parking spot.CNN founder Ted Turner commissioned a video for his network to play in case the world ended, we learned today via Jalopnik. It's a solemn rendition of "Nearer My God To Thee," apparently intended to be played only once the end of the world is officially confirmed.
It's titled "TURNER DOOMSDAY VIDEO" in the company's internal system, Jalopnik reports, with a note that says "[Hold for release] till end of the world confirmed."
It's a fascinating piece of media history. But as Motherboard's supervising producer and senior video editor Chris O'Coin notes, the existence of this video was first publicized by the creators of the timeless Gremlins 2, in which the monsters take over a building owned by eccentric billionaire media mogul Daniel Clamp.
In the movie, Clamp (John Glover) holes up in his office, convinced the gremlins are about to end civilization as we know it. He retrieves a secret tape from his desk drawer and broadcasts it over the network. It's a soothing voice over idyllic images of a babbling brook and an American flag.
"Because of the end of civilization, the Clamp Cable Network now leaves the air," the video says. "We hope you've enjoyed our programming, but more importantly, we hope you've enjoyed... life."
Clamp tears up. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" he asks Billy Peltzer (Zach Galligan), the hero of the Gremlins franchise.
According to IMDB, the gag was a direct ripoff of the rumored CNN video. "The uplifting end of the world video scene was included by the filmmakers when they find out that one the news networks actually have such a video prepare to run in case of the end of the world. This video apparently still exists and still ready to run at the final hour."
We don't want to spoil the film, but let's just say Clamp maybe should have held for release until he got a second source.Michael Nelson / EPA The surviving member of the Granite Hill Hotshot crew, Brendan McDonough hugs a family member of the victims during a candle light vigil and remembrance for the 19 firefighter victims of the Yarnell Hill Fire at Prescott High School in Prescott, Arizona on Tuesday.
The lone survivor of a 20-member elite crew deployed to fight a wildfire in Arizona was doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing, officials said Tuesday as the blaze was partly contained for the first time.
A vigil was held in Prescott, Ariz., Tuesday night to honor the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshot firefighters who were killed in a devastating blaze that continues to burn more than 8,000 acres. NBC's Miguel Almaguer reports.
Brendan McDonough was in his third season with the Granite Mountain Hotshots and at his post as a "lookout" on Sunday when the fire got too close to him and he realized he needed to move to a different location, said Wade Ward, the information officer for the City of Prescott, Ariz.
“He left his post based on protocol and he was moving to a new position... this gentleman was doing his job and the hotshot crew was doing their job,” said Ward, explaining that McDonough followed procedure when relocating.
The last step McDonough had to complete before he left the vantage point on a hillside was to radio the crew to tell them to contact him if they needed anything.
"That was the last communication," Ward added.
Ward requested that McDonough be granted privacy – a plea that was met with an eruption of applause by community members at the briefing.
“Give him some time... it’s going to take weeks if not longer," Ward said. "He's trying to deal with the same things that we’re trying to deal with... compounded by being there on the scene.”
Slideshow: Arizona blaze kills 19 elite firefighters David Kadlubowski / The Arizona Republic via AP Nineteen firefighters - all members of an elite response team - were killed Sunday battling a fast-moving wildfire in Arizona, marking the deadliest single incident for firefighters since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, officials said. Launch slideshow
It came as firefighters made progress for the first time against the sprawling blaze.
While the blaze remained dangerous and unpredictable, it was no longer raging out of control late Tuesday. By sundown, firefighters had managed to achieve the first measure of containment around its perimeter - eight percent, according to officials.
"Crews are making good progress on the fire... We're feeling optimistic right now," said Carrie Dennett, a spokeswoman for the Arizona Forestry Division.
Ignited on Friday by lightning, the blaze has blackened some 8,400 acres of dense, tinder-dry chaparral, oak scrub and grasslands as it roared largely unchecked in its first four days.
Bob Orrill, a member of the southwest incident management team, read a statement from McDonough, which expressed his appreciation for his "fallen brothers."
Related
This story was originally published onEight recent and one older hydrological PhD theses are now available in the PhD theses section. The promovendi are from Wageningen University, VU University Amsterdam, Delft University of Technology, the UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education and Utrecht University.
Dynamics in groundwater and surface water quality – From field-scale processes to catchment-scale models
Ype van der Velde (2011); PhD thesis, Wageningen University, Wageningen, 176 pp.
Present & Future – Visualising ideas of water infrastructure design
Martine Poolman (2010); PhD thesis, Delft University of Technology, Delft, 256 pp.
In redevelopment and redesign of small water structures local water governing institutions are increasingly required to and requesting that the planning processes are set up in a participatory manner. Decision making processes that are set-up to be participatory require stakeholders with different backgrounds, ideas, experiences and expertise to come together. Ideally they work collectively towards finding a solution to a problem situation. Because of their differences stakeholders often have different ideas about the problem situation and about the ways to solve it. Discussions take place and ideas are expressed in words or text as each stakeholder tries to explain his view of the situation and possible solution. Horace, however, wrote that »the mind is more slowly stirred by the ear than by the eye«. Visuals could provide a better understanding of a subject than words alone could. This PhD research looks at enabling stakeholders to make and use two-dimensional, still (non-moving) visuals to help identify which differences and similarities there are in stakeholders’ ideas of the problem situation and possible solutions. The main objective of this research was to design a methodology which enables stakeholders to make and use visuals to communicate their ideas about redevelopment and maintenance of small water structures.
Optimisation of monitoring networks for water systems
– Information theory, value of information, and public participation
José Leonardo Afonso Segura (2010); PhD thesis, UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, Delft, 200 pp.
Monitoring networks provide data that is analysed to help managers make informed decisions about their water systems. Their design and evaluation have a number of challenges that must be resolved, among others, the restriction on having a limited number of monitoring devices. This book presents innovative methods to design and evaluate monitoring networks. The main idea is to maximise the performance of water systems by optimising the information content that can be obtained from monitoring networks. This is done through the combination of models and two theoretical concepts: Information Theory, initially developed in the field of communications, and Value of Information, initially developed in the field of economics. Additionally, the possibility of using public participation to gather information with mobile phones to improve models is also explored in the research. The results of this research demonstrate that monitoring networks can be evaluated and designed by considering new variables, such as the information content, the user of the information and the potential of current mobile phones for data collection.
The role of interception in the hydrological cycle
Miriam Gerrits (2010); PhD thesis, Delft University of Technology, Delft, 146 pp.
Effect of climate change on temperate forest ecosystems
Reinder Brolsma (2010); PhD thesis, Utrecht University, Utrecht, 160 pp
In temperate climates groundwater can have a strong effect on vegetation, because it can influence the spatio-temporal distribution of soil moisture and therefore water and oxygen stress of vegetation. Current IPCC climate projections based on CO 2 emission scenarios show a global temperature rise and change in precipitation regime, which will affect hydrological and vegetation systems. This thesis provides a quantitative framework for studying eco-hydrology in groundwater influenced temperate ecosystems. This study shows that quantifying and understanding the response of temperate forest ecosystems to climate change requires combined physically-based hydrological and bio-physically-based vegetation models.
Anticipatory Water Management – Using ensemble weather forecasts for critical events
Schalk Jan van Andel (2009); PhD thesis, UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, Delft, 182 pp.
Day-to-day water management is challenged by meteorological extremes, causing floods and droughts. Often operational water managers are informed too late about these upcoming events to be able to respond and mitigate their effects, such as by taking flood control measures or even requiring evacuation of local inhabitants. Therefore, the use of weather forecast information with hydrological models can be invaluable for the operational water manager to expand the forecast horizon and to have time to take appropriate action. This is called Anticipatory Water Management.
Anticipatory actions may have adverse effects, such as when flood control actions turn out to have been unnecessary, because the actual rainfall was less than predicted. Therefore the uncertainty of the forecasts and the associated risks of applying Anticipatory Water Management have to be assessed. To facilitate this assessment, meteorological institutes are providing ensemble predictions to estimate the dynamic uncertainty of weather forecasts. This dissertation presents ways of improving the end-use of ensemble predictions in Anticipatory Water Management.
Sedimentary Heterogeneity and Flow Towards a Well
Joost Herweijer (1997); PhD thesis, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, 277 pp.
This dissertation addresses the problem of adequately describing the hydraulic behavior of a heterogeneous aquifer, specifically the flow towards a well. Typically for a subsurface problem, the quantity of available data versus the number of unknowns, is very limited. Therefore, an adequate hydrogeological description still encompasses a range of possible aquifer responses. Thus, a broad approach has been followed to obtain a more or less, reliable estimation of the range of possible aquifer responses within a limited spectrum of sedimentological options. This broad approach includes the following methods: sedimentological analysis; multi-well and single-well pumping tests; tracer experiments; geostatistics; and numerical modeling of groundwater flow. Any application of only one of these methods can lead to a strongly biased and erroneous estimate of the range of aquifer responses. Thus, this dissertation aims at integrating and combining several direct and indirect methods to identify the aquifer’s structure and to analyze the associated groundwater flow and solute transport behavior. The final objective of this research is to characterize a heterogeneous aquifer in order to better describe contaminant flow; many of the findings are also applicable to the recovery of oil from heterogeneous reservoirs.By Zhou Liting Editor: Eileen Cheng
Zhao Lingyun, 14, a seventh grader in Luanping, north China's Hebei Province, has been trying to care for her bedridden father who almost lost hope in his senior years, but is now doing better through her boundless support.
The father, Zhao Xihang, became paralyzed in a road accident 11 years ago.
"Having experienced such a hard blow, he became bad-tempered, throwing and breaking things, refusing to eat anything and even having the mind of killing himself," his wife recalled.
While Lingyun was too young to understand what had happened, she would give her father a kiss now and then, trying to cheer him up.
As she grew older, she learned to cook, do laundry and attend to her family's grocery store business by herself.
Meanwhile, Lingyun tried her best to look after her father, feeding him food, helping him turn over in bed and regularly cleaning the sheets.
When she reached fifth grade, Lingyun began residing on campus and returned home once a week. During the weekdays when she was away from her father, she always kept the sick family member in her mind and noted down anything funny or interesting to share with him while pushing him for walks.
Thanks to her constant efforts over the years, her father has become much more positive towards life. "Having got such a good girl, if I keep throwing tantrums, it feels like I need a punch," the man joked.
Having previously expected his daughter to come out top at school, the father has gradually changed his mind. "All I hope is that she will grow up healthy and happy," he noted.
Nevertheless, Lingyun never eases up on herself and maintains the best performance in her class.
"All I can do now is not let my parents worry about me," she wrote in her diary.
Now, her father has made some progress. He is able to move his arms a little and speak more clearly. And he can eat meals by himself.
Feeling motivated by the achievement, Lingyun has got further plans. "I want to travel with my father, take him to faraway places and show him how beautiful the world is," she said.
She wants her father to attend the teacher-parent meeting later this year, and she has plans to carry him to school together with her classmates, the girl revealed.
(Source: China Women's News/Translated and edited by Women of China)Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Friday tore into what he called “extreme right-wing Republicans” for threatening to shut down the government and default on the nation’s debts if President Barack Obama’s health care reform law was not defunded.
In a speech on the Senate floor, Sanders said that he welcomed a discussion about how to improve the health care law.
“But one thing is certain, you do not hold the American people hostage by threatening to shut down the government or for the first time in the history of our country not paying our bills and bringing this country and perhaps the entire world into a major financial crisis,” he explained. “There was an election a year ago on this very issue — one of the major issues in the campaign — and the Republican candidate said, ‘Let’s defund Obamacare.’ He lost the election! Republicans lost seats in the Senate, they lost seats in the House! And that’s what democracy is about.”
“What democracy is not about is a handful of members of the House of Representatives, extreme right-wing Republicans, saying, ‘If we do not get our way, we are prepared to punish tens of millions of Americans. Yeah, we lost the election. Yeah, we lost seats in the House and Senate. But we are prepared to bring this government down. We are prepared to cause, perhaps, a major global financial crisis unless we get our way!'”
He continued: “Let us not tell men and women in the United States armed forces, who today are putting their lives on the line to defend us, that they’re not going to get paid. Let us not tell police officers here in Washington and elsewhere, they may not get paid. Let’s not tell working families, who take take their little kids into Head Start so they can then go out to work, that that program may be killed. Let’s not tell senior citizens, who are on the Meals on Wheels program who can’t leave their homes who depend upon a meal, let’s not punish them because you’ve got small number of extreme right wingers who want to get their way at the expense of millions and millions of people.”
Sanders pointed out that the current debate in Congress was “making us look like fools throughout the entire world because a handful of right wing extremists are so determined to try to destroy this president.”
“There’s a lot to be debating about, but one thing we should not be debating about is shutting down the United States government in order to achieve a narrow political goal.”
Watch the video below from the C-SPAN, broadcast Sept. 26, 2013.Argentine ants first came to the U.S. through New Orleans onboard coffee ships from Brazil in the 1890s. They have since made landfall in California, Japan and the Mediterranean coast, following the many sea and land routes of human commerce. “What we’ve learned is they don’t become established at a certain distance from people,” said Gordon, “They need us.”
As early as the 1970s, scientists began to notice a peculiar fact about the Argentine ant and its unusual success.
In the ant world, colony-mates all carry the same smell, embedded in the waxy stuff that makes their exoskeletons shiny. A single tap of antennae is enough to tell friend from foe.
Usually, when ants from different colonies are put together, even from the same species, they fight. Warfare among colonies is a major factor keeping ant populations in balance. But Argentine worker ants can be combined from colonies in Spain, Japan and California, and they will recognize each other — they won’t fight.
Without this natural check, researchers say, a single colony of ants from Argentina has spread across continents and oceans. “They escaped the war zone,” said Brian Whyte, a Ph.D. student in evolutionary biology at UC Berkeley, “and the colony doesn’t seem to have a limit.”
A 2010 paper called the so-called super-colony “the most populous known animal society.”
Its trillions upon trillions of inhabitants dwarf the human population by a long shot.
Not all Argentine ants get along so well. Scientists, including David Holway from UC San Diego and Neil Tsutsui from UC Berkeley, have mapped out a handful of super-colonies worldwide. “They have very clean, demarcated boundaries,” said Holway.
The picture that seemed to emerge amounted to a battle of empires dividing up the world, yet still fighting bitterly wherever their territories met.
But Jasper Ridge, a 1,200-acre Stanford preserve in the hills west of Palo Alto, is different. In 1993, Gordon’s laboratory began tracking ant populations there. At the time, Jasper Ridge was unconquered territory for the Argentines, but they already had been spotted.
“It’s unusual to be able to monitor an invasion,” Gordon said. She predicted that within one to five years, it would all be over. “I thought they would just move quickly through.”
A series of Ph.D. students conducting the field research, including Katherine Fitzgerald and Nicole Heller, who tracked ants at Jasper for six years, began to notice a different trend. One species of native ant was holding its own inside the boundary of the Argentine advance. “They were coping, increasing their distribution over time,” said Heller, who’s now the director of conservation science at the Peninsula Open Space Trust, an environmental organization in Palo Alto.
The winter ant has several advantages over the Argentine: deeper nests, a different cycle of seasonal activity. But other ant species with similar advantages have fallen before the Argentine onslaught. What, the Stanford researchers wondered, was different here?
In 2008, Gordon was using the ant counts at Jasper Ridge to teach undergraduates about invasion ecology. In their final project, where Argentine and winter ants were observed side-by-side in controlled conditions, one group of students claimed to have made a novel discovery. Winter ants, the students found, showed a distinct behavior when they were put on the defensive.
The students watched the winter ants wave their abdomens at their enemies, known as “gaster-flagging” in ant circles, before a cloudy liquid blob appeared at the tip. Approaching the secretion sent the Argentines reeling away. Touching it could kill them.
Gordon admitted she was skeptical.
“I didn’t completely believe it,” she said, “but by the end of the class I was persuaded there was enough there to explore.”
Over the next two years, the students repeated and studied the winter ant’s apparently novel defensive behavior. They also analyzed the the secretion. (Turns out it comes from the same gland used by the ants’ ancestors, wasps, to sting.)
By the time the students’ data was published, asserting that the winter ant’s defensive secretion “may account for its ability to persist” in Argentine-invaded territory, the ant counts at Jasper Ridge had long surpassed Gordon’s initial expectation of one to five years. The ant population data, now at 20 years and counting, bears out the students’ findings.
In fact, the preserve’s winter ants are not only surviving, they’re now pushing back, opening up space for other native ant populations to rebound.
Whether scientists (and the pest control industry) can take a lesson from the winter ant or will remain on the sidelines of this epic ant battle is still unclear.
“Some invasive species may be successful in the beginning, but in the long term may not do as well,” Gordon said. “It’s about how it plays out over time.”Three Toronto police officers accused of sexually assaulting a female parking enforcement officer appeared in court Monday.
Officers Joshua Cabero, 28, Leslie Nyznik, 38, and Sameer Kara, 31, were charged with sexual assault and gang sexual assault in February 2015 in connection with an alleged incident involving a female parking enforcement officer at an after-work party in January 2015.
Following the allegations, the three officers, who all worked in 51 Division, were suspended with pay and are currently out on $15,000 bail.
READ MORE: Three Toronto police officers charged with gang sexual assault
The men were off-duty at the time of the alleged incident. They have been prohibited from drinking alcohol and possessing guns.
At the time of the arrests, Cabero had been with the force for four years, Nyznik for five years and Kara for six.
Challenge for cause arguments are began at 10 a.m. Monday with jury selection expected to get underway Wednesday. The officers elected to proceed with the trial by judge alone, instead of by jury.
#Breaking: 3 TO police officers elect to proceed with sex assault trial involving a parking officer by judge alone. All pleading not guilty — Catherine McDonald (@cmcdonaldglobal) May 29, 2017
Opening arguments are set to begin June 5 and the trial is expected to last five to six weeks. The Crown will call up to 17 witnesses including the alleged victim, whose identity is under publication ban.
Nyznik was also present at a 2010 incident where police officers were accused of using excessive force during the arrest of an allegedly impaired driver.
READ MORE: 3 Toronto Police officers accused of sexually assaulting female officer
Footage from a dashboard camera inside the police car captured Const. Christian Dobbs, who was Nyznik’s partner at the time, striking the driver repeatedly with his elbow during the arrest.
No officers were charged in that incident and Justice Ford Clements said in his ruling “there was a contrived effort to justify the use of force.”
With files from Catherine McDonald, David Shum and James ArmstrongThe Business Of Commercial Exploit Development
A closer look at the debate surrounding this market
Over the past 15 years of cybersecurity discussion, it's doubtful that you'll have failed to notice the biannual flare-ups concerning vulnerability disclosure. Whether it's due to the slow fuse of a software vendor silently patching a legacy vulnerability, or the lightning strike of a zero-day being dropped at a security conference, these brushfires rage with fury for a short period until the tinder and media gets exhausted... until the next time.
More recently, these flare-ups have come to envelop the exploit development business, and there's a tremendous amount of confusion and (dare I say it) misinformation being thrown into the mix. The passion and vigor with which a small number of very vocal players are driving their agendas is obscuring many of the true facts of the business.
The commercial exploit development business goes by many names -- depending on which agenda you're seeking to push and, frankly, who your customers are likely to be. For example, I have traditionally used the term "weaponization" of vulnerabilities, vendors of protection products often use the term "proof of concept," while those employed in the production of exploit material simply refer to it as "product."
Most security professionals greatly underestimate the amount of effort and time that goes in to the creation of stable, reliable exploits. There's also a misconception that all vulnerabilities can be turned in to exploits. Oh, that's so far from the truth to be laughable. It may take a few hours for an automated fuzzer to uncover a batch of bugs within a particular software package, and it may take a few days for a bug hunter to personally crawl through those discovered bugs and determine which are, in fact, security vulnerabilities, but it will likely take many weeks of skillful effort and determination to turn a handful of those vulnerabilities into something that could be used to gain control or manipulate the software package from a "hacker" perspective. Therefore, the process of turning a vulnerability into an exploit is an expensive proposition.
This season's brushfires have centered on small boutique companies that specialize in weaponizing vulnerabilities that happen to sell to government entities. Companies that are willing to craft and sell exploits for vulnerabilities that haven't yet been disclosed to the vulnerable software vendors have been analogous to magnesium flares thrown into a tinder-dry California forest at the height of summer (as far as the anti-exploit-sale lobbyists are concerned).
The construction, deployment, and use of exploits are a critical component of modern security practices. Both commercial and freeware penetration testing tools include thousands of exploits -- and are typically employed to categorically prove that a particular vulnerability exists within the environment under test. In other realms -- such as clandestine statecraft -- reliable exploits can be considered specialized skeleton keys for accessing information that could prevent a physical altercation. Regardless, the business of exploit development is a core component of modern cybersecurity doctrine. The question of whether exploit development is "ethical," "moral," or legally justifiable is more a reflection of how well someone understands the business in its entirety.
The heated debate and subsequent focus on those magnesium flare companies exemplifies the rather poor understanding of how vulnerabilities are discovered and weaponized, and who's consuming the exploits.
I use the term "boutique" to describe these vendors for a reason. Compared to the mainstay of the exploit development ecosystem, they're offering a niche, high-priced product. These small companies are like the booths at the annual arts and craft fair that take over the car park outside of an Ikea store. Each booth offers an assortment of themed homemade artwork for a high, but not extortionate price. While some of the artwork is fascinating and interesting, in the grand scale of things, they're novelties. At the end of the day, if you want a functional set of chairs you'd probably just go to the store that the parking lot happens to belongs to. In that analogy, that store is likely to be a major defense contractor.
For the past two years, at least the major defense contractors (in all the G20 countries) have been establishing or greatly expanding their "cyberwarfare" capabilities for sale to their long-standing government customers. Apart from the public posting of recruitment flyers and occasional disclosure from freelance bug hunters who've sold a vulnerability to one of the contractors, there's very little discussion of their participation within the ecosystem. Defense contractors tend to shun media attention -- it's not good for business (unlike the boutique exploiters). But based on the resources they're able to throw at the problem and the scale of recruitment going on, the bulk of the exploit market is being served by them. And rightly so! Pretty much all of the major defense contractors have had strong research arms (and contractual requirements) for information warfare tools since before the Internet even existed.
There's one other area of the debate I wanted to touch on, and that’s the role of commercial security consulting practices. The myopic focus on boutique exploit development shops as an unethical scab on the industry (not my words), and the assumption that if these businesses did not exist the whole business would go away, is ignorant of how easily any organization or government can "game" the system.
As a security consultant for many years and having worked many contracts for clients around the world, the most efficient and cheapest way of acquiring zero-day vulnerabilities and the exploits to accompany them is to simply go forth and hire a team of reverse engineers and bug hunters. The majority of large security consulting businesses have a stable of highly skilled and trained reverse engineers and, given an appropriately scoped statement of work, can deliver exploits for any software package of choice. In fact, this is more often than not becoming a standard line of business for high-end consulting practices. It's not even nefarious.
Let me give you a (not entirely made up) example. A large national telecommunications provider in an Arab state had to choose between three vendors' software products as part of the solution evaluation process. One component of the evaluation was, "Does the software introduce new vulnerabilities to the system?" In order to determine that, a team of four reverse engineers were contracted to spend three months on-site at the regional facility to identify all the bugs they could within each of the software packages and to develop "proof of concept" code to show whether the vulnerability was remotely exploitable. The product with the least severe vulnerabilities would then win that category of the evaluation.
For the consultants, this is an increasingly standard contract. The client wants to diligently evaluate any new products from a security context prior to purchase and deployment, and they're paying top dollar for any findings. At the end of the engagement, the vulnerabilities, exploits, and report all belong (exclusively) to the client. More often than not, the contract expressly forbids the consultants and their company from disclosing these new findings to the original software vendors. I suspect that the volume of "zero-day" exploits generated around the world through these kinds of contracts exceeds the combined output of defense contractors and "boutique" weaponization companies by quite a margin.
As for gaming the system... the fact that the three software packages were the same packages that a competitor in another country to the client uses is irrelevant (and likely unknown to the consultants). What the client does with that information afterward is entirely its business.
So the next time someone is fanning the latest brushfire and proclaiming that weaponized exploit development is evil and that purveyors of such exploits should be regulated or licensed as arms dealers, try to look beyond the marketing hype of a single boutique shop and its pretty driftwood chairs.
Gunter Ollmann is CTO of DamballaCentrowitz dominates Farah in 1,500m
News Hour:
American Matthew Centrowitz, the 1,500 meter Olympic champion at the Rio Games, dominated Britain’s Mo Farah, the undisputed king of the 5,000 and 10,000 metres, at the USATF Distance Classic meet in Los Angeles on Thursday night.
The 27-year-old Centrowitz won the 1,500m race in a time of three minutes, 33.41 seconds over Farah, who clocked a 3:34.19. American Christopher O’Hare finished third in 3:34.35.
Despite winning the marquee matchup against his training partner Farah, who holds the Olympic and world titles in the 5,000 and 10,000, Centrowitz failed to improve on the world’s best performance of the year which is held by Kenyan Elijah Motonei Manangoi (3:31.90).
“I am happy with my time,” said Centrowitz. “When you have a four-time Olympic champion in front of you, you know it’s going to be tough. It’s the first time I beat him. It is good for the confidence.”
Centrowitz is using the Los Angeles race as a tune up for the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon which runs from May 26-27.
Brenda Martinez, the 800-meter world champion in 2013, won her race one minute, 58.78 seconds, the fourth best time of the year.
Like this: Like Loading...It’s been a week of Lib Dem policy announcements, foreshadowing the party’s pre-manifesto to be voted on by members at this October’s conference in Glasgow:
Monday: Norman Baker: “The Lib Dems want to restore the public’s trust in the police”
Tuesday: Fairer funding for Wales: “Lib Dems will actually do something about it,” vows Kirsty Williams
Wednesday: Steve Webb: Lib Dems will introduce “fair warning” for job-seekers who break benefit rules before sanctions imposed
Thursday: Lib Dems pledge more tax cuts: after personal allowance raised to £12.5k will also increase National Insurance threshold
And on Friday, ready for the weekend papers, Simon Hughes – the Lib Dem justice minister – highlighted plans to bring housing associations, water companies and the Big Six energy companies within the scope of the Freedom of Information Act, opening them up for public accountability.
Here’s how the Financial Times reported it:
Water companies, the “Big Six” energy suppliers and housing associations would be forced to open their books to the public under Liberal Democrat proposals. The move would represent the biggest overhaul of Freedom of Information rules since their introduction in 2000. Simon Hughes, the Lib Dem justice minister, is also pressing for private sector contracts delivering public services to be subject to the Freedom of Information Act. “I want to … open up the information about the way public services, and other services given to the public, are run,” he told the |
are, among the candidates, one of the most outspoken supporters of Bernie Sanders. What you just said matches that very well. You’ve just addressed this, what is a divide, a surprising divide that has been revealed in the Democratic Party this election cycle. How do you match up your policies with those of Bernie Sanders? For instance, when it comes to free trade, are you in favor or against free trade deals like NAFTA, like the Trans Pacific Partnership?
TF: I’m very much against the NAFTA-CAFTA duo, I’m also against TPP, Ben. I see it having really dire consequences for Iowa. Community after community has lost factories to Mexico and we have not replaced those jobs. What I hear from the Iowa workers that go down to Mexico to train their replacements is the workers do not have health and safety protection down there, there’s no environmental protection. And one of the things that I would advocate is that we re-write our agreements to provide a level playing field for Iowa workers and U.S. workers compared to workers in underdeveloped countries. We really have to rewrite our economic model and one of the things that’s really weighing on my mind as I travel across Iowa, for all the politicians promises, Ben, life has been getting worse and worse really since the Reagan Administration. And I think this election, this cycle, Bernie opened people’s eyes to the economic reality that is a rigged economic game. And one of the things that I would hope to do, I will do, in the United States Senate is to change the rules so that working people have an opportunity to get ahead again to provide for their family, to earn a living wage.
BK: Where do you see yourself among the other three Democratic candidates I named there, former Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge, state Senator Rob Hogg and Bob Krause of Fairfield. On the spectrum, where do you place yourself?
TF: I’m the most progressive of the four. I’m most outspoken for working people, I’m the most outspoken on labor economy issues. I view Rob and Patty as corporate democrats; I view them as Farm Bureau supporters. I will tell you frankly in my household, my parents were members of the farmers union and Farm Bureau was actually a four-letter word in my house. And I’m advocating environmental policies that none of them are following up on. Interesting thing is, with regard to, for example, the Bakken pipeline. The Iowa legislature actually had an opportunity to block Bakken, Rob Hogg had a bill but he didn’t introduce it. It was Senate File 506 for people that want to check it. Rob didn’t introduce it until May. And anybody that follows the legislature knows that if you want a bill to pass you start by introducing it in January and after it was on the books for a short period of time there was a unanimous consent asked by the Senate leadership to defer it to judiciary to kill it. Rob gave unanimous consent. Now we’re facing a very, very severe economic and environmental impact. My parents I mentioned earlier at the top of the show, farm in South Dakota, the Keystone Pipeline sprung a leak in Freeman, South Dakota and even though they’ve claimed to have fixed it, Ben, it’s still oozing oil and we face that very real possibility here with the Bakken pipeline, that the fracked chemicals that they include in the oil are corrosive. It’s not a question of ‘if’ but only ‘when’ on that leak. And I differ from Rob on that.
BK: One of the other standout issues that we have in the ag-sector. The renewable fuel standard has become a lynchpin of the ag-economy here in Iowa. You have said that you are against corn-based ethanol. What do you say to the Iowa farmers, to the others attached to this, what has become a huge industry, who depend on that revenue for their livelihoods?
TF: I say to them we need to take the prairie ground around the country, not just in Iowa but on the high plains, Ben, that was plowed up when we had $7 corn. When we brought 5 million acres of prairie into corn production, really very bad erosion and even in Iowa. We’re losing soil at 11 times the rate it’s replaced by natural processes and I’m saying to them, ‘If we take those marginal acres out of production we can maintain the corn price.’ But the other thing is I’ve been saying to the corn farmers, ‘You need to go back to the sustainable management practices.’ My ag-teacher is also a seed inspector and he has talked to me about cornfields that he’s been in that have been continuous corn for 30 straight years, Ben. And he said to me, ‘Think about the insect problems, the weed problems, disease problems.’ And one of things with corn-ethanol is it caused farmers to override environmental concerns, good skills and to grow corn on corn on corn. If we were to have them come back to sensible rotations, I believe that we would sustain the price of corn even as we backed away from the renewable fuel standard for corn ethanol.
Mike in Des Moines: Hi, I really appreciate your sentiment on political action committee money. There’s a huge issue of fundraising for the political party once you get into office, so how will your stance change when you get into office considering the fundraising necessities for the Democratic Party?
TF: Ben, my answer is that we’re going to continue to follow the Bernie Sanders model. We’ve been living on ActBlue [a PAC that allows individuals and groups to channel their dollars to candidates and movements of their choosing, used primarily for Democratic candidates], our average contribution is $7, we’ve had somewhere between three and four thousand contributors. Once we secure the nomination we’re going to reach out to the same organization that does Bernie’s email to do the small donor. I will tell Mike and the other listeners, I don’t ever anticipate accepting corporate PAC money. I’m just not going to go there, I’m going to continue to maintain my loyalty to working Iowans, not to corporations.
BK: How will you then in a general election scenario with Charles Grassley, how will you then match that money, the fundraising the money that you would need for what would be a big campaign?
TF: I’m never going to match the money. It’s not my goal. Chuck’s got five and a half million dollars in the bank. We believe that we can run a competitive race for about 20% of that. If we get to a million dollars, and if you look at our social media presence and the videos that we’ve produced we’re doing it on a budget and we believe that we can be competitive with Chuck for a fraction of the money. One of the things I want to remind our listeners of is the 2014 race between Bruce and Joni. Between them they spent $85 million. Joni Ernst and her supports put $43 million in; Bruce Braley put $42 million in. And the question I’ve asked Democrats is: If Bruce had had another ten million would he have beat her? The answer is no.
Lori in Columbus Junction: Well, actually, I just wanted to tell you I’m -- against Chuck Grassley. I think he’s been in office way to long and is totally out of touch with reality of the modern working person.
BK: We had a drop out there at the beginning, did you identify yourself as a republican?
Lori: I am, yes, I do, but I am not voting for Chuck Grassley and I’m very impressed with your guest today and the things he has said. I don’t believe that we need to put a lot of money into an election. I would actually vote for somebody that had less money. But you have a lot of good ideas and I just wanted to say I’m very impressed.
BK: Lori, thank you for your comment from Columbus Junction.
Danielle from Woodward: I’ve actually contributed to you and some of the other Democratic candidates because I think you sharpen each other up and Ben has asked questions that I was going to ask so my question to you is, as a rural resident and someone whose very concerned about water quality, what could you say to me and other rural residents and sustainable farmers who are tired of subsidies that actually poison our water?
TF: Danielle, I am on your side. I am the only Democrat that supports Des Moines Waterworks lawsuit. I believe that our farmers have to clean up their act and the interesting thing about the water conversation, we’re talking about nitrate and it’s good, I’m glad it’s finally on the table. But we’re not talking about two other water quality issues that are huge in Iowa. The first is soil conservation, as I mentioned at the top of the show, we’re losing soil 11 times the rate at which it can be replaced naturally. The other thing we’re not talking about is Roundup herbicide, and its active ingredient glyphosate. Last year we applied 300 million pounds of Roundup in this country. It’s now so pervasive that it’s in 75% of the rain falling from the sky. National Geographic did a study a year ago, they found 90% of our soybeans contain Roundup. We need to back away from that chemical addiction. I’ve advocated that our farmers go to less chemical intensive, if not organic, farming. We need to find other ways to grow crops and grow food without poisoning ourselves. The last point I would make on that is the farm wives, or more correctly, the farm widows get it. I was at an event where a woman came up to me and she had a scar on her neck just like my mother, so I knew she has thyroid cancer. And this women said to me, ‘I feel like I’ve been struck by a bolt of lightning.’ And I said, ‘Why is that?’ She said, ‘Every time my husband sprayed he came down with flu-like symptoms. He died of non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. I’ve had thyroid cancer throughout my body.’ She said, ‘I now realize we’ve been poisoning ourselves.’ And that conversation has happened again and again, Ben, where farm wives, farm widows, have come up to me and said they realize we need to do something differently.
Jim from Woodamore: Tom, there is a bill out there, it’s called Glass-Steagall. Are you familiar with it?
TF: Jim, I love Glass-Steagall, when I was teaching economics to my students and it was repealed I said, ‘This is bad.’
BK: Remind us of Glass-Steagall, for those who don’t know.
TF: It is a financial separation bill that requires banks, insurance companies, and Wall Street to be owned separately. It was passed in 1933, repealed by the Financial Modernization Act of 1999, it prevented the meltdown. While it was in place, we only had one bank-failure.
Jim: I just wondered if you were for it or against it because as long as this has been out, since ’99, I can remember when my banker went to Des Moines and said, ‘This is wrong, okay?’ and we sit there and we looked. Is there a chance that that bill can get passed? Because there’s only a few Democrats on it, there’s only a few Republicans.
TF: Jim, I look forward to partnering with Elizabeth Warren to pass it and I have said to all the presidential candidates I want to be the senator that lays the 21st Glass-Steagall on your desk. I’ve said I will not vote for Chuck Schumer for Majority Leader unless he assures me he will let it come to a vote in the Senate and allow us to pass it and put it into law again.
BK: According to the information I have, while in the Iowa Senate you supported a bill that would require women to receive pamphlets regarding abortions and impose a 24-hour waiting period. How would you approach women’s health on a federal level as a U.S. Senator?
TF: At this point, Ben, I support Roe v. Wade, I agree with the late Justice Harry Blackman that it’s a delicate balancing right. I don’t intend to support any further restrictions on women’s right to choose. I did vote in favor of that, in consultation with then-Governor Vilsack. I visited with him extensively on it and he assured me that he had my back so I knew he was going to veto it. He told me to vote my district.
BK: Of course, the national buzz in the last few days, last couple of weeks has been about so called transgender bathroom controversy. Broadly speaking are you in favor of LGBTQ rights, and maybe specifically a comment on this bathroom controversy?
TF: Every one of us just wants to be left alone and live our lives. I believe that regardless of people’s gender identity and self-expression, they should be allowed to live freely.
BK: What about the fear of people posing as the other gender to come into a bathroom that’s been raised?
TF: I believe that’s overstated, Ben, the people I know that are transgender, it’s not a choice they came to lightly and in fact I have a former colleague in the Linn County Bar that made the decision to transition from man to woman, and I visited with him during that time, he went through two years of counseling. Again it’s not something that he arrived at lightly. I think if we’re worried about high school students or middle school students, their family, friends, the faculty are going to know which ones are transgender and which ones may be taking advantage of a situation.
BK: Senator Grassley has been in the Senate since 1981, he’s been in Congress since before that, ‘75. How would you as a newcomer navigate a system that would be completely new to you and do better for Iowa than a 40 plus year veteran?
TF: Well, the interesting thing is Chuck Grassley has been Mr. Press Release but no new bills. In fact I was at a forum on Friday, Channel 4, and the question was asked: ‘Name a bill that Chuck Grassley has passed.’ And the Republican on the panel paused, couldn’t think, and then said, ‘Oh the bankruptcy bill in 2005.’ The sad thing is with all that seniority it really hasn’t amounted to anything for Iowa. I’ve told people I intend to spend 24/7 with briefing books, both with my staff and committee staff. I also intend to, Ben, to what I call punch above my throw-weight as the junior senator from Iowa. I’m 6’6” when I stand up and I will be leaning into my fellow senators. I look forward to building relationships with them. I actually think that there are a number of senators there that I can form coalitions with. I mentioned Elizabeth Warren, Senator Brown from Ohio, Senator Merkley from Oregon. I see a group of people there already that I can work with to pass legislation.
BK: You were part of a forum with the three other candidates discussing foreign policy. In broad terms, how would you describe your foreign policy positions?
TF: I’m a peace activist. I think that my natural view is butter over guns. I do take very seriously the advise-and-consent with the president. And I’m mentioned Sunday that one of the role-models for that was Richard Lugar from Indiana. He was a Midwest senator but he became a very respected voice on foreign policy and balance in U.S. international relations.
BK: How would you evaluate President Obama’s foreign policy?
TF: Generally it’s been intelligent. The one area where there’s blood on his hands is our drone policy. We have been using drones to kill people in countries that are not in war with us. I think it opens the door for other countries to engage in drone strikes.
BK: What do we do about ISIS, do we take the fight to them more than we have at this point?
TF: Actually, ISIS, I believe, is a proxy for the Saudis, not necessarily the Saudi family, but I think the way to combat ISIS is to lean on Saudi Arabia and say, ‘Withdraw your support.’ If they withdraw their support, ISIS goes away.Traditionally a rugby powerhouse, the Auckland side have suffered for a long time – initially from fly-half deficiencies that gradually spread to a general malaise – but they might have reached a turning point at last. They have recruited heavily to strengthen the positions surrounding the fly half this season with Augustine Pulu and Sonny Bill Williams making the move from the Chiefs to the Blues via the All Black Sevens to fill the scrum half and centre positions.
As impressive as that duo is – and don’t let anyone tell you it isn’t – both are powerful runners with a dangerous ability to break teams with the offload, and preternatural lateral agility in defence as well as attack, the primary playmaking role retains a large degree of uncertainty around it. With Piers Francis joining up with the England squad after a mediocre year, the inconsistent (you might notice inconsistency being a theme soon) Ihaia West not sufficiently recovered from injury to return to the starting line-up, and Bryn Gatland discarded after a few uninspiring Super Rugby performances, the mantle has fallen on the talented Stephen Perofeta to face the Lions in his first ever start for the Blues. After only playing a handful of minutes this season due to injury, his run on debut comes tomorrow morning. The Lions should feel encouraged by this; no matter how talented Perofeta is, he has never played a minute with either Pulu or Sonny Bill Williams in a competitive match, and Gatland will be confident that his power game (yeah, he’s not going to follow through on any of his other talk) can exploit any lack of cohesion or chinks in the debutant’s defence. Given this vulnerability, expect Pulu and Sonny Bill Williams to favour the inside channel slightly and this will open up the opportunity for the Lions to exploit space out wide if they use decoy runners. **Sidebar: it’ll be interesting to see how Sonny Bill Williams goes tomorrow, especially in the context of him fasting for Ramadan at present**
I don’t expect the Lions to adopt this tactic often but if they do, there are two ways for the Blues to overcome this. The first would be for Pulu and Sonny Bill to play the game of their lives, with Pulu patrolling the inside channel like a particularly psychotic, menacing, under-sized bouncer, and for Sonny Bill to play to the limits of his extremely underrated sideline-to-sideline defensive game. The other, much simpler, option is to trust Perofeta’s ability to defend his channel, with Pulu taking care of the fringes of the ruck, allowing Blake Gibson to help Perofeta stop the runners in their tracks. The problem for the Lions here is that this is by no means a fool proof strategy. Perofeta has shown no signs of being a turnstyle in defence at any level to date, and while playing at the highest level of the game brings its own unique challenges, he may very well prove a willing and able defender in his own right. If he can manage that, it’ll be a major boost for the Blues and their defensive structure.
Defence is only half the battle for Perofeta though. A running fly half who is excellent in broken play, he isn’t the style of playmaker you would think is ideally suited to unleashing the plethora of talented power runners the Blues have. Faumuina, Tuipoluto, the Ioanes, Luatua, Gibson, Sonny Bill, and Moala can wreak havoc up the middle against any defence given a playmaker who stands flat and delivers the ball to them in the best spot to cross over the gainline but in the early stages of his career, Perofeta has shown signs of being a fly half who prefers to come onto the ball from depth and use his running game to spark attacking play. The good news for the Blues is that they do have an alternative as a primary playmaker in a player who has basically had to play that role all season so far. Augustine Pulu has a unique set of responsibilities compared to the other scrum halves in Super Rugby, with only Aaron Smith coming close for the demands placed on him by his team, albeit with the assistance of a world class fly half. As the responsibility to direct play falls on Pulu, you’ll see that he takes far longer to clear the ball from the breakdown than his counterparts from the other Kiwi franchises. Pulu doesn’t, and won’t have, the option of clearing the ball at speed to a first receiver who is comfortable with directing the play for prolonged periods of time, which leads to him needing to direct his runners before releasing the ball from the ruck: this is a huge area of opportunity for the Lions. If they can use this extra time to slow the Blues ball down even further, it will allow them to fill any gaps in their defensive structure, and prevent the Blues from breaking the line with regularity. The other side of the coin here is that Pulu is a magnificent runner in broken play and will take on any opportunity to snipe around the fringes of the ruck, so if the Lions do overcommit and fail to slow the ball down, Pulu can draw the defenders inwards with his running game. Let this happen, and the Lions will have to pick their poison in cover defence: cover the support runners (and there will be plenty) and rely on the defensive back court to stop the best running scrum half New Zealand has to offer, or sell out to stop the break as soon as possible and risk Pulu keeping the ball alive – something he has a gift for – and getting it out to Perofeta and co.
The key to helping this exchange fall in the Blues favour takes an unexpected form: not many Super Rugby fans knew much about Scott Scrafton and Gerard Cowley-Tuioti prior to this season but there’s a reason that Patrick Tuipoluto starts the match on the bench. Both second rows have been consistently (rare for Blues locks in years past) excellent (rarer still in Blues locks over the years), matching masochistic work rates with solid play with ball in hand. Don’t be surprised if you see one or the other seemingly hitting every ruck: they’re sneakily athletic and, for a pair of 24 year olds, mature in the darker arts around the breakdown. The Blues will need colossal efforts from their locking duo to help Pulu get a clear ruck area. Manage this, and the whole game gets a lot easier for the Blues, frustrating the Lions and forcing them to commit more and more players to slow the Blues ball down, pushing the Lions defence closer to the breakdown.
Just as important a challenge for Scrafton and Cowley-Tuioti will come in the lineout. Disrupting the Lions ball would give the Blues a valuable advantage but the priority will be protecting their own ball. Facing an athletic Lions duo who are highly capable of making a mess of any creaking lineout, the Blues pair will be thankful for having a loose forward trio who are all reliable lineout options. Luatua is an exceptional jumper who may very well end up being the primary target, Akira Ioane provides an explosive option who can catch the Lions off guard, and Blake Gibson rounds off a five jumper lineout with a McCaw like option with his combination of height and athleticism in the open side position. If Parsons can make his throws, and having five options will help immensely, the Blues can go blunt the effectiveness of Itoje and Lawes, and look to turn the pressure onto Ken Owens instead.
As talented as the Blues backline is, there is an argument that the best part of their team is their backrow. Kara Pryor, who has had limited game time this season, stood out last season with some dominating performances towards the latter end of the season but, like Tuipoluto, can only make the bench after the standout performances offered up by his teammates. What Pryor will offer off the bench is an explosive flanker who carries the ball hard but also with skill and vision, without making any compromises on defence who’ll provide impact whenever he steps onto the field. The starting trio, however, have been on a different level altogether. Akira Ioane has had questions about his work rate in the past but has shown signs of “putting it all together” lately, combining his physicality in tight with his ability to provide a genuine mismatch out wide: other forwards are too slow to catch him, and backs just don’t seem to be able to tackle him. Add a little consistency and experience and you get his Number 8, Steven Luatua. It’s a great shame that Luatua will spend next season tearing up the Championship with Bristol, especially as he had forced his way back into All Black contention with his dominant showings this year. Luatua, like Ioane, is devastating out wide and is one of the most skilled forwards with ball in hand in the world today. With that said, and despite the massive hype around Akira, the most intriguing backrow prospect the Blues have is Blake Gibson. There are shades of McCaw in Gibson’s game: a never-ending fuel tank, tall and athletic enough to jump in the lineout without his size compromising any of his ability at the breakdown, and great game management, Gibson leaves nothing to be desired with ball in hand either. Last season, in his run on debut for the Blues, he broke the line in the opening minutes of the Super Rugby campaign before running right over Ben Smith on his way to a score, and it seems like it’s only a matter of time before he puts his name into the same hat as Ardie Savea and Sam Cane.
The potential problem players for the Lions in the Blues forward pack don’t finish there. The Blues front row trio are skilful when it comes to keeping the ball alive in contact – Charlie Faumuina even had three offload try assists in a single game this year(!!!) James Parsons and Tu’ungafasi might be less capable in comparison but that’s like saying that King Kong isn’t really big compared to Godzilla (of all the movie references I could make, I somehow walk into that one). Tu’ungafasi has shown one weakness over the past couple of years that the Lions could use to gain a decisive advantage though: as a tall prop, he has struggled to keep his feet on occasion at scrum time, and he finds it almost impossible to stop giving away penalties once he starts so it’ll be critical for the Blues for him to stay clear of trouble in the scrum if the Blues are to win this game.
Seeing as I’ve already anointed the backrow as the Blues’ most effective contingent, it seems a little strange to finish on their backline until you consider what they bring to the party. Rieko “the freako” Ioane is as good as any outside back in the world on his day, which is some compliment for a player who only turned twenty a couple of months ago, and his day seems to come around more and more often. Blessed with a devastating change of direction while not seeming to slow down at all, he seems to reach top speed in a flash and is a nightmare to bring down. On the other wind, Matt Duffie recovered from a nightmare debut season last year after crossing code to Union to win my nomination for the most improved player in Super Rugby. Duffie seems to beat the first defender at will and comes in off his wing to look for work, sometimes as first receiver and other times running the inside channel before exploding out on the overlap. His strength under the high ball will help the Blues if the Lions take the aerial approach, and he has a great understanding with Michael Collins on the counterattack. Collins is the glue that holds the backline together with his solid defence and kicking game. While I think that the Blues are making a mistake by holding their best fullback on the bench in Melani Nanai, there are shades of an early Ben Smith to Collins so far. Dependable and seemingly not very spectacular, he just seems to “do the right thing” over and over again. Nanai will be eager to get onto the field however, and regardless of where he plays in the back three, he will look to roam across the width of the pitch to get his hands on the ball and launch attacks.
Having read this, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the Lions have no chance of beating such an exciting, athletic group of prospects and stars but the Lions are the prohibitive favourites for a reason. There’s a lot of uncertainty around how Perofeta will play and given that few, if any, of the Lions players who took part in the opening tour match will see the field tomorrow morning, it’d be unwise to prescribe their failings to the squad for this game. If, like me, you find Greig Laidlaw to be a mediocre option at scrum half in comparison to the other 9s on tour, and find players like Maro Itoje to be significant upgrades on the likes of Alun-Wyn Jones at this stage of his career, you’ll agree that the Lions have enough to overcome a team that is likely to encounter cohesion issues of their own. If the Lions put the Blues under pressure early, the Blues’ worst tendencies could resurface; crumbling in the scrum, and unable to get their platoon of dangerous runners going in attack.
While the Lions are rightly the clear favourites, there is a clear path to victory for the Blues and it might not be the open, “attack from everywhere” approach fans may assume. The open, attacking running game can leave you prone to conceding scores on the counterattack if the ball is spilled (or maybe that only happens when Bernard Foley and Nick Phipps are the halfbacks), and it almost plays into the Gatland’s preferred strategy of soaking up pressure in defence before taking advantage of opposition mistakes. The Blues may very well be better served playing in the Highlanders mould – kicking in behind the Lions to force them to kick the ball out to a Blues attacking lineout and the one-on-one opportunities for the backs that this would provide, attacking kicks for the likes of Duffie and Collins to compete for, forcing the Lions to build play from deep in their own half and pressure them to kick the ball away to a back three that can be lethal on the counterattack. Perofeta is talented enough to pull this kind of game plan off, and it would open up space for him to run the ball when the Blues do have possession – and if the Lions let that happen, we might get to see the birth of a star.
Comments
commentsOn Friday, when President Obama finally addressed the Trayvon Martin verdict, his remarks were greeted with a chorus of amens, and rightly so. Still, I couldn't help thinking about the race speech he wasn't making. Detroit, America's largest majority-black city since the 1970s, had declared bankruptcy less than 24 hours earlier. It was apparently easier to address one tragic death than to honestly grapple with the misdeeds that had brought low one of the most important cities of the 20th century.
Those misdeeds indisputably include a history of abandonment, neglect, isolation and outright hostility born directly of the racial tensions that have historically divided Detroit from its predominantly white suburbs, and from the rest of the state of Michigan. Add to the list a failure of leadership on every level – from myopic, at times corrupt local politicians who punted on Detroit's long-term debt issues, to a bipartisan Washington policy establishment that has blundered along for years without anything resembling a cohesive urban policy or a strategy for shoring up US manufacturing.
And, of course, let's not forget the economic misdeeds of Detroit's Big Three car manufacturers (those pioneers of job outsourcing) and Wall Street (whose predatory lending and casino mentality resulted in the foreclosure epidemic that would devastate the tax base of cities across the US).The year after Chrysler and General Motors entered managed bankruptcies, Michigan elected a Republican governor, a helmet-haired certified public accountant (and venture capitalist), Rick Snyder, who bankrolled his own campaign to the tune of $6m, proudly billing himself as a technocrat capable of reviving the state's foundering economy. Snyder, after promptly cutting corporate taxes, saw the writing on the wall in Detroit. Nervous about the possibility of an unmanaged bankruptcy – which could have tanked the bond rating and borrowing ability of the entire state – Snyder appointed bankruptcy lawyer Kevyn Orr as Detroit's "emergency manager" in March. Democratically elected officials (the mayor, the city council) retained their job titles but no real power; Orr, meanwhile, would control the city's finances and negotiate with creditors. He was granted near dictatorial powers, including the ability to break union contracts with city workers and sell off municipal assets.
Previously, Orr had been one of the lead attorneys working on Chrysler's managed bankruptcy, and the hope was that he'd bring the same skills to fixing the city. But there was one huge difference: Obama extended $82bn in federal loans to Chrysler and GM. In the city of Detroit, federal loans were a pipe dream, and Orr's chief spokesperson has been reduced to floating the idea of selling off paintings from the city's art museum to pay the bills.
Detroit holds approximately $18bn worth of long-term debt. About half of the money is owed to retired city workers, who were promised health and pension benefits that Detroit can no longer afford. The other half is bond debt – some taking the form of shady interest-rate swaps, owed to the very same Wall Street banks that tanked the global economy in the first place. Orr took a surprisingly tough line with the banks, offering many of the bondholders only 10 cents on the dollar. Predictably, they balked. (At the last moment, they also backed out on Orr's offer to take representatives on a driving tour of Detroit's worst-hit neighbourhoods; most likely their public relations departments realised the image of nervous bankers rolling through Detroit's urban prairies on a chauffeured disaster tour would make for what's known as "bad optics".)
The pensioners, meanwhile, are protected by Michigan's state constitution. According to Orr, though, federal bankruptcy law would supersede that of the state, and he was threatening the pensions with "significant cuts" – so the pension fund lawyers decided to take him to court. This is what directly triggered the bankruptcy filing: now the city has entered bankruptcy, any pending lawsuits are automatically suspended.
What happens next? The truth is, no one knows. The US has never seen a municipal bankruptcy on this scale. It could take years to wend its way through the court system, with much depending on bankruptcy judge Steven Rhodes, appointed on Friday to oversee the case. Rhodes remains a largely unknown quantity, though a Google search revealed, auspiciously, that he plays rhythm guitar in the Indubitable Equivalents, the house classic rock band of the American Bankruptcy Institute, and that he loves the song (seriously) "Eve of Destruction". He's also co-written a book about Ponzi schemes, which should help when it comes to negotiating with Wall Street.
During the 2012 campaign, Obama hammered Mitt Romney for writing an op-ed titled "Let Detroit go bankrupt". The "Detroit" to which Romney referred was the car industry, not the city, and Obama's critique was spot-on – allowing the companies to fail would have been a human and economic catastrophe. But now that the other Detroit has gone bankrupt, perhaps it's time for Obama to write an op-ed of his own, explaining the disgraceful "jobless recovery" he's presided over, while corporate profits continue to soar. The day after the Detroit bankruptcy was announced, incidentally, the Dow Jones industrial average hit a record high.
• This piece was amended on 22 July 2013. The bankruptcy judge Steven Rhodes plays for a band called the Indubitable Equivalents, not the Interminable Equivalents as had been stated in the seventh paragraph.For years, a majority of Iraqis have just wanted the Americans to leave.
As of June 30, urban Iraqis will likely get their wish. But let’s step back for a moment and think about why some Iraqis, particularly in the Sunni areas, may be having second thoughts, and why others, their lives blistered over with varying degrees of dismal circumstances, are too depleted to engage in the hearty sendoff they’ve always dreamed of.
As many reports "from the ground" now reveal, the dirty little secret of American withdrawal from Iraq is that for many Iraqis, their world looks uncomfortably like the one the U.S. delivered them from in 2003, particularly in terms of corruption and greed – in the central government and police – and a substandard quality of life caused by unemployment and deteriorating infrastructure.
After more than six years of fighting and nearly a trillion dollars spent "to free the Iraqi people" – as exclaimed by invading President George W. Bush in 2003 – we find Iraqis in places like Anbar province fearing their new freedom could come at too high a cost.
"We feel many bad things are coming," said Kareem Arak, head of the North Ramadi city council, in a recent Associated Press report.
Raheem Kalaaf Mohammed, vice president of the council, shares his friend’s dire prediction. "We feel there will be disaster here."
Among other security concerns, such as the increasing suicide bomb attacks against security forces throughout Anbar, local business leaders in Ramadi fear a "wave of corruption" and charge the local police with stealing from their stores.
And that’s not all they’re accused of doing. The London Times produced a disturbing piece on April 24 indicating that Saddam-era tactics are alive and well throughout the Sunni and Shia-led police and security forces in the very cities slated for U.S. withdrawal in June.
"In this vast and largely unaccountable security apparatus, with almost a million people in uniform, corruption is rife," writer James Hider intones after telling this horrific story: "A young woman, evidently drugged, vomiting and occasionally calling for her mother, tries weakly to stop the grinning man in a white T-shirt and boxer shorts from pulling off her underwear."
She is raped. Her rapist and his accomplice, who shot the whole thing with the camera on his cell phone, are Ramadi police officers, according to the victim.
The accused rapist, being the nephew of a senior police officer, was held briefly before "mysteriously" freed, fleeing possibly to Syria. The girl’s fate, her family name now sullied by the rape, was much worse, as it was suggested to Hider by a government official that she was later the victim of a family honor killing.
No surprise, then, that when the group of businessmen in Ramadi was told by a U.S. officer that "very soon, there won’t be any Marines coming here," there were "murmurs of dismay" in response. Granted, these minority Sunnis have never been keen on the Americans leaving, but their reasons now are clear enough: two years ago, al-Qaeda bloodied the streets, targeting their local tribesmen who were standing in line to join the police. Now, al-Qaeda is largely gone, and it’s the police who are doing the terrorizing.
Fear and Loathing in Baghdad
Miles away in Baghdad, the corruption is blatant and somewhat more complicated, tied in with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki |
European solution, and so far we don't have such an answer."
A young Afghan, Karim, also wants to know what is happening. The stress and worry of living in limbo is taking its toll. The young man stands out from most other refugees around him. He is fresh faced, wearing crisp, clean clothes and has gone to the effort of getting a sharp, new haircut. He is well-spoken and speaks three languages, including English. He's even trying to learn Serbian and French as well.
He and his fellow refugees share only two things in common: their ethnicity and the journey they have each made to get here. Aside, from that, he admits, they have no similarities.
Nonetheless, they are all here, together. The 19-year-old has been in Serbia for two months. He travelled from Kabul with his 17-year-old brother, leaving the rest of his family behind. His father had encouraged him to seek a life of safety, away from the constant carnage of Afghanistan; a life where he hopes to resume his university studies in computer programming.
"I've missed about 6 months of class now, so I hope to get to Switzerland soon so I can make up the classes," he says.
Karim admits it has been difficult to endure life as a refugee. He says he has never lived like this before. He misses his family and regrets leaving home. Still, he says, his father tells him never to return. The Taliban is making gains every day and the violence is getting worse. Very few refugees want to apply for asylum in Serbia, and as Karim says, "even my Serbian friends tell me don't do it," but as stalled life stretches on, Karim is considering it. The young man is coming to realise that something, might just be better than nothing.
REFUGEES IN LIMBO
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Source: TRTWorld and agenciesThe Battle of Amami-Ōshima, also known as the Spy Ship Incident in the Southwest Sea of Kyūshū (Japanese: 九州南西海域工作船事件, translit. kyūshū-nansei-kaiiki-kōsakusen-jiken), was a six-hour confrontation between the Japanese Coast Guard and an armed North Korean vessel, which took place near the island of Amami-Ōshima, in the East China Sea. The December 2001 encounter ended in the sinking of the North Korean vessel, which the Japanese authorities later announced was determined to have been a spy craft.[5][6] The encounter took place outside Japanese territorial waters, but within the exclusive economic zone, an area extending 200 nautical miles (370 km; 230 mi) from Japanese land, within which Japan can claim exclusive rights to fishing and mineral resources.
Background [ edit ]
An unidentified ship was spotted in Japanese waters on 21 December 2001. The armed trawler was detected by a communications station in Kikaijima, Kagoshima, which was under control of the Japanese Defense Intelligence Headquarters.[7] In 1999, another North Korean vessel encountered by the Japanese Coast Guard was claimed by Japan to have been a spy craft, though North Korea denied it.[8]
Battle [ edit ]
Dual hatch found in the stern of the North Korean spy trawler.
Early the following morning, the ship was chased by four Japan Coast Guard vessels, who ordered it to halt, and fired 25 warning shots upon the ship when those orders were ignored.[9] A six-hour firefight ensued, in which over 1,000 machine gun rounds were fired by both sides;[1] the North Korean crew were said to have wielded shoulder-held rocket launchers.[10] The North Korean trawler was meanwhile hit by a number of 20 mm (0.79 in) rounds.[3][11] Several explosions not directly related to Japanese attacks rocked the ship before it was sunk. According to The Guardian, "fifteen survivors were seen clinging to a buoy in heavy seas, but the Japanese ships were ordered to ignore them because of fears that they would use force to resist capture".[3] Two bodies were recovered, thirteen more persons were declared missing and presumed dead several days later.[3]
Ship is exhibited in the Yokohama marine disaster prevention base.
The Special Boarding Unit was mobilized to board the ship, but did not do so as they had to wait for official orders from the Japanese Defense Agency. The ship sank before such orders arrived.[2]
The engagement was recorded on video from Japanese coast guard vessels.[12]
Aftermath [ edit ]
In 2003 the trawler was raised by the Japanese to confirm her origin and intentions. Inspection of the hull determined she was of North Korean origin and most likely an infiltration and spy vessel. It was revealed that the vessel was camouflaged as a Chinese or Japanese fishing boat and that she could go 33 knots (61 km/h; 38 mph), far faster than any commercial trawler. The ship had also a hidden double hatch in the stern to be used as an exit door for speedboats. After the inspections were deemed complete the hull was displayed at the Japan Coast Guard Museum Yokohama in Yokohama, where she has become a popular tourist attraction.
References [ edit ]
Citations [ edit ]
Biography [ edit ]ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) - Actor Kevin Spacey greeted Maryland lawmakers at a wine bar Friday night to help promote an expansion of a tax credit for filming movies and television shows in the state.
The two-time Oscar winner posed for photos inside the invitation-only event near the statehouse, where lawmakers are entering the last two weeks of their annual 90-day legislative session. Spectators on the city’s Main Street watched lawmakers stream into the bar.
Spacey was invited by Gerard Evans, a lobbyist who is representing the show “House of Cards,” produced by Netflix.
Parts of the show starring Spacey have been filmed in Maryland, including Annapolis. Sen. Nancy Jacobs, R-Harford, said she supports boosting the tax credit.
“You look at what it brings to this area and to my home district in Harford County where they do most of it, it’s really important, so I’m in favor of it,” Jacobs said, while showing reporters a photo she had taken with Spacey inside Red Red Wine Bar.
Del. Jeannie Haddaway-Riccio, R-Talbot, said she has seen how movies filmed in her legislative district on Maryland’s Eastern Shore have attracted tourists. She also recalled business generated locally due to the film “Wedding Crashers.”
“We have people ask all the time where the house is located where the filming took place,” she said.
Maryland has committed about $54 million from fiscal year 2012 through 2016 for “House of Cards” and the HBO show “Veep.” The state Senate has voted to raise the amount Maryland can spend on the program from $7.5 million to $18.5 million next year. The House hasn’t acted on the bill, which is in the Ways and Means Committee.
Last year, lawmakers raised the tax credit amount from $7.5 million to $25 million.
Del. Ron George, R-Anne Arundel, said he has voted for the tax credit in the past, but he is taking a closer look at it this year.
“I want to make sure it’s going to generate revenue for the state,” George said. “We’re still pulling all the facts and figures. We have not moved it in Ways and Means, because we’re still studying it.”
Del. John Donoghue, D-Washington, said he thought the show was “worth every penny that we offer.”
“They have had a huge impact on the economy in Maryland,” Donoghue said. “People worldwide are watching ‘House of Cards’ on Netflix, and I think that’s very, very important and we don’t want to lose them.”
___
Information from: The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC.Average NBA Team Value Increases 74% From Last Year
New York, N.Y. (Jan. 21, 2015) – Forbes announces its annual valuations of the National Basketball Association’s 30 teams, naming the Los Angeles Lakers the most valuable team, worth $2.6 billion (Hoops Hysteria p.18). In the 2014 valuations only the top 3 teams had values of at least $1 billion, while this year the top 11 teams on the list are valued at $1 billion or higher. The New York Knicks, who topped the list in 2014, dropped to No. 2 this year, even though they are valued at $2.5 billion, which is a 79% increase from last year.The Los Angeles Lakers attained the top spot from the New York Knicks, due to their higher revenue and operating income. Rounding out the top 5 are the Chicago Bulls ($2 billion), Boston Celtics ($1.7 billion) and Los Angeles Clippers ($1.6 billion).
The average NBA team is now worth $1.1 billion, 74% more than last year and three times more than five years ago. This is the biggest one-year gain since Forbes began valuing teams in the four major U.S. sports leagues in 1998. The increase in value is primarily due to the league signing expanded national media deals with Walt Disney (ESPN/ABC) and Time Warner (TNT) that will begin with the 2016–17 season, nearly three times more valuable than the existing deals.
The Top 10 Most Valuable Teams in the NBA are:
Rank Team Owners Current
Value
($mil) 1-Year
Value
Change (%) Revenue
($mil) Operating
Income
($mil) 1 Los Angeles Lakers Jerry Buss Family Trusts; Philip Anschutz $2,600 93% $293 $104.1 2 New York Knicks Madison Square Garden Co. 2,500 79 278 53.4 3 Chicago Bulls Jerry Reinsdorf 2,000 100 201 65.3 4 Boston Celtics Wycliffe Grousbeck; Irving Grousbeck 1,700 94 173 54.9 5 Los Angeles Clippers Steve Ballmer 1,600 178 146 20.1 6 Brooklyn Nets Mikhail Prokhorov; Bruce Ratner 1,500 92 212 -99.4 7 Golden State Warriors Joe Lacob; Peter Gruber 1,300 73 168 44.9 8 Houston Rockets Leslie Alexander 1,250 61 175 38.0 9 Miami Heat Micky Arison 1,175 53 188 12.6 10 Dallas Mavericks Mark Cuban 1,150 50 168 30.4 League Average: $1,106 72% $160 $23.1
PLUS:
Highest-Paid NBA Players (p.19) – The NBA’s highest earners saw their incomes rise 3% over the past year. Kevin Durant’s new $300 million shoe deal gave him the biggest boost; last year’s number one, Kobe Bryant, falls to third after a pay cut.
For the complete list and more, visit: www.forbes.com/nba
Contact: Christina Vega at 212.206.5155 or cvega@forbes.comThe PRC states that the construction is for "improving the working and living conditions of people stationed on these islands", [8] and that, "China is aiming to provide shelter, aid in navigation, weather forecasts and fishery assistance to ships of various countries passing through the sea." [9]
The artificial islands were created by dredging sand onto coral reefs which were then concreted to make permanent structures. By the time of the 2015 Shangri-La Dialogue, over 810 hectares (2,000 acres) of new land had been created. [6] By December 2016 it had reached 3,200 acres (1,300 ha) and "'significant' weapons systems, including anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems " had been installed. [7]
The PRC used hundreds of dredges and barges [ citation needed ] including a giant self-propelled dredger, the Tian Jing Hao. Built in 2009 in China, the Tian Jing Hao, is a 127m-long seagoing cutter suction dredger designed by German engineering company Vosta LMG; ( Lübecker Maschinenbau Gesellschaft ( de )). At 6,017 gross tonnes, with a dredging capacity of 4500m 3 /h, it is credited as being the largest of its type in Asia. It has been operating on Cuarteron Reef, the Gaven Reefs, and at Fiery Cross Reef. [15]
More than half of the world's annual merchant fleet tonnage passes through the Strait of Malacca, Sunda Strait, and Lombok Strait, with the majority continuing on into the South China Sea. Tanker traffic through the Strait of Malacca leading into the South China Sea is more than three times greater than Suez Canal traffic, and well over five times more than the Panama Canal. [16] The People's Republic of China (PRC) has stated its unilateral claim to almost the entire body of water. [17]
According to Chinese sources, the concept was invented in 1972 by the Bureau of Survey and Cartography of Vietnam under the Office of Premier Phạm Văn Đồng which printed out "The World Atlas" and said " The chain of islands from the Nansha and Xisha Islands to Hainan Island, Taiwan Island, the Penghu Islands and the Zhoushan Islands are shaped like a bow and constitute a Great Wall defending the China mainland. " [20]
Aside from geo-political tensions, concerns have been raised about the environmental impact on fragile reef ecosystems through the destruction of habitat, pollution and interruption of migration routes.[13] These new islands are built on reefs previously one metre (3 ft 3 in) below the level of the sea. For back-filling these seven artificial islands, a total area of 13.5 square kilometres (5.2 sq mi), to the height of few meters, China had to destroy surrounding reefs and pump 40 to 50 million cubic metres (1.4×10 ^ 9 to 1.8×10 ^ 9 cu ft) of sand and corals, resulting in significant and irreversible damage to the environment. Frank Muller-Karger, professor of biological oceanography at the University of South Florida, said sediment “can wash back into the sea, forming plumes that can smother marine life and could be laced with heavy metals, oil and other chemicals from the ships and shore facilities being built.” Such plumes threaten the biologically diverse reefs throughout the Spratlys, which Dr. Muller-Karger said may have trouble surviving in sediment-laden water.[34]
Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, visiting the vicinity of the Philippine-controlled island of Pagasa by plane and boat, said he saw Chinese fishermen poaching and destroying the reefs on a massive scale. As he saw Chinese fishermen poaching endangered species like massive giant clams, he noted “None of this proves China is protecting the poachers. But nor does Beijing appear to be doing anything to stop them. The poachers we saw showed absolutely no sign of fear when they saw our cameras filming them”. He concludes: “However shocking the reef plundering I witnessed, it is as nothing compared to the environmental destruction wrought by China's massive island building programme nearby. The latest island China has just completed at Mischief Reef is more than 9km (six miles) long. That is 9km of living reef that is now buried under millions of tonnes of sand and gravel.”[35]
A 2014 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report noted that "Sand is rarer than one thinks."[36] "The average price of sand imported by Singapore was US$3 per tonne from 1995 to 2001, but the price increased to US$190 per tonne from 2003 to 2005".[36] Although the Philippines and the PRC had both ratified the UNCLOS III,[18] in the case of Johnson South Reef, Hughes Reef and Mischief Reef, the PRC dredged sand for free in the EEZ the Philippines had claimed from 1978,[37] arguing this to be the "waters of China's Nansha Islands". "Although the consequences of substrate mining are hidden, they are tremendous. Aggregate particles that are too fine to be used are rejected by dredging boats, releasing vast dust plumes and changing water turbidity".[36]
John McManus, a professor of marine biology and ecology at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, said: "The worst thing anyone can do to a coral reef is to bury it under tons of sand and gravel... There are global security concerns associated with the damage. It is likely broad enough to reduce fish stocks in the world's most fish-dependent region." He explained that the reason "the world has heard little about the damage inflicted by the People's Republic of China to the reefs is that the experts can't get to them", and noted "I have colleagues from the Philippines, Taiwan, PRC, Vietnam and Malaysia who have worked in the Spratly area. Most would not be able to get near the artificial islands except possibly some from PRC, and those would not be able to release their findings".[38]President Donald Trump has promised to drain the swamp in Washington, D.C., but now the swamp is fighting back, Bill O'Reilly said in his Talking Points Memo on Thursday.
O'Reilly explained that the national media despises Trump and such derision shows in their coverage of his administration. He added that some people in the federal government also want to damage the president.
Tony Shaffer: Obama Holdovers Withholding Intel From Trump Admin
Judge Nap: Intel Community 'Shadow Gov't' Is Working Against Trump
"That's why you are seeing leaks from intelligence agencies and other federal bureaucracies," O'Reilly said. "All presidents have to deal with leaks, but in this political climate, the press gleefully - gleefully - accepts information from anonymous sources and spins it negative against Trump."
He pointed out that the public and press don't know the full story behind former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn's resignation, but that hasn't prevented the media from speculating about the Trump administration's alleged ties to Russia.
"The press has run wild with the stories, and the Trump haters are relishing a witch hunt," O'Reilly said.
He suggested that when then-candidate Trump first said he was going to drain the swamp, he didn't realize how extensive the problem was.
"After eight years of President Obama, there are many people working in the federal government who like the former president and who despise Mr. Trump. Eliminating all of them and stopping leaks will pretty much be impossible," O'Reilly said. "Also, trying to get fairness out of an anti-Trump press will be impossible as well."
"So the Trump administration has its hands full."
Watch more above, and let us know what you think in the comments.
WATCH: Driver Rams Through Pipeline Protest
Dem Gov. Candidate Apologizes for Saying Trump Win Was Like 'Political 9/11'
Piers Morgan: Media's Attempt to Delegitimize Trump Is 'Un-American'The guitar shop is a stressful environment at the best of times: you're improvising rough and ready licks on an instrument you've never played before, through an unfamiliar amp - with the rest of the clientele listening to your every fumble.
However, there are a select few individuals who possess the uncanny ability to make everyone in the vicinity groan with renewed vigour, courtesy of their unfortunate pairings of playing and personality.
No visit to your local axe emporium would be complete without at least one of these lot rocking up…
1. The Spoilt Kid
Timmy has passed his GCSEs, and as a reward, his proud parents have unleashed the little cherub on a trolley dash. Funnily enough, when he's being interviewed by the rock press in three years' time, the official line will be that he stole his first Firebird from a Nashville strip-joint.
2. The Grizzled Rocker
The Grizzled Rocker has a wire-wool ponytail, a face like Mick Jagger's scrotum and a tendency to launch into the same tired anecdote about "playing keys with Smokie back in the glory years". Everyone suspects he's just a borderline-homeless pathological liar who's sheltering from the rain.
3. The Clichémonger
In Levi's 501s and Ramones t-shirt, the Clichémonger arrives each lunchtime to work through his repertoire of Clangingly Obvious Guitar Riffs. He'll manage Layla, Whole Lotta Love and Sweet Child O' Mine, before the staff smash his fingers with a toffee hammer.
4. Mr Try-It-Out
Blissfully unaware that he's the tragic embodiment of Mike Myers in Wayne's World, Mr Try-It-Out bounds in and announces he's "definitely thinking about" the '67 Strat in the window. He cradles it like a weekend dad, plays some plaintive blues licks… then remembers he still can't afford it.
If you listen carefully, you might hear the guitar sobbing
5. The Weekend Warrior
Sensibly dressed, centre-parted and shadowed by his wife and kids, the Weekend Warrior arrives to toast his 40th birthday with the Sunburst Gibson Les Paul he coveted as a student. If you listen carefully, you might hear the guitar sobbing, aware its glorious spec will be wasted on the odd stilted version of Money For Nothing after dinner parties.
6. The Rock God
Just sometimes, the guitar shop's core clientele of window-shoppers and penny-counters is interrupted by a genuine A-lister, who will sweep in, point at a wall of vintage Strats and command: "Those". To catch this lesser-spotted species, try hanging out on London's Denmark Street.
7. The Local Hero
The local scene belongs to him, and he's on first-name terms with everyone in the shop. Frequently seen hanging out at the counter trying to blag free strings, you'll know the local hero from name-dropping his latest support slot.
8. The Pushy Sales Guy
He knows you're just browsing, but still he clings to your side, offering unwanted pearls of wisdom. Ask to try a guitar and he'll let you, but not before he's played through the whole of Wicked Game.
9. The Deluded Shredder
Through modesty or manners, most of us keep the master volume to '5' when testing an amp. But there's always the guy who, despite his inability to shred, decides to wheel a Marshall stack into the acoustic room and blasts poorly executed neo-classical licks so loud that everyone liquefies on the spot.
10. The Show-Off
He has no intention of actually buying anything, of course. The Show-Off is here to perform a technically impeccable Flight Of The Bumblebee, periodically looking up to check the clientele are suitably agog, and to scan for showbiz agents who might rescue him from his day job at the chartered accountants next door. Just ignore him. He hates that…A final design for Perth City Hall has been agreed, ending years of uncertainty.
Councillors have formally backed Dutch company Mecanoo’s proposal to transform the Edwardian venue into a major arts hub.
The city centre building has stood empty for more than a decade while the local authority has scrabbled to agree a way forward.
Five ambitious plans by some of Europe’s top design teams were unveiled to the public earlier this year.
Councillors approved Mecanoo’s plan on Wednesday after hearing it was the most affordable, as well as the favourite amongst local residents and businesses.
However, there was some concern about the project with one councillor describing the design as “boring” and questioning whether it would bring in an international audience.
Mecanoo, which has worked on landmark buildings throughout the world since the 1980s, will draw up a planning application over the coming months.
For full coverage, see Thursday’s CourierWhen you think of it, making a game as a first-party developer for Microsoft these days is essentially making a game for four platforms (Xbox One, Xbox One S, Windows 10, and Project Scorpio). We asked Rod Fergusson from The Coalition what this means for the experience.
"Basically it's about power, right?", says Fergusson. "In terms of Xbox One S it gives you more power than the original Xbox One so you use that in a way that, it's probably about what your TV can do honestly, if you have a TV that can do HDR the Xbox One S has the power to be able to display the game with HDR. So you get those richer, more vibrant colours, the darker darks, the brighter brights. And then if you have a 4K TV the Xbox One S will actually upscale the game to 4K. So it won't be 4K assets, but it will be upscaled to a 4K resolution. And then when you look at the Win 10, the same thing.
"The demo in our theatre where you go to see it [at E3] it will be full 4K on this beautiful 90 inch TV on a Win 10, and then it's going to be connected during cross-play with an Xbox One S doing HDR so you're able to have that back and forth during the co-op campaign. So it's really allowing you to take advantage. And it's really what you hear about the future, about what it is, about Project Scorpio and those sort of things. It's about creating games that allows you to take advantage of the platforms that are underneath them so that they get better and better as they get more power."
We'll run the full interview with Rod Fergusson later today on GRTV.The BCCI has decided that players who have represented India in one Under-19 World Cup cannot take part in another edition of the tournament, even if they meet the age criteria to do so. The board approved this suggestion of its junior committee in the BCCI working committee meeting on Friday.
The working committee has also decided that players who enter the system at the Under-19 stage can play a maximum of two seasons of Under-19 cricket.
Though the BCCI did not specify the reasons behind the move, it can be seen as an attempt to crack down on overage players, which has been a thorny issue over a number of years in Indian cricket. The former India captain Rahul Dravid, who is now head coach of the India A and India Under-19 teams, had made age-fudging a central topic of his MAK Pataudi Memorial Lecture in December 2015.
"I think of this overage business as dangerous and even toxic and to me, gives rise to a question: If a child sees his parents and coaches cheating and creating a fake birth certificate, will he not be encouraged to become a cheat? He is being taught to lie by his own elders," Dravid had said. "At 14, it may be in the matter of the age criteria, at 25 it may be fixing and corruption. How are the two different in any way? In both cases, is it not blatant cheating?"
A number of players have represented India at more than one Under-19 World Cup. Three members of their squad in 2016 - Avesh Khan, Sarfaraz Khan and Ricky Bhui - had also played in the 2014 edition. Examples from the past include Ravindra Jadeja (2006 and 2008) and Vijay Zol (2012 and 2014).Cricket learned lessons from baseball in devising its shortest format. Can it use T20 to break into the home of baseball?
American baseball players at the SCG: can cricket make the return journey? © Getty Images
This week I've been driving to the Sydney Cricket Ground to work - not for an 11-a-side game but one played by teams of nine men.
The famous old cricket ground has been transformed into a baseball diamond, complete with dirt base paths and a pitcher's mound, to host a two-game series between US major league teams the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Arizona Diamondbacks. This might seem like sacrilege on a ground that was home for many years to Don Bradman when he was the greatest batsman alive. However, it seems that this may not be the case, because back in 1932, when Bradman was touring North America, he met the equally famous George Herman "Babe" Ruth at another sporting cathedral, Yankee Stadium. During that meeting the Babe asked Bradman what impressed him about baseball and the Australian icon answered; "In two hours or so the match is finished. Each batter comes up four or five times. Each afternoon's play stands on its own. Yes, cricket could learn a lot from baseball… there is more snap and dash to baseball."
Well, some 70 years on, Bradman's wishes were granted. Cricket has learned a lot from baseball in devising a game that lasts around three hours; it's called T20.
At the same time as the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks are battling for supremacy at the SCG, many of the best cricketers are in Bangladesh, fighting for the right to be called World T20 champions. Already we've seen some upsets, and appropriately, one of cricket's great rivalries kicked off the main section of the draw, with India completing a comprehensive victory over Pakistan.
The rivalry between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees in baseball is often compared to India's and Pakistan's intense battles with each other. The big difference being the cricket rivalry has survived wars and terrorist attacks and yet still creates enormous interest in the two countries.
Apart from the time it takes to play a T20 game, one of the big attractions is that it's more likely to involve upsets than the longer forms of the game. One team only needs to have an exceptionally good over, or the other a particularly bad one, and the complexion of the game can change dramatically. The minnows are more likely to mix it with the cricketing superpowers in the game's shortest version.
In addition to the requirement that it satisfy the needs of a fast-moving world, T20 also affords cricket its greatest opportunity to globalise. It's impossible to sell five-day matches to major markets like the USA, Europe, Japan, and the parts of Asia where cricket isn't a tradition. However, there is an opportunity to have those regions embrace a short version of the game, and this is where T20 can play a major role in the development of cricket.
So while India and Pakistan continue their rivalry and other heavyweights like Australia, England, West Indies, Sri Lanka and South Africa join in the fight for the silverware, it's interesting to witness the development of Associate nations like the Netherlands, Ireland, Nepal and Afghanistan as they scrap for relevance in world cricket.
The one name missing from that list of Associate nations battling to mix it with the big boys is the USA. Their progress has been slowed by infighting amongst the various groups in their administration, but maybe the emergence of the fledgling but innovative American Cricket Federation will finally get the game in the USA on track.
There's no doubt that cricket's hierarchy would love nothing better than to welcome the USA into the main draw of a World T20 tournament. If that does eventuate, cricket fans could witness the reverse of the amazing transformation that the SCG has undergone, at one of the legendary homes of baseball, like Yankee Stadium or Fenway Park.
Former Australia captain Ian Chappell is now a cricket commentator for Channel 9, and a columnist
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.Patience, people. That's Apple's message to its European followers. While the California computer maker will start selling its eagerly awaited "iPad" tablet on April 3rd in the U.S., customers in Paris, London and Munich will have to show a little zen. They won't be able to buy the novel Internet surfboard until the end of April. Plenty of time for little-known German IT outfit Neofonie to grab some headlines with its cheekily named "WePad" - a touch-screen tablet promising similar functionality at a lower price, and without the restrictions that Apple imposes on software in its "App Store", which serves the iPad as well as iPhone and iPod Touch.
As customers and partners know, Apple can be a fickle mistress. In numerous cases, the company has proved willing to wield absolute power over the closed system of hardware and software that it controls. Since the App Store opened in 2007, a variety of apps have suddenly disappeared due to alleged violations of Apple's rules, such as a no-nudity clause. (In fact, stern.de's own iApp was briefly banned a while ago for supposedly revealing too much skin.) In addition, Apple has so far refused to support Adobe's Flash technology in the browsers of its mobile iDevices, citing technical reasons. The multimedia software is used for almost 75 percent of all video streaming on the Web, according to Adobe.
"An open approach"
"WePad" maker Neofonie, in contrast, promises "an open approach" to all aspects of its product. "We don't want to put up any barriers for our users, partners or software developers", says chief executive Helmut Hoffer von Ankershoffen. For its tablet, the Berlin-based company uses many of the same, off-the-shelf components common in netbooks - which helps to keep the cost down. Powered by an Intel "Atom" processor running at 1.6 gigahertz, the iPad rival offers an 11.6-inch touchscreen with a resolution of 1366 by 768 pixels. That's slightly bigger than the iPad's 9.6-inch display at 1024 by 768 pixels. The battery, Neofonie says, will last about six hours, which is notably less than the ten hours Apple claims for its iPad. For both devices, these numbers are theoretical at this point, real-world results may differ. At 800 grams (1.8 pounds), the WePad is about 100 grams heavier than the Apple tablet, and on pictures, at least, it comes across as elegant but not quite as svelte as its competitor from California. (For a glimpse of the final product design please click here)
On the other hand, WePad users get two USB ports to connect peripherals and can expand the built-in memory (16 or 32 GB) with an SD card. Video chatting will also be possible, thanks to a 1.3 megapixel webcam. The iPad does not offer any of these features, but Internet connectivity is similar. Both Apple's tablet and the WePad come in two versions with either Wi-Fi only or Wi-Fi and 3G cell-phone service combined. No word yet on WePad carrier options or how much mobile users will pay for monthly service. The price for the device itself has not been announced either, but Neofonie says its multimedia tablet will be "cheaper than the iPad".
Offering an alternative
Despite going head-to-head with Steve Jobs & Co., the challenger from Berlin claims to mean no harm. "Apple has great products, and we're happy to see user experience becoming more and more important, in no small part thanks to the success of the iPhone", says Neofonie CEO Hoffer von Ankershoffen. "We're simply offering an alternative for people who are looking for something different and more open." His company of 170 people is a surprise contender in the newly emerging market for portable Internet devices. Founded in 1998, Neofonie is best known in the industry for software solutions, such as its "WeFind" search engine, which also powers search at stern.de. The social element present in many of the company's products also accounts for the WePad's name, according to the chief executive. "We think social features are important, it's about more than just the 'i'", says Hoffer von Ankershoffen, professing not to be worried that Apple might sue over the name. "The word 'we' is a part of several of our products, and 'pad' cannot be copyrighted. So we believe we found a very good name."
In terms of software, the WePad employs familiar technology as well: Its operating system is based on a customized version of Linux, capable of running Google's Android software. That way, any application offered through the Android Market store - currently more than 30,000, both free and paid, according to Google - will also run on the WePad, Neofonie says. In addition, the company plans to offer other software as well. "We came up with the new concept of a'meta app store'", says Hoffer von Ankershoffen, "integrating apps from various sources to give users as broad a choice as possible."
Compatible with Adobe Flash and AIR
Like all current tablets, the newcomer from Berlin relies on touch sensors and finger gestures for user interaction; no plastic stylus necessary. In a crucial distinction from its Apple rival, however, the WePad does support Flash, meaning websites like the New York Times, BBC, Lonely Planet, and many others that use Adobe's multimedia plug-in will be properly displayed. Similarly, the WePad is compatible with Adobe AIR, a software that enables stand-alone applications based on Flash. The advantage of the technology, Adobe says, is the ubiquity of Flash, which runs on all common operating systems, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and now Android, making it easier and more efficient to develop applications for a broad range of devices.
Publishers may appreciate the AIR and Flash support even more than couch surfers. Many of them, all over the world, are currently developing electronic versions of their newspapers and magazines, hoping that multimedia tablets will generate additional revenue from digital content. While Apple is wooing publishers with its new "iBookstore", its closed-system approach requires special effort and limits control for content owners. Neofonie, meanwhile, tries to position itself as the ideal solution for publishers going digital, pointing to its open platform and promising not to interfere with content choices. (Full disclosure: One of Neofonie's strategic partners is Gruner+Jahr, publisher of stern magazine and this website. The companies co-developed a new "stern eMagazine" based on AIR, scheduled to launch in the near future.)
Digerati eager to get their hands on the new tablet will, however, have to show just as much patience as with Apple. "We will release further details on our partners and product timeline on April 12", announces Helmut Hoffer von Ankershoffen, declining to be more specific about the launch date - other than to say: "We will quickly follow the iPad."LAKEVIEW — Longtime couple Chris Gutierrez and Shelly Casey have three passions in life — pizza, travel and cats.
A writer and hairstylist by trade, respectively |
. “…New paper: Solar activity at end of 20th century was the highest in 1200 years.”
114. On the relationship between global, hemispheric and latitudinal averaged air surface temperature (GISS time series) and solar activity, Souza Echer et al, 10/2008; read more here.
115. Solar activity and its influence on climate, C. de Jager, 09/2008 (PDF) (Netherlands Journal of Geosciences, Volume 87, Issue 3, pp. 207–213
116. Solar Forcing of Changes in Atmospheric Circulation, Earth’s Rotation and Climate (PDF), Adriano Mazzarella, 08/2008, The Open Atmospheric Science Journal, Volume 2, Issue 1, pp. 181-184
117. Evidence for a solar signature in 20th-century temperature data from the USA and Europe (PDF), Jean-Louis Le Mouel et al., 07/2008, Comptes Rendus Geosciences, Volume 340, Issue 7, pp. 421-430
118. Proxy-based reconstructions of hemispheric and global surface temperature variations over the past two millennia, Mann et al, 2008; “…The reconstructed amplitude of change over past centuries is greater than hitherto reported, with somewhat greater Medieval warmth in the Northern Hemisphere, albeit still not reaching recent levels.” (Thanks for the correction, MHB).
119. Impact of variations in solar activity on hydrological decadal patterns in northern Italy, D. Zanchettin et al., 06/2008, Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 113, Issue D12
120. The influence of the de Vries (not, vert, similar 200-year) solar cycle on climate variations: Results from the Central Asian Mountains and their global link (PDF), O. M. Raspopov et al., 03/2008, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, Volume 259, Issue 1, pp. 6-16
121. Sun-Climate Complexity Linking (PDF), Bruce J. West, P. Grigolini, 02/2008, Physical Review Letters, Volume 100, Issue 8
122. Temperature variations at Lake Qinghai on decadal scales and the possible relation to solar activities, Hai Xu, Xiaoyan Liu, Zhaohua Hou, 01/2008, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, Volume 70, Issue 1, pp. 138-144
123. Phenomenological reconstructions of the solar signature in the Northern Hemisphere surface temperature records since 1600 (PDF), Nicola Scafetta, Bruce J. West, 11/2007, Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 112, Issue D24
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Note: The dozens, if not hundreds, of papers prior to 2008 were also ignored by the IPCC.House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday joined calls for a federal investigation into the California-based anti-abortion group that sparked the Planned Parenthood hidden camera controversy.
“Let’s have an investigation of those people who were trying to ensnare Planned Parenthood in a controversy that doesn’t exist,” Pelosi said Thursday in her first public remarks about Planned Parenthood since the first undercover video surfaced last week.
A long-time abortion rights champion, Pelosi dismissed accusations that Planned Parenthood has raked in profits from its fetal tissue donation program.
“Planned Parenthood has said that they have done nothing illegal,” she said. “They do not ever charge, which would be illegal, for fetal tissue. They have only defrayed the cost of mailing that to someone, which is not breaking the law.”
She also criticized the selectively edited videos released by the Center for Medical Progress, pointing to the “disparities" between actual film and edited versions.
Her remarks come one day after White House press secretary Josh Earnest also defended the women’s health provider.
Planned Parenthood, which receives several hundred million dollars in federal funding, is now facing new attacks from Republicans, who say they have more momentum than ever to defund the group.
House Speaker John Boehner John Andrew BoehnerCapitol police officer left weapon unattended in Capitol bathroom Ex-GOP lawmaker joins marijuana trade group Crowley, Shuster moving to K Street MORE (R-Ohio) has also ordered congressional investigations into Planned Parenthood’s practices, as well as a half-dozen governors.
Pelosi dismissed the GOP’s attacks against Planned Parenthood, which she said “has been going on for a long time.”
She said government investigators should, instead, focus on the legality of the Center for Medical Progress’s political activity, backing an effort by several House Democrats who have called for a Department of Justice probe.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Wednesday that she would review “all information” available before deciding to launch a full investigation.Most presidents enter the White House with a raft of policy proposals and a clear ideological bent. Ronald Reagan was a hard-core conservative. Bill Clinton was a centrist Democrat. President Obama was a left-of-center mainstream Democrat. Voters had an idea not only of the policies newly elected presidents wanted to enact but also of the ideological values that would guide unforeseen decisions.
Trying to figure out President-elect Donald Trump’s ideology, on the other hand, is like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall. He released few detailed policy positions during the campaign, and his actions and statements in the few weeks since the election have been anything but clarifying. We probably know less about what the Trump administration will be like than any incoming administration in modern American history. Trump could end up being one of the most moderate presidents in a generation, or he could be one of the most extreme. He might be both.
First, let’s look at the more qualitative evidence — namely, Trump’s actions since winning. Although Trump is probably best known as an immigration hard-liner, he’s rarely spoken about the issue since Election Day. In his victory speech, for instance, he didn’t mention immigration at all. In fact, he didn’t promote any typically conservative policies. The only policy he highlighted was a traditionally Democratic one, infrastructure, saying he would “rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals.” He has since released a YouTube video laying out what he wants to do on his first day in office. He could have been confused for a Bernie Sanders-style Democrat in it (well, almost). Trump said he would focus on creating jobs, ending America’s commitment to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement and imposing a ban on lobbyists. About the only traditionally Republican stance he took was against restrictions on “shale energy and clean coal.” Once again, Trump made no mention of immigration or his position on a Muslim registry, which he previously supported.
So maybe he’s taking the moderate route? Well, not really. Trump’s transition appointments have signaled an instinct to go hard right, particularly if you believe “personnel is policy.” He nominated Sen. Jeff Sessions, an uber conservative anti-immigration hawk, to be his attorney general. Sessions, of Alabama, was previously denied a federal judgeship because of racist statements he was alleged to have made as a U.S. attorney. Democrats continue to oppose his nomination. Trump also named Steve Bannon as his chief strategist. Bannon was the executive chairman of Breitbart News, a website that published articles with headlines including “Bill Kristol: Republican Spoiler, Renegade Jew” and “The Solution to Online ‘Harassment’ Is Simple: Women Should Log Off.” Bannon, like Sessions, has been vigorously protested by Democratic groups. Trump has also made more mainstream picks — South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley as United Nations ambassador and Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus as chief of staff — but his staffing decisions so far have skewed far right and, in the case of Bannon, fringe.
What about more quantitative measures of ideology? It’s difficult to pin down Trump on the normal left-right spectrum. Indeed, he illustrates the limits of a single ideological label or score, going left one minute and making a sharp right the next. As my colleague Nate Silver wrote, Trump mixes “extremely conservative stances on issues such as immigration with surprisingly moderate (or even leftist) ones on other issues such as trade — with a lot of improvisation (and inconsistency) along the way.”
The website OnTheIssues, which assigns an ideological grade to politicians’ statements and votes, can get us a little further than a simple left-right scale. OnTheIssues scores statements related to both economic and social issues from -5 (very liberal) to +5 (very conservative). By their scorekeeping, Trump is a “libertarian-leaning conservative” — on the border of being a “moderate.” OnTheIssues rates Obama and George W. Bush, by contrast, as “hard-core liberal” and “hard-core conservative.” It’s not that Trump doesn’t hold strong positions, but rather that his stances don’t slot him into the neat right-left categories we’ve grown accustomed to in politics.
If you add up all of Trump’s OnTheIssues scores, you get one of the most moderate presidents in a generation. Trump scores a +42.5. The only president in the past 40 years closer to zero (perfectly moderate) was George H.W. Bush.
SCORE PRESIDENT ECONOMIC SOCIAL TOTAL Barack Obama -30.0 -30.0 -60.0 Jimmy Carter -27.5 -32.5 -60.0 Bill Clinton -27.5 -17.5 -45.0 George H.W. Bush +20.0 +15.0 +35.0 Donald Trump +15.0 +27.5 +42.5 Gerald Ford +22.2 +27.5 +49.7 George W. Bush +32.5 +27.5 +60.0 Ronald Reagan +27.8 +33.3 +61.1 Trump’s ideology is hard to pin down A total score of -100 is most liberal, while a total score of +100 is most conservative. A score of -50 on either the economic or social scale is most liberal, while a score +50 is most conservative. Source: Ontheissues.org
Trump rates as slightly more moderate, according to OnTheIssues, than Bill Clinton, and as far more moderate than George W. Bush and Obama. And although Trump has sometimes compared himself to Reagan, Reagan was the most conservative president in the past 40 years. Trump seems to be anything but that.
But giving Trump a single ideological score based on economic and social positions may conceal as much as it reveals. For one, if Trump seeks to deport all immigrants who are here illegally, but at the same time tries to preserve Social Security, would the “moderate” label really apply? What if he supported a massive investment in the nation’s infrastructure while gutting regulations of Wall Street? There’s also no left-right category for bigoted, misogynistic or racist statements. In early September, an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 60 percent of Americans thought Trump was “biased” against women and minorities. In late August, YouGov asked voters whether Trump was a bigot — 47 percent said he was; 36 percent said he wasn’t. Fifty-one percent said Trump was a racist. Only 35 percent said he wasn’t.
It all makes reducing Trump to one number or label counterproductive.
But if quantitative measures of ideology have trouble capturing Trumpism, so too did voters. A majority of Americans — 55 percent — said Trump was “extreme” according to a Pew Research Center poll taken in June and July. But voters in other polls rated Trump more centrist. In the lead-up to the election, Gallup asked Americans whether they saw Trump as a conservative, a moderate or a liberal, and only 47 percent saw him as conservative, while 22 percent saw him as moderate and 19 percent saw him as liberal. That last number is really high for a Republican presidential candidate. More Americans rated Trump “liberal” than they did any other incoming Republican president. That’s also higher than the share of Americans who have rated any incoming Democratic president “conservative.” In other words, voters linked Trump to an ideology usually associated with the other party at rates unprecedented in recent elections.
By this measure, Trump would be one of the most moderate incoming presidents in a generation. We can see this by assigning a -1 for every respondent who said a winning candidate was liberal, a 0 for those who said moderate and a 1 for respondents who picked conservative. I did this for the Gallup poll in 2012 and 2016 and the final CBS/New York Times poll that asked this question in the fall before every election since 1976.
CONSIDER CANDIDATE TO BE … YEAR WINNER LIBERAL MODERATE CONSERVATIVE IDEOLOGICAL SCORE 2008 Barack Obama 60% 25% 12% -51 2012 Barack Obama 60 22 12 -51 1996 Bill Clinton 45 37 10 -38 1992 Bill Clinton 38 37 13 -28 1976 Jimmy Carter 39 25 18 -26 2016 Donald Trump 19 22 47 +32 1980 Ronald Reagan 17 15 50 +40 1984 Ronald Reagan 14 17 52 +46 2000 George W. Bush 10 27 52 +47 1988 George H.W. Bush 7 26 50 +52 2004 George W. Bush 8 16 66 +64 Voters had a difficult time agreeing on Trump’s ideology compared with previous presidential election winners Source: CBS/New York Times, Gallup
Trump gets a score of +32. The average winning candidate excluding Trump had a score 44 points from the ideological center (zero). The only winning candidates who were closer to zero than Trump were Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Bill Clinton in 1992. Both Carter and Clinton were Southern Democrats, so this shouldn’t be too surprising. The highest absolute value belonged to George W. Bush ahead of his second term. Since Trump doesn’t look like any of these winning candidates, perhaps it makes sense that voters were confused. Their best guess was that he was a moderate, but it wasn’t clear.
As the Trump administration approaches its beginning, it’s still unclear what direction Trump will take. If he aligns with Bannon, Trump could end up leading one of the most extreme administrations ever. Or he could be, as Republican strategist Patrick Ruffini put it, the “closest thing the Acela corridor ever gets to a No Labels-y” president. If that’s the case, Trump may end up being far more popular than he is right now. More likely, perhaps, is that the Trump administration will look like the Trump transition: an ideological hodgepodge, moderate on some issues and extreme on others, that defies a single label or number.In a Monday interview with Boston radio show “Kirk and Callahan” on WEEI, New England Patriots star quarterback Tom Brady discussed his longtime friend and GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Brady defended his move to walk out after a question about Trump’s “locker room talk,” saying he did not want to be a distraction to his team.
He also added Trump has always supported him and encouraged him over their 15-16-year relationship, adding that he has “always had a good time with him.”
“I met [Trump] I guess probably 15, 16 years ago,” Brady said. “We’ve played golf together many, many times and I’ve always had a good time with him. He’s been a friend of mine. He’s supported our team. He’s supported the Patriots. He’s been on the Patriots’ sidelines a lot and always called me after games to encourage me over the course of 15 years. That’s kind of the way it is.”
Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrentNEW DELHI: Bacterial contamination in the Ganges has exceeded the maximum permissible limit at a number of locations even as 80 per cent of pollution in the river is due to discharge of sewage, the government said today."...the levels of bacterial contamination in terms of fecal coliform are reported to be exceeding the maximum permissible limit at a number of locations," environment and forests minister Jayanthi Natarajan in Rajya Sabha said during Question Hour.She, however, said the water quality in terms of BOD (Bio-chemical Oxygen Demand) values is reported to have improved as compared to the pre-Ganga Action Plan (GAP) water quality on major monitoring locations.The government is implementing GAP since 1985 for undertaking pollution abatement activities in the identified polluted stretches of the river through implementation of works like interception and diversion of sewage and setting up sewage treatment plants.Replying to another question, the minister said about 20 per cent pollution in the river is because of industrial effluent and the rest is due of sewage.Seeking cooperation from urban local bodies for cleaning the river, the minister said there is a World Bank-assisted project for the purpose and money was not a problem.The project involving an estimated cost of Rs 7,000 crore has been approved under National Ganga River Basin Authority. Rs 1,441 crore has been released towards implementation of various pollution abatement works in towns along Ganga and sewage treatment capacity of 1,091 million litres per day has been created.You guys know we shitcanned benchmarks years ago because we found those unreliable as indicators of gaming performance and GPU cross-comparisons. While we have moved on, the GPU companies have not. Yesterday we got an email from NVIDIA about a new H.A.W.X. 2 benchmark and the company encouraged us to use it on upcoming reviews. Today we got an email from AMD asking us not to use it on upcoming products.
It has come to our attention that you may have received an early build of a benchmark based on the upcoming Ubisoft title H.A.W.X. 2. I'm sure you are fully aware that the timing of this benchmark is not coincidental and is an attempt by our competitor to negatively influence your reviews of the AMD Radeonآ™ HD 6800 series products. We suggest you do not use this benchmark at present as it has known issues with its implementation of DirectXآ® 11 tessellation and does not serve as a useful indicator of performance for the AMD Radeonآ™ HD 6800 series. A quick comparison of the performance data in H.A.W.X. 2, with tessellation on, and that of other games/benchmarks will demonstrate how unrepresentative H.A.W.X. 2 performance is of real world performance.
AMD has demonstrated to Ubisoft tessellation performance improvements that benefit all GPUs, but the developer has chosen not to implement them in the preview benchmark. For that reason, we are working on a driver-based solution in time for the final release of the game that improves performance without sacrificing image quality. In the meantime we recommend you hold off using the benchmark as it will not provide a useful measure of performance relative to other DirectXآ® 11 games using tessellation.
That last paragraph is fairly damning in my opinion and it raises some big questions. Is Ubisoft in NVIDIA's pocket and pushing technology while ignoring the company with the largest DX11 market share? Is NVIDIA pushing a benchmark of a yet-to-be released game that is somewhat broken on its competitors cards? We know NVIDIA's current GPU has more Tessellation power than AMD's latest, but we have yet to see it make a difference in anything besides a benchmark. I think this shows NVIDIA grasping at straws and I don't think it has anything up its sleeve that AMD does not already have as well; like refinements in TSMC's 40nm process.
DiscussionBrian Sheridan
Emily Dillhunt, a senior majoring in game design and development, uses a virtual reality headset while working in a UW-Stout design lab. The game design program has been ranked 21st in the U.S. and Canada by Princeton Review.
UW-Stout’s game design and development program has been recognized on a national scale for the fourth year in a row, and it's been named by Princeton Review to be one of the best in North America. Their 2016 game design program rankings were released March 15 and listed Stout at number 21, the the only one from Wisconsin, Minnesota, or Iowa to make the top 50.
In a another Princeton Review ranking of the top 25 graduate schools for video game design, Stout came in at 17. Stout’s Graduate School offers a Master of Fine Arts in design with eight concentrations, including game design.
Stout offers two undergraduate game design programs, a Bachelor of Science program with a focus on computer science and a Bachelor of Fine Arts program with a focus on art. Math and computer science skills are needed to develop computer graphics, artificial intelligence and game engines. Art and design skills, such as drawing, digital imaging, and animation are needed to create interface components, 3D environments, and 3D characters.
A UW-Stout game design student-created video requiring many of the skills students learn, including drawing, animation and creating 3D environments and characters.
The rankings from Princeton Review are based on a survey of 150 schools in the U.S. and Canada that offer video game design. Robert Franek, Princeton Review's senior vice president and publisher, called it a “burgeoning” field and said the ranked schools offer “extraordinary opportunities” for students.
"The faculties at these schools are outstanding.” Franek said. “Their facilities are awesome. And their alumni include legions of the industry's most prominent game designers, developers, artists and entrepreneurs.”
UW-Stout’s original game design and development program was approved in 2009 by the UW System Board of Regents. The BFA program was approved in December of 2014.All new sites must be submitted to our Site Approval Queue™ to be considered for indexing
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The committee is looking into the experiences of fathers as parents..
It intends to identify the key challenges they face in day-to-day life and the quality of support currently available to them.
The focus of the inquiry is the provision of services and support groups; societal attitudes towards lone and unmarried fathers; and issues around parental rights and responsibilities for fathers.
Peter McGhee, Allan Reddick and Norman Fraser run a dad's group in Hamilton, having felt unwelcome or uncomfortable at some groups dominated by mothers.
The dad's toddler group was launched and is supported by SPELL, Support for Play and Early Learning in Lanarkshire.
Mr McGhee highlighted the benefit of networking with other fathers but stressed the groups required funding.
It was not the council, but mothers who were discriminatory against him according to Mr Reddick and the dad's group meant his relationship with his kids was "so much better now".
Mr Fraser said attending the dad's group in Hamilton allowed him to spend quality time with his children in a "safe and relaxed environment".
Kenny Drysdale and Victor Quested also gave evidence.
Issues that arose included the prohibitive cost of childcare, the need for professional people to work with parents in the best interests of the children after separation and the discrimination against lone fathers.Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
President Obama on Wednesday signed an ethics bill that bans insider trading by members of Congress and requires thousands of federal employees to disclose information about their personal finances.
The signing came 10 weeks after Mr. Obama called for such legislation in his State of the Union address.
In signing the bill, Mr. Obama said he hoped it would reduce “the corrosive influence of money in politics’’ and help cure “the deficit of trust between this city and the rest of the country.’’
As a result of the legislation, Mr. Obama said, “if members of Congress use nonpublic information to gain an unfair advantage in the market, they are breaking the law.’’
The bill had broad bipartisan support, illustrated by the presence of Senator Scott P. Brown, Republican of Massachusetts, on stage with Mr. Obama when he signed the bill.
Mr. Obama praised Representative Louise M. Slaughter, Democrat of New York, who introduced the first version of the legislation in 2006 and had been fighting for it since then. The president said Ms. Slaughter was not at the signing ceremony because she broke her leg this week.
The bill — the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, or Stock Act — was approved in the House in February by a vote of 417 to 2. The Senate agreed to it by unanimous consent after voting
96 to 3 to end debate on the measure in late March.
“We have made clear today that nobody is above the law and that members of Congress must play by the exact same set of rules as every other American,” Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York and an architect of the legislation, said.
On Thursday, Mr. Obama plans to sign another bipartisan bill, which would make it easier for small companies to raise money from investors. Members of both parties said the measure would help create jobs and strengthen the economy.
Senator Brown said the two bills showed “what a bipartisan approach can accomplish, even in a Congress infamous for its divisions and gridlock.”
The new law prohibits members of Congress from trading stocks and other securities on the basis of confidential information they receive as lawmakers. It makes clear that the insider trading ban in
federal law applies to members of Congress and their aides and to officials in the executive and judicial branches of the federal government.
In addition, the law requires members of Congress to disclose the purchase or sale of stocks, bonds, commodities futures and other securities within 45 days of transactions, rather than once a year as they now do. The information will be posted on the Internet.
Thousands of federal agency officials, including many at the White House, will be subject to similar reporting requirements. The law also requires members of Congress and executive branch
officials to disclose the terms of mortgages on their homes and prohibits them from receiving special access to initial public stock offerings.
An earlier Senate version of the legislation would have required “political intelligence’’ firms to register as lobbyists do. The new law calls instead for a one-year study of such firms, which collect information on Capitol Hill and sell it to hedge funds, mutual funds and other investors.
Mr. Obama urged Congress on Wednesday to act on two other proposals, which he described this way in his State of the Union address: “Let’s limit any elected official from owning stocks in
industries they impact. Let’s make sure people who bundle campaign contributions for Congress can’t lobby Congress, and vice versa.’’The following article from Junge Freiheit describes some of the more disgusting practices of “refugees” at an asylum center in Germany. It’s worth noting that the concern of the Bundeswehr seems to be focused on finding out who leaked the report, rather than the behavior it describes.
Many thanks to Nash Montana for the translation:
Bundeswehr: Asylum Seekers Are Urinating on Female Refugees
ERFURT. The Bundeswehr has filed complaints about unsustainable conditions for asylum seekers in Erfurt. They write of repeated sexual harassment and men urinating on the floors, in an internal report by the leading sanitation officers of the Territorial Task Commando that has been labeled ‘classified’.
In the document the appointed custodial sanitation medic of the Bundeswehr reports that “the halls are being cleaned twice a day. Yet the condition of the floors is not OK in my view, because garbage is being thrown on the floors over and over again. It is routine for men to urinate in whatever corner they find. In the sleeping accommodations it has become a daily occurrence that single women are being urinated on by male persons from other countries, even as the women are sleeping. Sexual harassment occurs daily.”
Bundeswehr Confirms Report
The Bundeswehr has confirmed the authenticity of the report to Junge Freiheit. “This report exists,” says the leading authority of the Territorial Task Commando of the Bundeswehr, Lieutenant-Colonel, Ingo Kunze. At this time there is an investigation into who reported these conditions.
“Should the conditions in this facility indeed be as alleged in the report, then the responsibility for such conditions lies with the operators of the facility under their healthcare system.”
State Administration Does Not Know of Such Incidents
Within the Thüringer State Administration that is responsible for the facility in Erfurt, such conditions are a surprise. “Up until now we have not heard of any such incidents,” says the spokeswoman for the Administration when Junge Freiheit asked her. However, on location it is the Red Cross that is caring for the Asylum seekers. “They are the ones running that operation,” says the spokeswoman.
The Mass hall was converted two weeks ago into a refugee facility. At the moment, according to the Thüringer State Administration, it holds 760 asylum seekers. “But this is only temporary, because the hall will be needed for Mass again,” says the spokeswoman.Hi Pen Fans!
Well, it’s time for the 2013 Edison Limited Edition Group Buy Pen! This year, we will be offering a Morgan in ebonite and also acrylic.
For those of you who regret not participating in last year’s 2012 Pearl LE Group Buy, please remember that we only offer one Group Buy Pen each year direct from Edison, so this will be your only chance to get a Signature Line Pen direct (valued at $250 retail) at a significant discount until 2014. Exact price is yet to be determined, but anticipate between $175 and $195.
I’ll include photos of some of the offerings, but the entire process will be handled over at the Fountain Pen Network. You can see all details over there.
So if you would like to participate in this year’s group buy pen….
Please click here to see all details and participate in choosing what materials will be used.
After we have materials decided, we’ll have a buying period. Then we’ll start manufacturing!
If you have any questions, please click the link above, as I cover all of the logistics there.
Thanks!
Brian at Edison
(below are a few examples of materials, please see the link above to see all offerings)Bill Kristol doesn’t want to hear about how Americans are tired of war.
The forever-bellicose Kristol writes in the latest issue of The Weekly Standard that all this talk of the country’s “war-weariness” is nothing more than “an excuse to avoid maintaining our defenses or shouldering our responsibilities.”
Indeed, the consistently wrong pundit is right that most Americans these days don’t share his longing for war. And he correctly notes that the wars he’s spent the better part of the last decade advocating likely contributed to the nation’s fatigue.
A poll earlier this year found that even a majority of Republicans now view the Iraq War, a former Kristol-driven objective, as a failure. Nearly half of the country believes the war in Afghanistan was a mistake. And polls likewise show that few Americans back military action in Iran, a current Kristol-driven objective.
But Kristol thinks someone should be courageous enough to try and change those poll numbers.
“In fact, the idol of war-weariness can be challenged,” Kristol writes “A war-weary public can be awakened and rallied. Indeed, events are right now doing the awakening. All that’s needed is the rallying. And the turnaround can be fast.”
Kristol notes that Ronald Reagan (who else?) “ran against both Democratic dovishness and Republican détente” in 1980, five years removed from the Vietnam War.
By the time the next presidential election rolls around, Kristol fears it could be too late.
The next president will be elected in 2016, 15 years after 9/11 and 5 years after our abandonment of Iraq and the beginning of the drawdown in Afghanistan. Pundits will say that it would be politically foolish to try to awaken Americans rather than cater to their alleged war-weariness. We can’t prove them wrong. Perhaps it would be easier for a Republican to win in 2016 running after the fashion of Warren Gamaliel Harding in 1920 rather than that of Ronald Wilson Reagan in 1980.
Kristol closes with a plea for someone, preferably a Republican, to make Americans eager for war again.
“Will no brave leader step forward to honorably awaken us from our unworthy sleep?” he writes.The United States has been rigging elections for nearly 200 years in order to keep anti-establishment candidates away from the White House, says Stephen Lendman, an American writer, journalist and political commentator.
According to a new poll released on Monday, 41 percent of American voters are now saying the 2016 presidential election could be "stolen" from Republican nominee Donald Trump due to widespread voter fraud.
And 73 percent of Republican voters think the election could be stolen from the billionaire businessman, while 17 percent of Democrats agree with the prospect of rigging.
Over the last week, Trump has intensified his criticism of the American electoral system. He called the election process rigged, and said the media is colluding with Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in order to beat him.
Lendman told Press TV on Monday that voter fraud in America is not a new phenomenon. “It’s a phenomenon that goes back to the early days of the Republic, and I have written a number of times in my articles.”
“I remember an article where I cited elections going back to around 1820 in America – my God almost 200 years ago! – when an election was rigged to ensure that one candidate got into office as president, and the other candidate was defeated,” he added.
The analyst said elections at all levels are rigged in the United States. “In my own city of Chicago the election was rigged to install the current mayor, and then rigged again to see that he was re-elected. So it goes on all levels of government in America.”
“No other country I am aware of meddles in the internal affairs of America in its elections or anything else, and all the claims that America is making about Russia meddling in America’s elections and wanted to influence Trump win over Clinton, all that is a bunch of rubbish. There’s no evidence proving it,” the commentator said.
“Trump is right saying elections are rigged,” he emphasized.
Lendman stated that if Clinton wins and Trump loses in November, elections are absolutely rigged “because he sounds like an anti-establishment candidate.”
However, he said, “Nobody becomes a billionaire by being anti-establishment. He’s very much part of the establishment, but he’s a little independent-minded based on the things he talks about.”
The US media has launched an offensive against Trump in recent days, running reports of several women claiming the billionaire businessman has groped and forcibly kissed them.
Trump has called the allegations “slander and libel” and part of a “concerted, coordinated and vicious attack” launched by Clinton and the news media to destroy his campaign.Sunlight streams through a narrow entryway in Myra Finkelstein’s lab, illuminating the clear plastic bottle that she holds up. Inside sits a rough, coal-colored bullet that looks disfigured—like it crumpled when it hit its target.
Colleagues of Finkelstein had fished the 0.22-caliber lead slug out of a California condor that died, not from a gunshot but because it was poisoned by eating the bullet. The dull metal might have lurked in a deer carcass or a gut pile that a hunter had left behind—appetizing meals to the scavenging bird. Like a forensic detective, Finkelstein had analyzed the chemical fingerprints of the lead in the bullet and the lead that poisoned the condor.
They matched.
Finkelstein, an environmental toxicologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has seen chronic and potentially deadly levels of lead from ammunition in hundreds of blood and feather samples from California condors. The birds once soared across the American West. But by 1982, the species had dwindled to only 22 individuals. Through intensive efforts to raise them in captivity and keep them alive in the wild, their numbers had crawled to 446 as of December 2016. But lead ammunition is suppressing the condor’s full-fledged recovery.
Finkelstein has been a pivotal figure in the fight to save California’s condors. In 2012, she and her colleagues showed that condors would never rebound if lead ammunition kept going down their gullets. Other studies had documented that lead ammo was poisoning the birds, but Finkelstein’s research team sealed the case.
Their work "made the biggest splash," says Chris Parish, who oversees a different flock of condors in Arizona for the Peregrine Fund, a nonprofit conservation group. “They nailed that stuff down with such great confidence. It's phenomenal.” And so was the payoff. Finkelstein's science, combined with her outreach and government testimony, ultimately led to the first statewide ban on lead ammunition in the country.
“I love figuring stuff out, and trying to generate information that solves problems,” says Finkelstein, a smile rising to her eyes. “I feel like I’m helping to save species.”
Photo by Zeka KuspaFinkelstein, a petite 51-year-old with sienna brown hair that she tucks behind her ears, looks at ease whether she’s wearing a white lab coat or typing up a research manuscript. Few would suspect that decades ago she was a brash activist, risking her safety to get in the way of fishermen and hunters who were killing animals she sought to protect. Eventually, she realized that she could fight more effectively as a scientist. Now, to make a difference, she wields data.
In the 80s, while an undergraduate at the University of California, Davis, Finkelstein joined Sea Shepherd, the confrontational marine conservation activist group, and sailed on missions in Alaskan waters that would last months. The group sought to prevent the use of drift nets—“curtains of death,” Finkelstein calls them—which extend for miles and catch everything in their path, including dolphins, sea turtles, and whales. Confrontations with drift-net fishers could be dangerous. “One ship threw knives at us,” she says.
In 1988, Finkelstein traveled to British Columbia, where the government was culling gray wolves. Government-paid hunters were luring |
allows for a higher utilization of the pump mechanism, it naturally comes with a higher efficiency. Most industrial high power lasers actually don’t emit only a single frequency, but many. This is possible even though the gain medium operates at a very specific frequency defined by its excitation states, and comes by certain side effects depending on other characteristics of the gain medium. In gas mediums, the collisions of photons with atoms or molecules can shorten the decay time, which — following the statistics of these collisions — shapes the bandwidth of the amplifier to a bell curve. Also, Doppler effects due to the fast movement of gas atoms can further broaden the gain curve. There are many secondary imperfections in the various processes of pumping and stimulated emission that are used productively in multimode lasers.
Pulsed lasers
By pulsing a laser, a larger peak power output can be achieved than what continuous operation would make possible. This can, for example, be done electronically, or through a spark gap circuit, and with shorter pulses, higher peak power output values can be obtained. However, limitations in power output and pulse widths limit the usefulness of this approach.
Multimode lasers offer the possibility of achieving extremely short pulses at a very high momentary power output simply by combining the phase-locked modes of the optical cavity. By combining a series of equally spaced modes in the frequency domain, the interference of the modes causes the output to become a series of pulses in the time domain.
The phenomenon of beat, an acoustic interference of sound, where two tones of slightly off frequency create a perceived pulsation of the volume, is very similar. The more modes are superimposed, the shorter and more intense the pulse becomes, and in multimode lasers, they can be as short as a few femtoseconds (10-15 s) while producing several exawatts (1018 W) of peak power.
To achieve this, the modes of the optical cavity need to be tight enough spaced to fit as many as possible into the bandwidth of the optical amplifier. Also, the optical amplifier should have a large enough bandwidth to amplify more than a single frequency.
A Primer On Laser Optics
We still left out a few interesting features hidden in the internal optics of lasers, which are mostly the reflectors. First, the reflectors don’t need to be external, they can be evaporation deposited directly onto the polished windows of the optical cavity. Still, to make the output frequency of the laser tunable – which can be easily achieved by slightly changing the length of the cavity – it is practical to adjustably mount at least one of the mirrors externally. If one or both mirrors are mounted externally, some lasers will be equipped with Brewster windows, which is really just a window with its surface cut to a special angle.
This angle – the Brewster angle – is an angle where only light of a certain, linear polarization experiences can losslessly pass without reflections while all other polarizations are reflected away from the cavity and filtered from the beam. This minimizes reflections and polarizes the laser beam.
Also, the reflectors must not be plain. In some applications, it is advantageous to use concave or a mix of concave and plain or even convex reflectors. Now the beam exiting the output coupler is not parallel anymore, but can be converted into a parallel beam of any diameter by using simple optics.
I hope you enjoyed this very close look at the inner workings of lasers and optical amplifiers. There’s still a lot of engineering to get from here to just throwing a piece of plywood into a laser cutter, writing data in an optical drive, or exposing a photomask for silicon wafer production. Nevertheless, we have even seen impressive DIY builds of ruby lasers, CO2 lasers, and TEA lasers. DIY or industrial grade, they all share the same core principle, a quantum mechanical avalanche of cloned photons.Buy Photo Predators defenseman Shea Weber is introduced at the NHL All-Star Game in Bridgestone Arena on Jan. 31, 2016. Buoyed by the successful All-Star Game, Predators executives say the team’s business operations have been on a hot streak. (Photo: File / The Tennessean)Buy Photo
For the Nashville Predators, the days of struggling to sell enough tickets to ensure their home in Music City are long gone.
The hockey franchise is on track to sell out every home game this season, which would be a first in franchise history. In fact, buoyed by last year’s successful All-Star Game at Bridgestone Arena, Predators executives say the team’s business operations have been on a hot streak.
The team has brought back former corporate partners, expanded relationships with other partners and introduced cutting-edge ticket sales strategies that put season ticket sales at an all-time high.
It was just seven years ago that the Predators were in danger of being sold and possibly leaving town because of poor ticket sales and lack of local corporate partners. If the team had slipped below an average of 14,000 fans per game, it could have triggered a clause in its old lease agreement allowing it to opt out and leave town.
The All-Star Game put the spotlight of the hockey world on Music City, and the Predators turned the event into a weeklong music, hockey and entertainment festival. Team executives knew the event was a success, but it took a year for the Predators to appreciate how much it meant to their bottom line.
"We weren't that excited about (2016) summer, because we knew the summer before was built off this huge anticipation and part of it was people buying season tickets in order to get All-Star Game tickets," Predators CEO Sean Henry said. "But it turns out, we had the best season ticket renewal offseason we've ever had. We sold the most new business we've sold to date. We had the best selling year we've ever had.... It's been absolutely incredible."
Henry said the team is especially proud that it extended relationships with corporate sponsors that had gone away or reduced their presence at Bridgestone Arena but came back for the All-Star Game. Henry pointed to Jack Daniel's, Twice Daily and Kroger among the local corporate partners that increased their commitments since the game.
Kroger spokeswoman Melissa Eads said the company "had a great working relationship with the Predators" that increased "slightly" after the successful All-Star game.
Henry said the team's success on the ice has allowed the Predators to get creative in their season ticket packages, specifically offering fans multiyear plans. The Predators were among the first NHL teams to sell two-year plans, and on Monday the team rolled out three-year plans. Nat Harden, the Predators' senior vice president for ticket sales and youth hockey, said the Winnipeg Jets are the only NHL team he's aware had offered three-year plans, and that came when the club was relocated from Atlanta.
Harden recalled being laughed at when he unveiled the Predators' two-year season ticket packages eight seasons ago. Now many teams have emulated the strategy. The fear was that offering multiyear plans would put a team at a disadvantage because fans are locked into a rate. If the team makes a deep run at the Stanley Cup, then the front office would miss out on the chance to take advantage of an increase in ticket prices.
Harden said first-time season ticket holders historically renew after one season about 50 percent of the time. But if a season ticket holder renewed their seats for at least a second season, the renewal rate for subsequent seasons was about 85 percent, Harden said.. Harden said the team began offering multiyear packages in response to that trend. Overall season ticket renewals were at 96 percent last offseason, he said.
Currently, the Predators have about 10,200 season ticket holders, Henry said. That's up from 8,000 when the community held a Save the Predators rally in 2007. After a local ownership group stepped up to save the team, Henry said sales fell to about 5,500 the next offseason. Henry was hired as chief operating officer in 2010 and promoted to replace Jeff Cogen as CEO in late 2015.
"After the bubble burst (the year after the community rally), we said, 'We’ve got to do something to stabilize our base,' " Harden said.
Buy Photo Predators CEO Sean Henry (Photo: George Walker IV / File / The Tennessean)
The Predators' improved business operations do come with a couple of caveats. The team receives about $8 million per year in subsidies and incentives to operate Bridgestone Arena. And the Predators have historically been among the bottom revenue teams in the NHL, which has allowed them to enjoy the league's revenue-sharing agreement designed to prop up struggling franchises.
The current lease agreement doesn't expire for 10 years, but the Predators have expressed an interest in upgrades at Bridgestone Arena. Henry said the process of pondering upgrades will be an ongoing collaborative process with the city to decide what makes sense for the 21-year-old building.
Henry said it's the right thing to do to bring in more money even if it means less revenue sharing coming in from the league.
"As you slide up that scale, as you go from one of the lowest teams to approaching middle of the pack, you receive less revenue sharing because you’re earning more," Henry said. "It’s always better to bring revenue into your building due to your local revenue. There’s a reduction, but it’s a good trade that you’re making."
Reach Nate Rau at nrau@tennessean.com or 615-259-8094 and on Twitter @tnnaterau.
Home attendance at Bridgestone Arena Season Capacity Games Total Att. % Capacity Sellouts Average 1998-99 17,298 41 664,282 93.7 17 16,202 1999-00 17,113 41 680,582 97.0 20 16,600 2000-01 17,113 40* 635,784 92.9 13 15,895 2001-02 17,113 41 608,347 86.7 5 14,838 2002-03 17,113 41 542,367 77.3 5 13,228 2003-04 17,113 41 539,450 76.9 6 13,157 2005-06 17,113 41 591,556 84.3 10 14,428 2006-07 17,113 41 625,649 89.2 11 15,260 2007-08 17,113 41 611,328 87.1 9 14,910 2008-09 17,113 41 615,439 87.7 7 15,011 2009-10 17,113 41 614,143 87.5 4 14,979 2010-11 17,113 41 661,861 94.3 16 16,143 2011-12 17,113 41 684,324 97.5 25 16,691 2012-13 17,113 24 407,386 99.2 20 16,974 2013-14 17,113 41 680,619 97.0 19 16,600 2014-15 17,113 41 691,028 98.5 30 16,854 2015-16 17,113 41 695,828 99.2 35 16,981
Home at
*The 2000-01 season includes a game played in Japan that was counted as a home game. The 2004-05 season was cancelled and the 2012-13 season was shortened because of labor disputes between NHL owners and the players' union. Source: Nashville Predators
Read or Share this story: http://tnne.ws/2lkBR9BMONTREAL -- A crew of Montreal Expos fans, willing to do just about anything to get its team back, has driven to Toronto to watch the Blue Jays.
Organizers say about 1,000 Expos supporters, hoping to attract the attention of baseball's movers and shakers, packed into the outfield bleachers at the Rogers Centre on Saturday for the Blue Jays' game against the Tampa Bay Rays.
The group wore the traditional red, white and baby blue of the former Expos, who relocated in 2004 and became the Washington Nationals, and held up signs promoting their cause.
"Our goal is to celebrate the history of the Expos and show that there is still a viable market for it," said Matthew Ross, who runs the website Expos Nation and helped organize the trip.
Nearly a decade after the Expos left town, there is a small but growing movement to bring a team back to the city. The possibility has become a recurring topic on local talk radio shows and has even influenced Montreal street fashion.
It's no accident the group chose to attend a game featuring the Rays, one of the baseball's more troubled franchises, he said.
The Expos logo has become a source of city pride and a statement for young people barely old enough to have seen them play.
Ross said the pain of the Expos' messy departure has begun to dissipate. These days, people are more focused on joyful memories, and Expos greats like Andre Dawson, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2010.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Twitter, "I hope that the efforts of Expos Nation will one day be rewarded with a team in Montreal."Canadian miner Lucara Diamond has sold the massive 813-carat diamond it unearthed in Botswana last year for a record-setting price of $63,111,111 US.
The company announced the sale in a press release Monday. The name of the buyer was not divulged, but as part of the sale, Lucara is entitled to 10 per cent of the profits to be made from any polished diamonds that come out of the original down the line.
"We are very pleased with the result from the sale of this magnificent 813 carat diamond as well as the opportunity to further participate in profits earned when the polished product is sold," CEO William Lamb said.
At $77,649 US per carat, the gem is the most expensive rough diamond ever sold. But the Constellation, as Lucara is calling it, is unlikely to hold that record for very long.
Next month, Lucara will auction off another even larger diamond, this one clocking in at 1,109 carats.Adobe and HTC are bringing Flash to Android on its new Hero smartphone. The implementation will support video and audio codecs familiar to users of Flash on the desktop.
Not official word on availability right now but it should arrive with the new Hero handset this summer and in the US later this year on, it is assumed, T-Mobile’s version of the Hero device. There is no information on whether this implementation will be available on other handsets – the G1, for example – at this time.
Adobe and HTC Bring Flash Platform to Android
New HTC Hero Delivers More Complete Web Browsing Experience with Adobe Flash Technology
SAN JOSE, Calif. and LONDON — June 24, 2009 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) and HTC, a global designer of mobile phones, today announced that the new HTC Hero is the first Android phone to ship with support for Adobe® Flash® Platform technology. The new phone delivers a more complete Web browsing experience and provides access to a broad variety of Flash technology based content available on the Web today.
“As the first Android device with Flash, the new HTC Hero represents a key milestone for Android and the Flash Platform. With close to 80 percent of all videos online delivered with Adobe Flash technology, consumers want to access rich Web content on-the-go.” said David Wadhwani, vice president and general manager, Platform Business Unit at Adobe. “The collaboration with HTC offers people a more complete Flash based Web browsing experience today and presents an important step towards full Web browsing with Flash Player 10 on mobile phones in the future.”
The new HTC Hero is a key element of the HTC experience and a new generation of HTC mobile phones and devices. Users can browse and discover a broad set of Web content and applications not supported by mobile phones in the past. People can also view YouTube videos using Flash technology, and enable full screen viewing mode by simply double tapping the screen.
“Adobe Flash is an important core technology for people interacting and experiencing the Web, it is only natural to be offering it on the new HTC Hero first,” said John Wang, chief marketing officer, HTC Corporation. “We look forward to continuing our close collaboration with Adobe and to bringing Flash Player 10 support to our phones in the future.”
The HTC Hero delivers powerful, compatible video playback performance using Flash technology, and interactive content enabled by ActionScript® 2.0. Users can enjoy and navigate through Web videos using intuitive video controls. With progressive streaming of large MP3 audio files from a Web server and the local file storage, the HTC Hero provides a seamless audio experience. Support for Sorenson and On2 VP6 codecs enables higher quality video and playback of existing Web content. A demo of the user experience enabled by the Flash Platform on the HTC Hero and the Android operating system can be viewed at www.adobe.com/go/htchero.
HTC Participates in Open Screen Project
HTC also announced its participation in the Open Screen Project, a broad industry effort to deliver a consistent runtime across screens and to provide access to all Flash technology based Web content in the future. As a contributor to the initiative, HTC is collaborating with Adobe and more than 25 other industry leaders to bring Flash Player 10 and full Web browsing to the next generation of Android based smartphones and other mobile computing platforms and devices. For more details on the Open Screen Project, visit www.openscreenproject.org.
About Adobe Flash Platform
The Adobe Flash Platform is a complete system of integrated tools, frameworks, clients and servers for the development of Web applications, content and video that runs consistently across operating systems and devices. Adobe Flash Player content reaches over 98 percent of Internet-enabled desktops, and Adobe Flash technology is the No.1 platform for video on the Web. In addition, the mobile runtime has shipped and delivered Flash technology based content on close to 40 percent of all new mobile phones and devices in 2008. For more information about the Adobe Flash Platform visit www.adobe.com/flashplatform. For details on the goals set for the Adobe Flash Platform as part of the Open Screen Project, visit www.openscreenproject.org
About Adobe Systems Incorporated
Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information – anytime, anywhere and through any medium. For more information, visit www.adobe.com.
About HTC
HTC Corporation (HTC) is one of the fastest growing companies in the mobile phone industry and continues to pioneer industry-leading mobile experiences through design, usability and innovation that is sparked by how the mobile phone can improve how people live and communicate. The company is listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange under ticker 2498. For more information about HTC, please visit www.htc.com.Comrades. I’m going to tell you why I think Jeremy Corbyn is the right person to lead this country. First of all, I like the fact that he’s not a typical politician. There’s something refreshing about his refusal to play the media’s game. Ordinary politicians are ready with a quote when a big story breaks, but not our Jeremy. He thinks nothing of switching off his phone and spending the day working on his allotment. Instead of talking to journalists on his way into meetings, he runs them over. When he does do interviews, his refusal to be interrupted speaks of a bold, confident leader who’s comfortable in his own skin. I particularly like his catchphrase and the way his voice goes all high-pitched when he says it: ‘Can I finish?’
Secondly, he’s a man of principle. He has stuck doggedly to his brand of hard-left politics for more than 50 years. The fact that this credo has been an unmitigated disaster in every country in which it has been tried, leading to the suppression of free speech, the imprisonment of political dissidents and mass starvation, hasn’t led to the slightest sliver of doubt or one jot of revision. John Maynard Keynes said: ‘When the facts change, I change my mind’, but not Jeremy. He is as steadfast and reliable as a stopped clock. That’s the kind of man I want as the head of our government in a fast-moving world.
Thirdly, his grasp of international affairs is second to none. He has been on the right side of every major foreign policy issue, starting with the Falklands War, which he correctly identified as a ‘Tory plot’. He opposed the Nato intervention in Kosovo and dismissed as a ‘fabrication’ the absurd claim that the war crimes committed by Slobodan Milosevic amounted to genocide. Indeed, he believes Nato should have been ‘wound up’ after the end of the Cold War, which, like his chief of staff Seumas Milne, he thinks was won by the wrong side. He isn’t so weak-minded that he imagines Nato has any useful role to play in containing Russian aggression and has condemned Britain’s plans to send 800 troops to Estonia as a ‘provocation’.
Whether it’s Vladimir Putin or General Galtieri, Corbyn can always be relied upon to side with Britain’s enemies, never allowing his judgment to be clouded by jingoism. He is particularly sound when it comes to so-called ‘terror’ groups, which he sees through the lens of the anti-imperialist ‘liberation’ movements of the 1960s and 1970s. In this context, it is perfectly understandable that he invited representatives of the IRA to have tea at the House of Commons a few days after it tried to kill Maggie Thatcher in the Brighton bombing.
And we shouldn’t hold it against him that he was on the editorial board of a socialist newspaper when it mocked Norman Tebbit, who had to be dug out of the rubble, saying: ‘Try riding your bike now, Norman.’ Brilliant! No one can accuse Jezza of not having a sense of humour.
When it comes to Islamist groups, he is a breath of fresh air. Don’t expect the usual, knee-jerk response to the cold-blooded murder of innocent women and children from him. He courageously decided to appear on Iranian state television, for which he was paid several thousand pounds, to condemn the killing of Osama bin Laden as a ‘tragedy’ and has frequently expressed his solidarity with Hamas and Hezbollah in their ‘armed struggle’ against Israeli ‘colonialism’. As for Isis, he told Andrew Marr he thinks ‘dialogue’ is the best way forward. ‘I think there has to be some understanding of where their strong points are,’ he explained.
Which brings me to my fourth and final reason for hailing Jeremy Corbyn as the greatest political leader this country has ever seen: security. As his close colleague John McDonnell says, the way to keep Britain’s streets safe from knife-wielding Islamo-fascist psychopaths is to disarm the police. After all, we know just how much harm the police can do when they’re allowed to shoot to kill. As for the policy of nuclear deterrence, Jeremy is quite right to reject it. In an increasingly dangerous world, we should do whatever we can to lower the temperature, including disbanding MI5 and MI6.
Comrades, I urge you to recognise greatness when you see it. This 68-year-old manhole enthusiast is the prophet we’ve been waiting for. Our children will judge us according to how we judged Jeremy Corbyn.An athletic girl is fierce, independent, and yes strong as hell.
1. If there’s a class, practice, or training session happening the next morning, you can bet she will either call it an early night and go home (without you) — lest she wake up at 5 am, scramble over you in the dark to get her workout clothes on, and make absolutely zero apologies about being up so early and interrupting your sleep.
2. She’s going to want to eat. A lot.
3. But no, it’s not nice or fair game for you to make jokes or any backhanded judgment about how much she eats.
4. And while yes, she’ll want to house burgers every now and again, chances are she’s going to want to fuel her body right for her workouts. (She’ll just get fries and a salad.)
5. She’s not keeping in shape for your benefit. She does it for herself, you’re just lucky to reap the side effects.
6. Don’t ever tell her you like girls “without too many muscles.” Go find another girl if that’s what you’re into.
7. Just because she runs around in sweats and spandex all the time doesn’t mean she doesn’t like an excuse to get dressed up every once in a while.
8. Just because you’re naturally faster or can put in more reps than her doesn’t mean she’s less athletic, or she needs to do what you do.
9. In fact, sometimes you might even think her workout is — yes, really — hard. Even if it doesn’t look like it at first. Even (and especially) yoga.
10. All those technologically advanced fabrics that wick sweat? They also let her know when you’re staring at her butt. She will know. Every time.
11. Her teammates or friends at the gym or in class are going to be some of her closest confidantes. If they don’t like you, you’re in real big trouble.
12. Chances she’s wearing a sports bra at any given point of time are high. (It’s just easier, really.)
13. If she’s frustrated or upset about anything, let her go work it out. (Especially if her mood is because of something you might have done.)
14. There’s going to be a dance involved when she puts on a pair of jeans. There may or may not be casualties. But don’t you dare judge how she gets pants on her body.
15. She is among the least likely to ever interrupt you when you want to watch a sports game. Don’t interrupt her when she’s watching one, either (especially if it’s a sport she plays).
16. Her sneaker obsession is going to be impressive, but that doesn’t mean she’s not going to love heels. Don’t come between a woman and her shoes ever, but especially with an athletic girl. Let her have both.
17. If you can give a quality massage, you, my friend. You are in for life.Netherscourge said: I'd seriously be too embarrassed to use this Kinect stuff around my friends or family.
Imagine my wife walking past me and seeing me leaning from side to side standing in the middle of the room holding a controller screaming for a MEDIC or MORE AMMO. Click to expand...
Gestault said: Redundant in what way? Imagine in multi-player, if you were assault class and were really low health, you could just say "medic" or "flag medic" and an icon would show up over your head for other players (presumably medics) indicating that you wanted a heal. I mean you could do this with a d-pad menu or something, but saying it sort of seems like less effort. Click to expand...
I was once gaming with a window wide open in summer and there were some people standing downstairs at the shop that is there. After a very fierce round of Seiene Crossing which we won by 5 or so tickets, I shouted to my friends online "That will teach them, those [swear word]!" Suddenly I realized somebody was clapping. It was the people at the shop. I felt very embarassed...On topic though, I think looking around will work only in vehicles, mostly choppers and jets. It can be a cool feature if made well. Looking around while running would be difficult.Actually assault class IS a medic. Anyway, this is done by pressing SELECT (it's context sensitive) in BF3 and R2 with a selection of options in BF4. Voice commands are neat but only for people who don't want to talk online. If you talk to people, it's quite pointless.A man was riding his electronic bike down a path when a woman stopped and confronted him as she blocked his way with her body and dog.
The man shared his video with YouTube and said that he was riding his 'legal ebike in a busy area during rush hour' in Pennsylvania when he decided to take the path.
He said he was proceeding 'politely and at normal bike speed down the empty path', when he spotted the woman standing directly in the middle, blocking his way.
A man was riding his electronic bike on a path when a woman (left and right) stopped and confronted him as she blocked the path with her body and dog. The man told the woman he was riding his e-bike legally and that she had no right to confront him
In the video the bike rider explained to the woman that Pennsylvania changed its statute in 2014 that now says an electric bicycle is allowed on 'everything that anything bicycle is allowed'.
The man went on to tell the woman that she was 'obviously ignorant of the law' and that she had no right to stop him.
She agreed that she didn't know about the law but argued that she did have the right to stop him.
The man frustratingly explained that he was on his way to see a doctor but the argument escalated.
The man then proceeded to go around the woman, as the camera cut away (left) and it appeared the woman (right) tried to stop him from leaving
He finally yelled at her: 'Get out of my way!'
The man then proceeded to go around the woman, as the camera cut away and it appeared the woman tried to stop him from leaving.
'I am an American and I have the right to question the law!' she yelled.
The man then said: 'You are assaulting me!'
And the woman replied: 'No I am not. You are assaulting me because you're running me over.
'I know what my rights are! I have every right to question you!'
According to the bike rider, the woman stopped him to inform him that he was 'damaging the path she paid a lot of money for'.
He continued to tell her to get out of the way until they had a brief tussle when she attempted to block his way for a second time.
As the man tried to drive away, the woman can be faintly heard saying that her 'clothes were stuck on you'.
He replied calling the woman an 'a**hole' as he finally escaped her wrath.
'I am an American and I have the right to question the law!' she yelled. According to the bike rider, the woman stopped him to inform him that he was 'damaging the path she paid a lot of money for'
The man said she 'physically assaulted me by walking into me and pushing me when I would try to leave or go around'. He added that he had minor injuries, some bruises and his legs were scraped
The man told YouTube that he started his camera because the woman 'continued to be aggressive'.
'She still physically assaulted me by walking into me and pushing me when I would try to leave or go around.
'Then, when I tried to back up and go the other way, she swings around and holds on to me.
He added that in order to get away from her he 'gave her a big shove and rode away as fast as I could'.
The man said he 'didn't want to hurt her'.
'I have minor injuries but no damage to the bike. Both my legs are scraped and bruised. I pulled something in my shoulder pushing her away.Only 100 energy companies have accounted for more than 71 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions since 1988, researchers reported on Monday.
According to a study from the British research firm Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and the Climate Accountability Institute, major fuel firms operating around the globe have produced nearly three-fourths of all the greenhouse gas emissions since climate change was officially recognized by the United Nations.
Twenty-five of those firms alone produced more than half the greenhouse gas emissions, the study said. The highest emitters include investor-owned companies such as ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and others, and state-owned companies like Saudi Aramco, Gazprom and coal producers in China.
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Catalogs of greenhouse gas emissions are generally collected and presented on a nation-by-nation basis, but CDP’s report aims to assign emissions to industrial fossil fuel firms specifically.
The majority of climate change researchers have concluded that the Earth is warming due to human activity, primarily the release of greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels.
The report "offers insight into responsibility from the perspective of the producers of hydrocarbons,” Pedro Faria, CDP’s technical director, wrote in a forward to the study.
“Those companies that have made astonishing returns over decades through the extraction and production of greenhouse gas emitting products.”
The study says the companies would need to begin reducing their collective emissions by 2025 in order to help the world meet the 2 degree Celsius warming target most scientists say is necessary for avoiding the worst of climate change.
“Fossil fuel companies can contribute to the transition by reducing operational emissions, shifting to lighter fossil fuels, engaging in the deployment of [carbon capture technology] and other carbon-offset options and diversifying their portfolio of primary energy products to encompass renewables,” the study said.Middle-aged men are committing suicide in record numbers because they feel they cannot live up to society's expectations, a new report has warned.
The Samaritans said national statistics show 3,000 men in their 30s, 40s and 50s commit suicide each year, with men from deprived areas 10 times more likely to take their own lives than those from better-off backgrounds.
The suicide helpline charity commissioned a panel of psychologists and sociologists to carry out the most in-depth ever analysis into why the men are at such risk.
And the experts concluded that men feel shame when they fall short of what they see is a "gold standard" of masculinity.
Professor Stephen Platt, report author and health policy researcher at the University of Edinburgh, said middle-aged men are the "buffer generation", caught between their strong, silent fathers and more carefree sons.
And the changing labour market has destroyed their masculine identity.
He told Sky News: "The decline of heavy industry and manufacturing jobs has left a lot of men in a position where they don't feel the jobs on offer - particularly service jobs - are ones they feel comfortable with.
"They feel there is a set of expectations about how to behave. And the role of women in the workplace is very different in those service industries compared to the old manufacturing jobs."
The report also warned that men have less social support than women, and are more likely to suffer in silence when relationships break down.
Former England rugby hooker Brian Moore, who had counselling for personal trauma, backed The Samaritans' campaign to reach out to middle-aged men.
David Sidwell turned to the Samaritans after suffering a breakdown, losing his job and breaking up with his girlfriend in a matter of months.
Severely depressed, he considered suicide. He now urges other men not to bottle up their feelings.
"Don't suffer in silence. Talk to someone and get some help," he advised.
:: Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 08457 90 90 90 or email jo@samaritans.orgPhoto by Lois Kapila
It is what he sees as the glacial pace of development in Dublin that made Matthew Johnston start what might be Dublin’s first YIMBY group.
“A lot of general frustration that I had with a few different things,” says the former Facebook worker on a recent Friday at Love Supreme, a coffee shop in Stoneybatter.
He would spend a lot of time on the SkyscraperCity forums, an online meeting place for architecture nerds, following the developments that were posted, tracking what happened to them, noticing buildings being capped a few storeys below what he would consider optimum height.
He grew frustrated with criticisms of student-housing schemes that have appeared in the city, thinking people didn’t appreciate that they’d serve as a relief valve for the lower end of the private-rented sector.
Most recently, there was the widely reported thumbs-down given by planners to the 22-storey Tara Street tower put forward by real-estate developer Johnny Ronan. That would be office space, but it still played into his general sense of stagnation.
“Coming from working in a company that needed loads of office space,” he says. “[And] I knew that lots of workers were struggling to find accommodation, even somewhere like Facebook.”
From his home in Cabra, where he cares for his blue-eyed one-year-old son, he wanted to do something constructive.
In July, he launched the YIMBY Dublin Facebook page, aimed at “fighting for increased density in Dublin city for residential and commercial developments”, and showing “how the authorities are contributing to impossibly escalating property and rental values”.
The Rise of YIMBYism
Johnston might be one of the first to fly the YIMBY colours in Dublin – “It’s just me at the minute,” he says – but in other cities in Europe, and in the United States, groups have emerged that see the solution to a crisis of affordable housing and a shortage of office space in pushing governments to allow denser building.
Rather than seeing developers as foes, intent on cleansing neighbourhoods and racking up house prices, YIMBYs often see them as friends, collaborators, those to be worked with, rather than against.
Johnston says he is still working out his opinions on a lot of issues; he comes across as more of a proto-YIMBY than a full-on evangelist. The Facebook group is way of teasing out the issues.
It’s not for preaching to the choir. “I’m trying to attract people who aren’t necessarily won over by the arguments that I’m making,” he says.
“People who care about homelessness problems, generally making housing more affordable for everyone,” he says.
He says that he sees his mission as putting up posts that better elucidate the benefits of developments that Dubliners might not be aware of.
As he sees it, YIMBYism (spread out as Yes-In-My-Back-Yardism) is not the exact opposite of the more familiar NIMBYism (Not-In-My-Back-Yardism).
“It’s about understanding what NIMBYs are saying and balancing that with other needs,” he says.
At the moment, he thinks the planning process is tilted towards the small number of objectors to projects.
“Basically, the problem with NIMBYism isn’t the complaints themselves, it’s the decision-makers not being able to make the decision with those in mind and the other needs,” he says, echoing urbanist Brent Toderian.
Proto-YIMBYs
Johnston isn’t the first in Dublin to say that he feels the voices of those who are in favour of development in a neighbourhood are eclipsed by the naysayers.
When workers on a building site for social housing |
tube journey home where my eyes didn’t leave the box I was holding. They have now been CGCed and are most prized in my comic collection.
I have been buying loose, Japanese Headmaster heads for many years, whenever I see them I have to buy them. Now you don’t see them that often online and I’ve never seen them at a Transformers convention to buy in the UK. So the beginning of my collection started in 2008, when I attended BotCon in the USA. It wasn’t the first time I had been, but it was the first time I saw and bought Kirk and Lione. I made an amazing trade that year for some of the exclusive toys and box for my BotCon figures. He was happy and so was I. Fast forward to this year where I nearly completed my set of Japanese Headmasters at BotCon 2016. I bought Shuffler, Toraizer and Rodney. Now I’m only missing Loafer, another white whale to find.
5) What is the most surprising or outrageous collecting story you have heard?
You hear so many, but one that got me recently was a fellow Rock Lord collector telling me about this big box of Gobots he bought and while rummaging through it found TWO rare Dragon Stone Action Rocks. These are one of those very rare items that I have never seen on eBay any only ever heard of two other ones, which I own.
6) If you could pick one item from your collection to keep, what would it be?
How can I choose…. It would probably have to be G1 Cosmos. My favourite Transformer when I was little.
7) If you could have one item out of someone else’s collection, what would that be?
It would have to be Artfire.
8 ) What advice would you give a new collector starting out today?
Buy what you like, open things up, display and enjoy them. Don’t buy it for an investment.
Many kind and gracious thanks to Nic Hughes for words and photographs.
All the best
MazIn World War I, "dazzle camouflage" was painted on ships to confuse submarine commanders, distorting the horizon line and hopefully encouraging them to miss when firing torpedoes.
“All warfare is based on deception,” wrote Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese strategist, in “The Art of War.” As far as we know, Sun Tzu never grappled with the specific problems of electronic image processing by machines, but the principle still holds in modern times. If war is based on deception, future wars are going to involve tricks to fool robots.
Or at least, that’s the theory from infrastructure theorist and author Geoff Manaugh. Manaugh’s inspiration came from a minor tragedy: the first death from a self-driving car failure. A Tesla, running on autopilot, thought the white side of a tractor-trailer was empty space, and didn’t brake in time. It crashed, killing the human inside and sparking a federal investigation. It’s probably safe to say this is something both federal investigators and Tesla engineers are working to prevent in the future.
Manaugh’s thoughts, meanwhile, are about replicating that kind of failure in a military setting. He writes:The backbench MP who approved of the government's failed attempt to ratify a controversial extradition treaty with China had just months before been removed from cabinet for not declaring a business trip to the country.
The opposition has called for Stuart Robert to be sacked as the powerful chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, after the government was forced to yank its China extradition treaty on Tuesday when it failed to secure enough votes in parliament.
The treaty, which would have been the first China extradition agreement entered into by one of the Western "Five Eyes" countries, was first put forward by prime minister John Howard in 2007.
In December last year Robert, as chair of the treaties committee, handed down a report that recommended the government ratify the controversial treaty – a decade after it was first proposed.
Robert had resigned as a minister 11 months earlier over a 2014 trip to China which he said he undertook as a private citizen. In China he appeared at a signing ceremony for a mining contract between Australian company Nimrod Resources and a Chinese business.
Nimrod's executive chairman Paul Marks was a Liberal Party donor, which Labor said made Robert's position untenable.
It was revealed that Robert not only failed to disclose the 2014 Beijing trip, but also attended a meeting with a Chinese government minister.
Shadow attorney general Mark Dreyfus told BuzzFeed News that the China incident, and the fact Robert has been called to testify in April at the Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission inquiry in council elections, meant Robert should be removed from the treaties committee.
"Wherever Stuart Robert goes, trouble follows him," Dreyfus said. "It’s not a coincidence. It’s not right that someone with this history holds any position of authority in parliament.
"He is not fit to be the chair of any committee, let alone the chair of the powerful Joint Standing Committee on Treaties."
A spokesperson for Robert told BuzzFeed News the MP would not respond to Labor's calls for him to be removed as chair of the committee.
Labor members of the committee wrote a strongly worded dissenting report on the treaty, citing human rights issues and the Law Council of Australia's concerns prisoners sent back to China wouldn't receive a fair trial.
Despite taking the treaty off the table for now, foreign minister Julie Bishop maintained it was important, telling colleagues: "Australia does not want to be a safe haven for criminals from elsewhere."SOPHIE McNEILL: He’s a world leader in his field, but was forced to flee his homeland.
DR MUNJED: I was confronted with a decision – would I refuse and end up with a bullet in my head, or would I run away?
SOPHIE McNEILL: And detained in Australia.
DR MUNJED: I was stripped of my human identity.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Now, a twist in the tale.
DR MUNJED: As the plane was landing, I had this chill feeling – what have I done? I’m back to the place that I escaped from.
DR MUNJED: How many have we seen so far?
SOPHIE McNEILL: Tonight, ten days in a Baghdad hospital.
DR MUNJED: I’ll come and do that one, and then come back and do that one.
DR MUNJED: I can make her walk.
SOPHIE McNEILL: With a man transforming lives and bringing hope to a shattered country.
AMIRA: Happy happy happy!!
DR MUNJED: Welcome to Baghdad. We’re surrounded by armoured vehicles and we have plenty of security with us, as you can see.
SOPHIE McNEILL: I’m on my way to the Ibn Sina Hospital in Baghdad’s Green Zone with Dr Munjed Al Muderis, one of Australia’s foremost orthopaedic surgeons.
DR MUNJED: How are you?
GHADBAN: Welcome. God bless you.
DR MUNJED: I received a phone call from a government official here, asking me if I would be able to help. And I said yes, I would be more than happy.
DR MUNJED: Iraq has one of the largest number of amputees and disabled people due to the wars that Iraq went through and is going through.
GHADBAN: He called me and said “This is Dr Munjed from Australia.” I asked “Are you calling me from Iraq?” He said “No, I’m calling from Australia.” I can’t believe someone called me long distance!
SOPHIE McNEILL: Over the next ten days, Dr Al Muderis and his team of volunteer staff will perform life changing surgery here.
DR MUNJED: Okay, you compromise. He’s standing on his fibula now. A fibula revascularising in an area that is very poorly supplied, your chance is Buckley’s.
SOPHIE McNEILL: People have come from all over Iraq, pinning their hopes on the man they call Dr Munjed.
DR MUNJED: They’ve been waiting for hours. And some of them have been waiting for days.
SOPHIE McNEILL: 29-year-old Ali Bassem lost his leg more than two years ago when he volunteered to go to the frontlines and fight against Islamic State.
DR MUNJED: How are you today? Tell me what happened to you?
ALI: I was hit by gunfire.
DR MUNJED: Can you walk?
ALI: With the help of a prosthesis- but not for long. I get tired.
SOPHIE McNEILL: In Iraq, amputees often use outdated prostheses, which can be painful and allow only limited mobility. Dr Munjed specialises in a relatively new surgical technique called osseo-integration.
DR MUNJED: Osseointegration surgery is a cutting-edge technology. It's, in simple terms, merging a human being with a machine. It's basically inserting a high tensile strength titanium implant directly into the bone and attaching it to a prosthetic limb through a small opening in the skin. In the upper limb, we re-jig and re-organise the nerves and attach them to the robot as well, and the robot becomes functioning with mind control.
DR MUNJED: So I can implant an extension for you here.
SOPHIE McNEILL: The legs which attach to the implant are smart limbs. Internal gyroscopes read the individual’s body position and manner of walking.
ALI: Do you think it will work doctor? This implant thing?
SOPHIE McNEILL: Compared to old-fashioned prosthetics, they allow amputees to walk almost normally.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Over the next few days, a handful of Iraqis will be lucky enough to receive this new technology, thanks to Dr Munjed. Ali hopes to be one of them.
DR MUNJED: Ok, think about it, don’t answer me now. And we’ll see what we can do. Okay. Thanks again.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Munjed was born in Baghdad into a well-to-do family and lived a comfortable life there.
DR MUNJED: The Iraq that I grew in was a country that had law and order, had a system running. It was a dictatorship, but it was safe. It was peaceful, as long as you do not interfere with Saddam Hussein and his party’s business.
SOPHIE McNEILL: In 1999, the young doctor and his colleagues were suddenly faced with the brutality of Saddam Hussein’s regime.
DR MUNJED: I was confronted with three busloads of army deserters, escorted by Republican guards and Ba'ath party members, and they ordered us to abandon the elective lists, and start mutilating these army deserters by taking part of their ears off. And that's when things changed.
DR MUNJED: The head of the department refused openly, and they took him outside to the car park, and they put a bullet in his head. I was confronted with a decision. Would I obey the commands and live with guilt for the rest of my life? Would I refuse and end up with a bullet in my head? Or would I run away? And I decided to run away.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Munjed managed to get onto a boat and come to Australia via Christmas island. He was taken to Western Australia’s Curtin Detention Centre, where he was locked up for ten months.
DR MUNJED: I was stripped of my human identity. I was marked with a permanent marker on my shoulder with a number, 982, and I carried that name for the rest of the time that I spent in the detention centre. Curtin Detention Centre, in simple words, was hell on earth.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Accused of causing unrest, Munjed was put in solitary confinement for weeks. He used that time to study his medical anatomy book that he’d brought from Iraq.
DR MUNJED: So I read it from cover to cover, several times. As soon as I was released, I sat in my primary exams in surgery and I passed first go, and I scored very high in anatomy. I was very motivated. I had a great deal of ambition. I still have, and I was determined that I would succeed. I was released on the 26th of August 2000, and I received my first pay check on the 1st of November 2000.
SOPHIE McNEILL: While Munjed was struggling to rebuild his life in Australia, Iraq was descending into war and chaos – fertile ground for Islamic State to emerge and inflict its misery on a long-suffering Iraqi population.
SOPHIE McNEILL: I’m on my way to meet Ali, the soldier we met earlier. He’s just one of the tens of thousands of Iraqi casualties caused by ISIS. He lives on the outskirts of Baghdad.
ALI: We were surrounded by Daesh for about two days. We used nearly all our bullets and grenades. I was injured when they attacked with about seven suicide car bombs.
SOPHIE McNEILL: When Ali lost his leg, his wife walked out on him. Ali suddenly became a single father to his young son, Hussein.
ALI: After my leg was amputated she left, this is quite common. This is what happens in Iraq. You see, our Iraqi system is not developed like others. They don’t realise that disabled people have rights. We don’t have rights. They don’t care about you. They treat you like garbage in the street.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Ali and Hussein now live with Ali’s parents.
ALI: When he was little he used to bring me my shoes. Now he brings me one shoe. Early on he refused to come near me. Slowly, slowly he understood and accepted it.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Hussein is excited at the prospect of his dad receiving the new robotic leg and walking normally again.
SOPHIE McNEILL: What do you think?
ALI: They called me and told me I’d been approved and should come to the hospital tomorrow. “We can do the implant so you can have the new leg, and you will be taken care of.” I was so happy.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Waiting patiently to see Dr Munjed is 18-year-old Amane.
DR MUNJED: Come up, lie down.
SOPHIE McNEILL: When was the explosion?
DR MUNJED: What year were you injured?
AMANE: 2009.
DR MUNJED: 2009.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Amane was just ten years old when a heater fell on her and she was badly burnt.
AMANE: They said they have to amputate my legs because if they don’t I will die. So they amputated both my legs. I stayed at the American hospital for nine months.
DR MUNJED: Have you tried prosthetics?
AMANE: I tried but they didn’t work.
AMANE: I can’t live like a normal girl and go out without someone bothering me. Now I am in a wheelchair, I can’t move freely. I can move it myself now and I won’t let anyone push me.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Amane has done her best to challenge the stereotypes here. She’s a committed para-athlete, representing Iraq in the javelin.
AMANE: I won a medal in the Emirates Championship. I also won another medal in the Asian Championship in Malaysia. I have three gold medals.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Munjed says he can help Amane’s dream come true.
DR MUNJED: What is your wish?
AMANE: I want to walk.
AMANE’S MUM: If she can walk this will be an achievement for all the people of Iraq!
DR MUNJED: I can make her walk.
DR MUNJED: Do you see this man, how he’s walking?
AMANE: I hope I’ll be able to walk like him.
SOPHIE McNEILL: But at this stage, the Iraqi government is prioritising treatment for injured soldiers, not civilians like Amane. They won’t pay for her to receive robotic legs.
DR MUNJED: If we do osseointegration for her, she will walk, for sure. She has a very high chance that she will be a very high performing amputee. But the problem is, the limiting factor is money. So I am happy to provide her the surgery for free. But she needs to buy the prosthesis and she needs to buy the implants.
SOPHIE McNEILL: So, what’s she looking at?
DR MUNJED: $100,000. That’s cost price.
AMANE: I’ve been like this for nine years. When the doctor came I hoped that I will walk and leave this chair.
DR MUNJED: Ok my dear, let’s stay in contact, we will see what we can do. Ok? Shake hands? I’d be happy to help you, nice meeting you.
AMANE: I don’t have the money to undergo the operation.
DR MUNJED: Ultimately, everybody deserves to be treated equally. Ultimately, there is no difference between Iraqis - civilians, military, whatever, they are patients. And it's my job to treat people according to their need, and it’s my job to make that happen. On the ground, this may not be the case.
SOPHIE McNEILL: 22-year-old Ghadban from Mosul is another civilian who desperately wants Munjed’s help.
DR MUNJED: Can you move your knee ok?
SOPHIE McNEILL: He lost both legs after he was hit by a mortar when walking to college.
GHADBAN: I pulled my leg like this and it was broken into pieces. My mother came out and she saved me. I told them I want to die and not have my legs taken off. They went to my mum and said: “His life or his legs.”
DR MUNJED: Do you wear a prosthesis?
GHADBAN: No, I don’t have one.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Ghadban found out about Munjed after trawling the internet and seeing videos of patients walking with their new legs.
GHADBAN: I thought here is a person who will make me walk as well as possible. He is pretty much the best in the world. The walk is normal. That night I was so happy I couldn’t sleep.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Like Amane, Ghadban will have to pay for this new technology himself. His mum, Amira, sold their family home to do it.
AMIRA, GHADBAN’S MUM: I don’t want him to spend his life in a wheelchair. He’s part of me. I just want to make my children happy. For me, life has ended. My life is for my children.
SOPHIE McNEILL: For Ghadban, this surgery is the chance to try and live a normal life.
GHADBAN: I am in love with a girl. I was going to propose to her after we got rid of Daesh. When I was injured, her mum said this can’t happen, that man is crippled. I was very sad. My girlfriend said, if you start walking maybe then my mother would agree. I am trying to do the operation to walk again. I promised her to do the operation in November if God allows. I will then propose to her, and she said to me – when you walk again my parents will agree.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Even though Ghadban’s family has organised the money, there’s another problem – the Iraqi authorities haven’t given Munjed permission yet to operate on civilians.
MALE: Doctor, he must have the surgery.
MALE ON CRUTCHES: I’m staying, I’m waiting.
SOPHIE McNEILL: What’s happening here?
DR MUNJED: Well, we still haven’t got the authorisation from the government to go ahead with civilians so far. So they’re frustrated and I don’t have any answers, and we’re still waiting.
SOPHIE McNEILL: What’s the hold up?
DR MUNJED: I don’t know.
SOPHIE McNEILL: For now, all they can do is wait and pray.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Today is the day our first patient, ex-soldier, Ali, will receive his implant. He’s the first person in Iraq to do so.
ALI: See you guys... have a good evening.
DR MUNJED: Ok my friend, good luck.
DR MUNJED: I had to ask him whether he is ready to go ahead. Does he understand the risks and is he happy to take that task of having the surgery? And he said, yes, he’s ready.
DR MUNJED: Having this surgery in Iraq, in a country that’s regarded as a Developing Country, is a landmark.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Ali is just one of a dozen people Munjed will operate on today, and there’s plenty more surgeries ahead.
DR MUNJED: I need a wire, have you got the wire?
DR MUNJED: People do have good skills here. They’re very well educated, and they’re very well motivated.
DR MUNJED: So this is very critical, you need to be in the middle. Ok that’s good. So this is the implant, ok? You can take photos of it. Is he behaving? Is he good? Is his lungs ok? It’s already rotationally stable. Ok, size 1 dual cone, open, for God’s sake, yeah?
SOPHIE McNEILL: Many of Dr Munjed’s key staff in Sydney volunteered to be part of this special mission.
DR MUNJED: Have you got the next patient?
SOPHIE McNEILL: Simi Masuku is his chief surgical nurse.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Simi, tell us how did that all go?
SIMI MASUKU: I think that went well actually for the first case. Kind of like didn’t know what to expect and having to modify a few things to make it work for where we are, it went perfectly well. I think perfect patient for the first case.
SOPHIE McNEILL: New patients keep arriving.
DR ABBAS: Rush hour, everybody come to hospital seeking for Dr Munjed’s help!
SOPHIE McNEILL: 31-year-old Mohammad has just arrived from Basra. In January, he was in a unit fighting ISIS, when his vehicle struck an IED – shattering both of his lower legs. After six operations, they still haven’t healed.
DR MUNJED: Look at it, the bone is white. But this is not white, it’s grey. When it’s grey it means the bone is dead.
DR MUNJED: Every time I look at an image, I couldn't stop hiding my shock to the severity and the complexity of the injuries these people have. And unanimously, every single member of my team, the minute they look at an image they say, oh my God, what are we gonna do with this?
SOPHIE McNEILL: Munjed has some bad news for the father of four.
DR MUNJED: Has anybody talked to you about amputation? It has to be done, it’s the only option. This leg I can fix, but this leg no one can fix. Only God can fix it.
MOHAMMAD: I’m still taking it all in. I don’t know what to do. If amputation is the only choice then I’ll have to accept it.
DR MUNJED: Yeah, so we’ll do the right side, yes.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Meanwhile, Ghadban and Amira continue to wait.
AMIRA: The doctor told me he didn’t have any news. They haven’t approved it yet. He said it’s out of his hands.
SOPHIE McNEILL: But Munjed has been working behind the scenes to get things moving. Amira’s persistence is paying off.
DR MUNJED: There are two gentlemen from the PM’s office who are looking into your case. They have got your names, they are here especially for you.
AMIRA: Oh thank you very much!
DR MUNJED: So stop following me! (jokingly)
AMIRA: God bless you! You have no idea how happy I am.
SOPHIE McNEILL: This is Mohammad - one of the prime minister’s advisers.
AMIRA: Please help us! Can you do anything to help us?
MOHAMMAD, PM’S ADVISOR: We are here to help. You must understand it could take time. It needs time, we’re trying to help.
SOPHIE McNEILL: There’s only few days left before Munjed has to leave and Amira is getting desperate.
PM’S ADVISOR: We will do our best. We will try.
AMIRA: Time is passing fast. The days of Dr Munjed being here are few now. I’m very afraid he might go without operating on my son’s leg.
DR MUNJED: What are we gonna do? These two are ready. All I need is to operate on them. I just need the ok. All you need do to is allow me to take them from this floor to the second floor.
SOPHIE McNEILL: The advisers promise to try to get the prime minister to approve the surgery for civilians.
MOHAMMAD: The priority is for the army. So I would like to help these civilians to maybe do surgery for them. That mum, she broke our heart. Everyone who heard her story, they very cry. So I guess he will help us, I hope.
SIMI MASUKU: Hopefully all good, fingers crossed. I don’t know how to say that in Arabic, but-
AMIRA: Inshallah.
SIMI MASUKU: Yes.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Munjed and his team have been performing over a dozen surgeries a day, trying to help as many people as they can before they go.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Dr Munjed now has three operating theatres on the go at once. His team has been working 17 hour long days. And already Dr Munjed has performed more osseointegration surgery here in Iraq than he has performed in all of the United States.
CLAUDIA: It’s three minutes to midnight and we are just finishing our eighth case, and hopefully home soon.
IRAQI SURGEON: He is a machine. We never catch him. No-one here in the operating room ever catch him, no patient, anaesthesia, really, we can’t! Even the instruments, we can’t. He is running from a room to another room really. He’s a machine. Everyone here is exhausted and he still works. Really. I am impressed.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Despite their busy schedule, the team has to stop operating for a day. An invitation has come from the most powerful religious leader in Iraq: Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani. We are heading to the southern cities of Najaf and Karbala. These roads are much safer than they used to be, but there is still a risk of attack. An armed escort accompanies our convoy.
DR MUNJED: Don’t fold it, don’t fold it. Yes, like that.
DR MUNJED: Just be careful.
SOPHIE McNEILL: We’re visiting the Imam Ali Mosque, one of the holiest sites for Shiite Muslims. This is the Imam.
GUIDE: Yes, that’s the Imam Ali Holy Shrine. All this area is for Imam Ali Holy Shrine. From this way, site of grave of Najaf.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Next to the shrine is Wadi al-Salam, believed to be the world’s largest cemetery.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Munjed was born Sunni. These days he’s an atheist.
DR MUNJED: I grew up in Iraq. We never knew who was Sunni, who is Shiite, who was Kurd, who was Christian. Nobody cared. Everybody was looked at being an Iraqi.
SOPHIE McNEILL: The team is granted an audience with Ayatollah Sistani’s second in charge.
DR MUNJED: We put in the implants, but these are smart implants. The smart implants makes it move like a robot.
SHEIKH: Is this one an amputee?
DR MUNJED: Yes, an amputee.
DR MUNJED: The religious leaders in the country are supporters of this project, including Ayatollah Sistani and his deputy.
SHEIKH: We hope to see you again. Come visit us again. It was nice having you here, and I don’t say that to everyone!
DR MUNJED: They gave their blessing for the project. Iraqis have a great deal of respect toward these figures.
SOPHIE McNEILL: The next morning, Munjed comes to check on Ali, his first implant patient.
DR MUNJED: Good morning, how do you feel today? We operated on your leg, why are you covering it? Lie back. Any pain?
ALI: No.
DR MUNJED: You’re a strong man.
ALI: How’d the surgery go?
DR MUNJED: It all went fine. It all went totally fine. Any pain?
ALI: No.
DR MUNJED: Any pain? Still ok?
ALI: Yep.
DR MUNJED: Yeah.
ALI: This is a good surprise. He pushed it after surgery and I didn’t feel any pain. This is good news. Thank God.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Ali’s father and his son Hussein arrive to see how he’s going.
ALI’S DAD: How does it work?
ALI: They will attach a leg to it.
HUSSEIN: Thank you for operating on my dad
SOPHIE McNEILL: Finally some good news for young college student, Ghadban, and his mum. The prime minister has approved the surgery for civilians.
AMIRA: I feel like I’m going to fly in the sky! I’m so happy! Happy, happy happy!
DR MUNJED: A patient is a patient whether they are military or civilian. To me, a patient is a patient
AMIRA: I’m happy! I’m happy! I thank you! All of you!
SOPHIE McNEILL: It’s Dr Munjed, not me.
AMIRA: Dr Munjed! All of you have provided help. I couldn’t be happier.
GHADBAN: I’m so happy that I’ve forgotten the pain and depression. I feel really good. God willing it will be successful and I will walk again. Now I’m feeling hopeful once again that I will walk again and live my life.
AMIRA: Good, good! Fly!
AMIRA: Good luck!
DR MUNJED: I can't claim that I am a machine. I try to be non-emotional and I try to separate feelings from my work, and then try to be as pragmatic as possible. But sometimes it does get into you. Seeing the number of people that are desperate, but what you do? I just try to do as much as I can and set an example for people to follow, and hope that things will pick up.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Been a big week.
DR MUNJED: It has.
SOPHIE McNEILL: What’s the biggest thing you’ve learned?
DR MUNJED: Human beings deserve to live, deserve to live better. And people here are sick of fighting. They just want to move on with their life.
DR MUNJED: So if you get going with him quickly, because this one I’ll finish it, I’ll come and do that one and then I’ll come back and do that one.
DR MUNJED: I'm not in the business of building fighters. I'm in the business of giving people their mobility back, to go back to their families and feed their kids. I hope that the money that they spend on weapons will eventually be spent on building hospitals, schools, improving the life standards of their own people.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Ghadban’s surgery has gone well.
AMIRA: How do you feel my son?
SOPHIE McNEILL: Munjed and his team go home to Australia today, but they will return to Iraq soon.
SIMI MASUKU: It’s been hectic, man. I’m so tired. Long hours every day, doing as much as we can before we leave. So it’s been pretty emotional. Some of the cases have been tough. Nothing that I’ve experienced in Australia.
SOPHIE McNEILL: They have performed more than 50 surgeries in their time here.
DR MUNJED: My job is done. Their job and your job starts.
CLAUDIA: Lifting, up, up! Yes! And down. Up again.
SOPHIE McNEILL: The patients who received an implant, all going well, will have their new robotic legs attached when Dr Munjed returns.
CLAUDIA: 20 minutes, okay?
LAST WEEK
SOPHIE McNEILL: It's been nearly three months since Dr Munjed and the team were in Baghdad. Now he’s back.
DR MUNJED: Where are we going?
SOPHIE McNEILL: And with him this time is a prostheses expert – Bogdan Dimitriu.
BOGDAN DIMITRIU: This has to be shorter. Now we play Lego, like kids. Now is the funny side.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Everyone is excited to try and walk.
MALE: I’m so happy. I will make you dance with me.
BOGDAN DIMITRIU: Make balance 30 times, three zero, yeah? Okay. Try to breathe. Take my hands, okay. Make the first step. Easy. Easy, look at me.
MALE: I’m so happy my heart will burst!
BOGDAN DIMITRIU: Control your body. Feel your position in space.
SOPHIE McNEILL: It’s like learning to walk all over again. Ex-soldier Ali has spent the last few months building up muscle around his implant. He’s hoping to have his new leg fitted today.
DR MUNJED: It’s looking very good, excellent, all good. Down. All good.
DR MUNJED: It looks perfect, looks absolutely perfect.
ALI: God willing, I have the will to walk today.
BOGDAN DIMITRIU: I’m doing the alignment. That means that I try as much as possible to fit the patient biomechanically. This alignment help him to walk easier without pain. If I don’t make the alignment, he will stumble.
ALI: The most important thing is I can stand and balance myself.
DR MUNJED: How much can you feel now? Does it feel like your leg?
ALI: It feels like a real leg.
DR MUNJED: Can you walk?
ALI: It’s a little bit painful.
DR MUNJED: You feel pain?
ALI: A bit.
DR MUNJED: Where does it hurt?
DR MUNJED: He has pain only in his knee. Yes, that’s good.
DR MUNJED: Keep going.
DR MUNJED: And he can feel the ground and it’s amazing. I’m astonished to the way these people healed, as the wound is amazing. It is extremely rewarding. I can’t put words to it. The joy that I have is enormous, because who would expect that such number of people who have been devastated with such injuries end up walking again, getting their mobility back?
SOPHIE McNEILL: Ali’s son Hussein loves his dad’s new leg.
ALI: Do you think this is better than the crutches?
HUSSEIN: This is much better.
ALI: Then say thank you Dr Munjed Al Muderis.
HUSSEIN: Thank you Dr Munjed … for fixing my dad’s leg.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Now his dad is more mobile, Hussein has a long to-do list.
ALI: What did you like about the zoo when we used to go?
HUSSEIN: The monkeys.
SOPHIE McNEILL: There’s one more person who Munjed has asked to return to the hospital. Amane, the para-athlete who didn’t have the money to do the surgery last time. She’s waiting to see if Dr Munjed has any news for her.
DR MUNJED: We will do the operation for you. Okay? Okay?
SOPHIE McNEILL: Munjed is going make Amane walk. He says he’ll pay for her legs himself.
AMANE: I really trust Dr Munjed, I trust he will do my operation and make me walk again.
AMANE’S MUM: The first time we came we had high hopes. But she felt so broken. Thanks to God, now I have faith and hope in Dr Munjed. Thanks be to God. My feelings can’t be expressed. I’m so happy.
AMANE: The operation is going to be a success and I will walk again. It’s my wish to walk and see how tall I am.
SOPHIE McNEILL: The young college student, Ghadban, from Mosul is due to receive his new legs and be walking by the end of December.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Dr Munjed and his team are going to spend the next several weeks in Iraq, working just as hard as they did last time.
SOPHIE McNEILL: Despite Munjed’s commitment to Iraq and the demand for his services around the world, Australia is home.
DR MUNJED: I'm very grateful to Australia. I never feel complacent and I never take things for granted, because the way I lived in Iraq, which is sad, I never get the chance to feel comfortable. I'm very grateful that my kids do not share the same feelings that I had. They're so happy with the way they are, and I wish that they live all their life not having the same fear, not having the same feelings that I do, because it's not a comfortable feeling. I live all my life with one eye open, and I think this will not change |
avory incidents of rampant egotism to shatter his clean image, no shafting of his sidemen on long road jaunts. He was just a sincerely talented soul man who enhanced the lives of everyone associated with him but died much too soon.
Heartbreak never sounded good.
Or happened so abruptly.
A plaque located in the William T. Evjue Rooftop Garden on Monona Terrace commemorates Redding’s death.Spending More to Spend Less
Imagine you’re an engineer in the engineering department of a car company. Right now your department spends $100 on each engine and $80 on each transmission, for a total of $180. You discover that by redesigning some components, you can entirely remove the need for a transmission by spending an extra $30 on the engine.
In other words, you discover you could spend $30 more to spend $80 less, ending up $50 ahead with a better product. It only requires you spend the extra money in one area to save money overall, in a way that would also increase overall quality.
What would you do with this knowledge?
What if you suggested this idea to your boss and were told that because spending less money on every part always results in a lower total cost, and that anyone with an elementary understanding of math should know this, that spending more on the engine is a terrible idea because spending more can’t possibly equate to spending less?
What if you felt so strongly about this idea, that you then went directly to the CEO? What if the CEO then told you he had signed a piece of paper that said he would never raise the cost of anything? And so his hands are tied?
What would you think of your company and its management?
Now imagine you work in the sales department of a company. You and your team will be sent to another city to make some very important deals. Your company’s travel department sets everything up for you and your team at the lowest cost possible. It’s actually very good at this and has won multiple accolades from your CEO for minimizing costs. In this case, they save a total of $5,000.
Thanks to these savings, you and your team arrive at the airport at midnight. After a 14-hour flight requiring three different planes, you arrive at your destination with no time to spare. Completely exhausted and worn out, you and your team make $15,000 in sales. These sales numbers represent failure. As an additional result, your company will now need to downsize.
Meanwhile, in a parallel universe, you don’t even have a travel department (which saves even more than $5,000), and because your tickets were booked with a modicum of forethought, you and your team arrive fully rested and make $1 million in sales. As an additional result, not only does no one get fired, everyone gets a raise.
Which makes more sense?
System A: The one with the parts working against each other, each trying to maximize performance independent of each other?
System B: The one where everyone benefits, including the CEO for running a successful company instead of a failing one?
The United States, as a country, by any conceivable measure, is not the company existing in the parallel universe… but it can be.
Remember the engineer’s engine? The one we could spend more on to almost entirely eliminate the need for a transmission? We can do that.
But it’ll require a closer look at our transmission…
The Transmission of the United States
The following is a short list of our shared expenditures as a society. On the left is the total cost and on the right is the cost per American citizen.
As a society, we are now spending more than $10.2 trillion dollars or $34,448 per citizen every year
There exists overlap between some expenditures, but the above also represents only a partial list of all the money we are already spending.
So how can we spend less on this transmission?
Election Reform
Our use of first-past-the-post (FPTP) elections leads directly to our broken two-party system where new voices and proportional representation is actively prevented. As long as we keep this system in place, our democracy will suffer and a great many of our voices will remain unheard, making it exceedingly difficult to enact all/any needed changes. This needs to change.
What we chiefly need is the ability to rank candidates, so that we can all actually choose the candidates we most want to win, instead of those we think have the greatest chance to win. That ability alone is the difference between our making a choice, and it being made for us.
CGP Grey has done an entire series of videos about the problems with FPTP and much better methods, so if you’d like to learn more, those videos are really the best place to start.
Do we really want to continue not having a functioning democracy?
Access to Health Care
A system of universal health care — the kind that basically everyone else in the world has adopted except us — would save us thousands of dollars per citizen. If designed like Switzerland, it could save us $832 billion. If designed like Germany: $1.2 trillion, Canada: $1.3 trillion, or like New Zealand or the UK: $1.7 trillion in savings — every year.
It’s safe to say that not having a system of truly universal health care, is akin to burning trillion dollar piles of money.
Do we really want to keep doing this?
Access to Education
A system of universal education — the kind that we originally pioneered and then let others surpass us with their own — would drastically reduce the amount we spend on educating ourselves, while drastically increasing the amount of people educated. College is now free in Germany as it is in other nations as well. Meanwhile, in the US, outstanding college loans now exceed $1.2 trillion.
How are people to prosper while saddled with school loan debts? How is the economy to thrive, with so much money spent repaying the loans we require to hopefully secure a job? What’s the point of spending the time and money to get a middle-wage job, if the amount taken to cover the loans is then equivalent to having a low-wage job? How is anyone to function as a consumer — the Alpha and the Omega of the economy — if their paychecks go only to basic needs and school loans and not to purchasing the goods and services of others?
It’s safe to say that also not having a system of truly universal education, is again akin to burning trillion dollar piles of money.
Do we really want to keep doing this as well?
Decriminalization
Simply reclassifying what constitutes crime would immediately reduce crime. We spend half as much money fighting drugs as we do buying them, and by just ending prohibition on drugs as we did on alcohol — a more dangerous drug — we could raise revenue and improve lives instead of wasting revenue and systematically destroying them.
We could stop spending about $40,000 per year on the 20% of our prison population of 2.2 million convicted of drug crimes, and instead raise over $70 billion in new revenue. We could save even more money by also avoiding the imprisonment of those convicted of many other non-violent crimes.
Doesn’t this make more sense too, to not fill up our prisons with non-violent offenders?
Patent and Copyright Reform
The granting of temporary protections for creative works was never meant to function as anything but a head start. They were certainly never meant to be permanent, which is what they effectively now are. By overprotecting and creating too many barriers, these systems no longer foster innovation, but effectively hamper it.
Because of this, some economists now believe it shouldn’t just be reformed, but abolished entirely:
“The historical and international evidence suggests that while weak patent systems may mildly increase innovation with limited side effects, strong patent systems retard innovation with many negative side effects…”
“Why use band-aids to staunch a major wound? Economists fought for decades — ultimately with considerable success — to reduce restrictions on international trade. A similar approach, albeit less slow, should be adopted to phase out patents.”
It can be argued that everything we do is actually a remix of something already known. By enriching the public domain instead of keeping ideas from it, we can accelerate the creation of new remixes that propel us all forward.
Intellectual property creates artificial scarcity. It is the opposite of creating abundance. Do we really wish to actively choose scarcity over abundance?
Homes for the Homeless
In Colorado it was estimated that the cost to the taxpayer for each homeless individual was $43,240. Just housing them instead costs $16,813. In Florida the cost of homelessness was estimated at $31,065 per taxpayer, while just housing them would cost $10,051. In Utah, the cost of homelessness was estimated at $16,670 per taxpayer, while just housing them would cost $11,000.
We know it saves more money to just provide homes, than to let people be homeless.
However, we also know that “cash payments increase the welfare of recipients to a greater degree than do transfers-in-kind of equal cash value.” And it is this knowledge, that leads us to possibly the single most effective change of all, affecting the greatest number of our wasteful and counterproductive expenditures.
We can just start giving everyone money.
This is how we can stop fiddling with our transmission and instead improve our entire engine — Universal Basic Income.
The Improved Engine of the United States
A basic income guarantee is how we can spend more on our engine to spend less on our transmission.
How much more?
Why not start at just above the poverty line with a monthly income of $1,000 for adult citizens and $300 for youth citizens? This would cost an estimated $3 trillion, but the total savings it stands to introduce in reducing the more than $10 trillion we already spend, along with the social and economic growth fostered as a result, are almost incalculable in value.
The Engine Improvement That Pays for Itself
Canada did a study to determine how much money could be saved on adults by spending just $1 on them when they’re young. They concluded $1 would save $3 to $9.
What does this mean for basic income?
It means that tomorrow if we started just providing $300 a month as a youth citizen allowance, we would not have to spend $900 to $2,700 a month on everyone as adults as the costs of crime and medical care.
This also means that when kids became adults, a basic income as high as $2,700 per month would cost not a penny more than we already spend, but without all the crime and poor health. So why not start a universal allowance for our children immediately, and consider their basic incomes as adults entirely paid in full?
No more poverty. Less crime. Better health. Higher productivity. Accelerated economy. Expanded democracy. More happiness. Even greater intelligence. These are measures of a functioning system working for everyone. This is the systemic production of fewer red beads.
It’s also just what the doctor prescribes…I’ve spent much of the last several years reading theology of all stripes, from the most fundamentalist version (e.g. Ken Ham), to versions slightly more sophisticated, like William Lane Craig, to the most rarefied and “sophisticated” versions, like those of Karen Armstrong, Alvin Plantinga, and Søren Kierkegaard. Now I admit I’m an atheist and have read these people’s work extremely critically, but it’s no different from the way I read scientific books and papers.
And what I’ve found has been appalling. “Sophisticated” theology is not sophisticated, but a misuse of intelligence and eloquence to make really bad arguments. These range from Karen Armstrong’s argument that God is a symbol for the ineffable, but yet He really exists, and is good (how the hell can she be apophatic and yet know something about God?), to Alvin Plantinga’s laughable claim that we’re endowed with a sensus divinitatis that is all that allows us humans to perceive truth—not just the “truth” of the Christian God, but scientific truths as well. (The sensus divinitatis is apparently broken in non-Christians and atheists, and God forgot to install it in anyone living more than two thousand years ago.) You don’t learn anything from this stuff, except about the endless ability of our big brains to rationalize the most appalling kind of nonsense. It’s a mug’s game: a bunch of smart people discoursing endlessly about things they can’t possibly know about. It is a group of scholars making stuff up. And it’s a waste of time, and money—the money of those people who pay theologians or buy their books.
If you’re a scientist, and schooled to doubt—to ask, whether it be scientific claims or other claims, “How do you know that?”—reading theology is an exercise in masochism. There’s nothing to learn about reality, except how smart people pull an intellectual con game, selling their delusions to others. I am a bad person for saying this, but I despise the “sophisticated” theologians like Plantinga more than I do fundamentalists like Ken Ham. For Plantinga is a very smart guy, and yet misuses his intelligence to deceive others and give “sophisticated” Christians justification for their beliefs. In contrast, Ham simple-mindedly advocates what he finds in the Bible; he’s not smart enough to use modal logic and the tools of philosophy to deceive smart Christians. One sometimes gets the feeling that the Sophisticated Theologians™don’t fully believe what they say: that they’re engaged in some kind of academic exercise to see how clever they can be. But I may be wrong. What is certain is that Ken Ham really believes what he says.
But enough ranting. I suppose I’ve derived some benefit from my two years of torture, if only that I’ve earned the credibility of having come to grips with “sophisticated” theology and witnessed first hand its absence of clothes. Nobody can accuse me of not having read theology’s “best” arguments. (By “best,” of course, they mean “those arguments couched in the fanciest language and most tortuous logic.” The “best” arguments for the existence of natural evil in a world supposedly run by an omnibenevolent God are no more convincing than the worst arguments.)
Yet in the continuing defense of theology, writer Tara Isabella Burton, who is doing a doctorate in theology at Oxford, extols the field’s virtues in a new piece at The Atlantic, “Study theology, even if you don’t believe in God.” Burton concludes that dismantling schools of theology is “throwing out the baby along with the bathwater,” and “an unfortunate example of blindness.” She gives two reasons:
1. Theology is a discipline that encompasses everything in the humanities. It’s the best way to get a broad education.
Richard Dawkins would do well to look at the skills imparted by the Theology department of his own alma mater, Oxford (also my own). The BA I did at Oxford was a completely secular program, attracting students from all over the religious spectrum. My classmates included a would-be priest who ended up an atheist, as well as a militant atheist now considering the priesthood. During my time there, I investigated Ancient Near Eastern building patterns to theorize about the age of a settlement; compared passages of the gospels (in the original Greek) to analogous passages in the Jewish wisdom literature of the 1st century BC; examined the structure of a 14th-century Byzantine liturgy; and read The Brothers Karamazov as part of a unit on Christian existentialism. As Oxford’s Dr. William Wood, a University Lecturer in Philosophical Theology and my former tutor, puts it: “theology is the closest thing we have at the moment to the kind of general study of all aspects of human culture that was once very common, but is now quite rare.” A good theologian, he says, “has to be a historian, a philosopher, a linguist, a skillful interpreter of texts both ancient and modern, and probably many other things besides.” In many ways, a course in theology is an ideal synthesis of all other liberal arts: no longer, perhaps, “Queen of the Sciences,” but at least, as Wood terms it, “Queen of the Humanities.”
The problem with this is that theology filters everything through God, so that any secular contributions to humanities are ignored. All nonreligious art, literature (most of it), and any history that doesn’t involve religion is ignored. What about reading the parts of The Brothers Karamazov (or, for that matter, Anna Karenina) which don’t deal with religion at all? Is there any theology in The Great Gatsby? And of course just studying theology, or even getting a degree in it, doesn’t require you to be a historian, philosopher, linguist, and textual interpreter. That, of course, depends on what aspect of theology you study, how smart you are, and how hard you apply yourself.
Remember, too, that schools of theology embrace two type of scholars: BIblical scholars, who figure out how ancient texts were constructed (many of these are atheists), and theologians, who try to figure out what God is telling us through those texts. The former are involved in understanding how people came to believe in a nonexistent being, the latter are paid to rationalize the existence of that nonexistent being and to figure out what He wants. Only the former is a useful exercise, as it’s part of human history. But it’s by no means the only part of human history and human culture.
Unlike Burton, I don’t see studying theology as the best way to embrace all of human culture. If you want to do that, study literature, history (including religious history if you must), psychology, and diverse courses in the humanities. Unlike theology, that will give you a balanced education.
In my view, schools of theology or divinity shouldn’t exist. The Biblical scholars can be put in history departments, and any theologians (and there shouldn’t be more than one or two in any university) put in philosophy departments, where they will have to justify their activities in competition with people who actually practice rational discourse. If you want to train preachers, by all means send them to seminaries. But studying a nonexistent being is not a proper subject for a modern university, and there shouldn’t be departments for that. Recognizing this, Thomas Jefferson banned the teaching of theology at the school he founded: The University of Virgina. U. Va. should be proud of that. In contrast, schools like Harvard (and my own) simply harbor divinity schools as useless vestiges of bygone days, like scholarly wisdom teeth.
2. Theology helps us engage the mindset of medieval people.
Yet, for me, the value of theology lies not merely in the breadth of skills it taught, but in the opportunity it presented to explore a given historical mindset in greater depth. I learned to read the Bible in both Greek and Hebrew, to analyze the minutiae of language that allows us to distinguish “person” from “nature,” “substance” from “essence.” I read “orthodox” and “heretical” accounts alike of the nature of the Godhead, and learned about the convoluted and often arbitrary historical processes that delineated the two. But for me, it allowed me access into the fundamental building blocks of the mentality, say, of a 12th-century French monk, or a mystic from besieged Byzantium. While the study of history taught me the story of humanity on a broader scale, the study of theology allowed me insight into the minds and hearts, fears and concerns, of those in circumstances were so wildly different from my own. The difference between whether—as was the case in the Arian controversy of the fourth-century AD—the Godhead should be thought of as powerful first, and loving second, or loving first and powerful second, might seem utterly pedantic in a world where plenty of people see no need to think about God at all. But when scores of people were willing to kill or die to defend such beliefs—hardly a merely historical phenomenon—it’s worth investigating how and why such beliefs infused all aspects of the world of their believers. How does that 12th-century French monk’s view of the nature of God affect the way he sees himself, his relationship with others, his relationship with the natural world, his relationship with his own mortality? How does that Byzantine mystic conceive of space and time in a world he envisions as imbued with the sacred? To find such questions integral to any study of the past is not restricted to those who agree with the answers. To study theology well requires not faith, but empathy.
The “historical mindset” Burton is discussing here is the mindset of a very few educated people: monks, ministers, and Church Fathers like Aquinas and Origen. It has no bearing on the minds of the vast majority of people who were too busy scraping out a living to even think about theology. Yes, they believed in God, Jesus, Heaven, and Hell, but only because their parents and ministers told them to believe that stuff, and their society was soaked in it. But to understand their willingness to kill or die for it involves understanding not religion, but the totalitarian mentality that undergirds not just religion, but ideologies like Marxism and Nazism, which might well be considered “religious ideologies.” It involves psychology: the way people can manipulate the minds of others.
As for how a 12th-century monk views the nature of God, really, is that more interesting than figuring out how 12th century French peasants viewed their existence? I don’t think so. Try reading Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror, or William Manchester’s A World Lit Only by Fire, and see if you think those don’t give a far more interesting—and balanced—view of medieval life. Both book are excellent, and the first a masterpiece.
Perhaps there’s room in academia for someone who studies religion to see how it affects the behavior of others, but that’s no justification for creating entire schools of these people, for they only serve to lend an air of scholarly verisimilitude to an otherwise bald, unconvincing, and entirely false narrative.
To study theology might not require faith, but I doubt it requires empathy, either. The main requirement is an infinite tolerance for reading stuff that’s simply made up by people with fancy degrees. Oh, and you have to be able to wade through the worst prose, and the worst logic, in the world.Seven companies have stopped advertising on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show after he continued to promote a conspiracy theory about the death of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich.
Why is Sean Hannity peddling bonkers conspiracy theories? Read more
USAA, an insurance company which caters specifically to veterans, automobile listing website Cars.com and mattress companies Casper and Leesa Sleep all dropped Hannity on Thursday, Buzzfeed reported.
Hannity, who is currently absent on what Fox News said was a planned vacation, has been heavily criticized for pursuing a disproven theory that Seth Rich, who was shot dead in Washington DC last July, had provided DNC emails to WikiLeaks.
Conspiracy theorists have suggested Rich was killed as a result. Fox News retracted an article on Rich on Tuesday, saying the piece “was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting”.
Cars.com told Buzzfeed it does not “have the ability to influence content at the time we make our advertising purchase. In this case, we’ve been watching closely and have recently made the decision to pull our advertising from Hannity.”
USAA sent more than 30 tweets on Wednesday responding to complaints over its Hannity advertising.
“We are no longer advertising in relation to Hannity. Thank you!” one reply said. In a series of other messages USAA said “advertising on opinion shows is not in accordance with our policy and we’ve since corrected it.”
Bill O’Reilly left Fox News in April after allegations of sexual harassment against him led to 50 different companies to pull advertising from his show. Fox News did not respond to questions earlier this week about Hannity’s future.
Spinning studio company Peloton, security company Ring and Crowne Plaza Hotels have also stopped advertising on Hannity’s Fox News show. In a statement to Buzzfeed Crowne Plaza Hotels said its policy was not to advertise on “Fox News, Hannity or any political commentary show.”
“Unfortunately, our expectation to adhere to this list was not met by a third-party agency. Since we learned of the airings, we addressed the issue immediately and terminated our relationship with the agency. We have no plans to advertise on Fox News for the foreseeable future,” Crowne Plaza Hotels said.
Hannity has accused Media Matters, a not-for-profit organization that monitors rightwing publications, of trying to get him fired. Media Matters published a list of Hannity’s advertisers on Tuesday, although the organization’s president, Angelo Carusone, told the Guardian it had not launched a campaign against the Fox News host.
“It says a lot about how he perceives himself,” Carusone said of Hannity’s angry reaction to Media Matters publishing the list. “He understands that there’s an embarrassment in being associated with him. If somebody posted a list of my friends, I’m not going to be embarrassed, and neither would they. And it’s the same thing here.”
He continued: “If someone posts a list of your associations, and your immediate response is, ‘That’s going to embarrass and humiliate them, you’re attacking them,’ it’s because he recognizes that he himself has become toxic.”The Captain and the Fenians: William Henry O’Shea and the IRB
Published in 18th–19th - Century History
When Charles Stewart Parnell’s coffin was drawn through the streets of Dublin on Sunday 11 October 1891, the carriages immediately following the hearse were occupied, appropriately, by members of his family. Four carriages back, however, was one carrying a number of prominent Fenians, most notably John O’Leary and James Stephens. Accompanying the two legendary IRB leaders was the less celebrated Patrick Neville Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald was, nonetheless, a very senior and influential Munster Fenian. One of his responsibilities was monitoring the Fenian arms dumps in the south and south-west of the country. The open presence of O’Leary and Stephens at such an emblematic event was connected with Parnell’s opportunistic and belated rediscovery of his ‘advanced’ roots as he struggled for his political life in the wake of the post-divorce Irish Party split. As the cortège moved toward Glasnevin, Fitzgerald might well, given the circumstances of the day, have thought it wise not to mention his own connection with the man who had precipitated that divorce: William Henry O’Shea, husband of Katharine.
Inveterate prison visitor
O’Shea’s flirtation with a breed of extreme nationalists whose projects were utterly at variance with his own derived partly from the timeless adage that ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’, partly from his relentless clientelism and largely from his desperate search for political allies as the constituency of Clare slipped inexorably from his grasp. O’Shea’s brand of half-hearted nationalism had no appeal for doctrinaire republicans. But his regular opposition to the dictates of the Irish Party leader allowed him a foot in the IRB door. Given the localised nature of much of the Fenianism of the 1880s, O’Shea’s pursuit of electoral popularity via a clientelism almost unique among Irish politicians of the time also rebounded to the benefit of extreme republicans. O’Shea, anxious to gain credit with his disillusioned electorate, became an inveterate prison visitor in 1882, when the impact of British coercion legislation led to a number of suspected agrarian agitators being rounded up and jailed without trial. Many of those prisoners were either members of or associated with the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Despite his status as a singularly uncommitted nationalist MP, it was a relationship O’Shea learned to cultivate for his own purposes.
Among the Clare constituents whom O’Shea either visited in prison or placed questions on their behalf to the chief secretary in the House of Commons were Patrick Frost from Tulla and Martin Crotty, Patrick Slattery and the Clune brothers(Bryan and Matthew) from Scariff. Frost was one of eighteen men arrested on treason-felony charges and later re-arrested under the terms of the Protection of Persons and Property Act. Their arrest had been requested by a special resident magistrate, Clifford Lloyd, on the basis that ‘all eighteen are notorious rebels in the locality’. Crotty had been arrested at the same time as Frost. O’Shea had either visited him in prison or made representations on his behalf on three occasions. His police file includes a note from Lloyd seeking his incarceration on the basis that it was ‘absolutely necessary to prevent further bloodshed in this district’.
‘Murder in Co. Clare if I am opposed’
As his welcome in Clare began to wear out, O’Shea’s association with ‘the real boys’, as he called them (the ordinary members of the Irish Parliamentary Party he described contemptuously as ‘the boys’), became more public and overt. In 1883 he had fulminated in the Commons against the arrest of a number of his constituents from the village of Crusheen who were accused of Fenian activities. The so-called ‘Crusheen conspiracy’ had been laid bare by dubious informer testimony, but the evidence had failed to stack up in court and the authorities released ‘conspirators’ with great reluctance. RIC files identified many of the accused as Fenians or members of agrarian secret societies.
O’Shea claimed his reward for services rendered in 1884 at a public meeting in Crusheen. At the time he was in danger of being ‘de-selected’ as a nationalist candidate for the next general election. One of the few groups prepared to stand by him was the local Crusheen Fenian organisation. At least three members of the platform party on Sunday 19 October at a rally in Crusheen addressed by O’Shea were, according to police files, probable Fenians. Two others had been ‘lifted’ after the passage of the Coercion Acts of 1882. Revealingly, the platform lacked a single member of the clergy. Their absence was most likely associated with the strong Fenian presence. After the meeting O’Shea wrote to his wife that ‘the Fenians have now shown such an extraordinary support that, as they themselves say, there will be murder in Co. Clare if I am opposed’. It was wishful thinking on his part. When the election was called in 1885, it was made clear to him that, as an unpledged MP with a record of voting against Parnell’s wishes, he would not be selected to run as a nationalist.
One of the Clare newspapers that consistently supported O’Shea, the Advertiser, offers an unintended hint as to one possible reason for the aforementioned P. N. Fitzgerald’s surprising support of O’Shea: ‘His constituents have reason to be much pleased with the exertions of Capt. O’Shea MP who has effected a reduction in the Police Force of this county...’, drawing attention to the consequent reduced taxation of the county. But a reduction in policing activity, which had assumed a quasi-military aspect, also meant that Fitzgerald’s arms dumps were somewhat more secure.
Switches to Galway
Whatever the reason for his support, Fitzgerald appears to have been prepared to countenance an O’Shea candidacy in Galway long before Parnell was obliged to foist the husband of his mistress on the constituency in February 1886. In a letter written to Katharine O’Shea in December 1885, her husband included an enclosure from a man he referred to as a ‘Fenian Chief’. He informed his wife that ‘the real boys want Galway fought’. (The constituency faced a by-election as its MP, T. P. O’Connor, had also been elected for Liverpool, Scotland, in the 1885 general election and opted to sit for the latter.) The enclosure informed O’Shea that the ‘Fenian Chief’ had discussed Galway with Fitzgerald and that ‘P[atrick] N[eville] F[itzgerald] is willing to do all he can, but wishes to have the movement commence here in Clare...’. The mysterious Fenian overlord added that ‘if Bryan Clune stands for Galway it will be pretty hard to beat him, and if at the last moment he yields to the request of his Clare friends and retires in favour of any person, that person will be rather safe’. The plan, to have Clune withdraw in favour of O’Shea, seems to have had the imprimatur of Fitzgerald, a man with decision-making power in the Munster IRB. The scheme, however, came to nothing and O’Shea was reduced to blackmailing Parnell into supporting his (successful) candidacy instead.
O’Shea and the Commission on Parnellism and Crime
Much of the investigation of O’Shea’s links to the netherworld of agents provocateurs and government informants was conducted by Michael Davitt at the time of the Commission on Parnellism and Crime. Parnell’s attempt to discredit the Times and the notorious ‘facsimile’ letter (forged by Richard Pigott) proceeded from the first premiss that the letter implicating him in support for the Phoenix Park murders was actually the work of O’Shea. Davitt’s account of his investigation, contained in his ‘Notes by an Amateur Detective’ (available for scrutiny in the archives of Trinity College, Dublin), suggests that he agreed with Parnell and that he was setting out to connect O’Shea to Pigott. While he never established this link beyond reasonable doubt, he did manage to uncover O’Shea’s contacts with a host of unsavoury characters. With some he dealt directly. Others were contacted through Mulqueeny.
It was only when O’Shea took the stand early in the Times Commission proceedings that the questions of Parnell’s counsel, Sir Charles Russell, alerted him to the fact that his intrigues had been uncovered. The very first reference to Pigott at the Times Commission came about when O’Shea was asked whether he knew the Dublin journalist. He admitted to knowing of him. The mention of Pigott passed unnoticed by reporters covering the proceedings. O’Shea was then questioned, without explanation or apparent rationale, about a number of his Parisian contacts and about Mulqueeny. The clear intention on the part of Parnell’s defence team was to use Davitt’s intelligence information to rattle cages on the Times side. The edgy captain was probably fortunate that a lack of preparation on the part of Russell (O’Shea was introduced as a witness out of sequence and virtually without notice) meant that there was no elaboration of the many enigmatic questions posed to the witness in cross-examination. Nevertheless, the fullness of Russell’s information must have served as a warning to O’Shea, whose anti-Parnellite activities took an entirely different direction thereafter.
Unprincipled politics
O’Shea’s association with the republican movement, however limited, is an indication of his unprincipled and highly personalised approach to politics. Where his political survival was at stake, he was prepared to ally himself to extremists with whose ideology he was completely at odds. His reluctance to support the Irish Party in many crucial votes in the House of Commons placed him firmly in the ‘Whig’ camp in the 1880–5 parliament. He had nothing to offer the Fenian movement other than the traction his Whiggishness had created with influential elements within the Liberal administration. His services in that area came with a price tag attached. After his political career ended he was also prepared to make use of their services in the war he was waging against Parnell. This at least had some malign logic to it.
There is more than a hint, where O’Shea’s IRB conspiracies are concerned, of boys playing at revolution (in the case of the Fenians) and a love of intrigue (in the case of O’Shea). Both parties had an exaggerated sense of their own significance. Other than Fitzgerald, we have no idea whether the Fenians with whom O’Shea associated were of any real organisational consequence. That they would be prepared to engage, even in a coalition of expediency, with a Whiggish politician lacking any meaningful powerbase suggests not. In his analysis of the IRB membership, The Fenians in context: Irish politics and society, 1848–1882, R. V. Comerford has pointed to the social and recreational element of involvement with the Brotherhood. He sees it as a form of fraternisation and social activity. Were it not for the sustained and practical nature of the alliance with O’Shea, one would be tempted to the conclusion that Clare Fenians were indulging in some sporting activities of their own in their association with the captain. It was certainly an odd form of fraternisation.
Unlike the funeral of the man whose political career he was instrumental in destroying, there was no Fenian presence at the obsequies of William Henry O’Shea. He was buried in Hove on the south coast of England in 1905. The ceremony was attended by two mourners, his son-in-law and his son. HI
Myles Dungan is a broadcaster and author. His latest book Conspiracy: Irish political trials under the Union has just been published by the Royal Irish Academy and RTÉ.
Further reading:
M. Davitt, The fall of feudalism in Ireland (London and New York, 1904).
M. Dungan, The Captain and the King: William O’Shea, Parnell and late Victorian Ireland (Dublin, 2009).
O. McGee, The IRB (Dublin, 2005).Fremantle will expand a successful recruiting blueprint in an audacious bid to lure injured Adelaide forward Mitch McGovern back to his home state.
Bold efforts from the Dockers is tipped to spark a bidding war with bitter rival West Coast.
Mitch McGovern celebrates after kicking a goal during the round 23 match between the Crows and the West Coast Eagles. Credit:Getty Images
Eagles' have sights on McGovern as a longer term plan to have a star forward in the wings to cover the eventual loss of champion sharpshooter Josh Kennedy.
Docker's scouts are understood to have the naturally gifted younger brother of West Coast and All-Australian defender Jeremy McGovern in their sights after success in snaring decorated Hawthorn midfield gun Brad Hill, Joel Hamling, Cam McCarthy and Shane Kersten.Breaking the speed limit is not something we always do on purpose. All the same, it can be costly in terms of fines, and driving bans, as well as playing a significant role in many road accidents.
In the U.K. alone, in 2013, more than 15,000 drivers received fines of £100 or more for speeding.
We are now launching Intelligent Speed Limiter, a technology that could help prevent drivers from unintentionally exceeding speed limits.
The system monitors road signs with a camera mounted on the windscreen, and slows the vehicle as required |
a large variety of tasks to be performed, and the crew soon found themselves tired and behind schedule.
Seven days into their mission, a problem developed in the Skylab gyroscopic attitude control system, which threatened to bring an early end to the mission. Skylab depended upon three large gyroscopes, sized so that any two of them could provide sufficient control and maneuver Skylab as desired. The third acted as a backup in the event of failure of one of the others.[10] The gyroscope failure was attributed to insufficient lubrication. Later in the mission, a second gyroscope showed similar problems,[11][12] but special temperature control and load reduction procedures kept the second one operating, and no further problems occurred.
On Thanksgiving Day, Gibson and Pogue accomplished a 6½ hour spacewalk. The first part of their spacewalk was spent deploying experiments and replacing film in the solar observatory. The remainder of the time was used to repair a malfunctioning antenna. During the experience, Gibson remarked, "Boy if this isn't the great outdoors! Inside, you're just looking out through a window. Here, you're right in it."[13] The crew reported that the food was good, but slightly bland. The quantity and type of food consumed was rigidly controlled because of their strict diet. Although the crew would have preferred to use more condiments to enhance the taste of the food, and the amount of salt they could use was restricted for medical purposes, by the third mission the NASA kitchen had increased the availability of condiments, and salt and pepper was in liquid solutions (granular salt and pepper brought aboard by the second crew was little more than "air pollution").[14]
On December 13, the crew sighted Comet Kohoutek and trained the solar observatory and hand-held cameras on it. They gathered spectra on it using the Far Ultraviolet Camera/Spectrograph.[15] They continued to photograph it as it approached the Sun. On December 30, as it swept out from behind the Sun, Carr and Gibson spotted it as they were performing a spacewalk.
As Skylab work progressed, the astronauts complained of being pushed too hard, and ground controllers complained they weren't getting enough work done. NASA determined major contributing factors were a large number of new tasks added shortly before launch with little or no training, and searches for equipment out of place on the station.[16][17][18] There was a radio conference to air frustrations[19] which led to the workload schedule being modified, and by the end of their mission the crew had completed even more work than originally planned.
Apart from the controversies, Skylab 4 was noted for several important science contributions. The crew spent many hours studying the Earth. Carr and Pogue alternately manned controls, operating the sensing devices which measured and photographed selected features on the Earth's surface. Gibson and the other crew made solar observations, recording about 75,000 new telescopic images of the Sun. Images were taken in the X-ray, ultraviolet, and visible portions of the spectrum.[16][20]
As the end of their mission drew closer, Gibson continued his watch of the solar surface. On January 21, 1974, an active region on the Sun's surface formed a bright spot which intensified and grew.[16] Gibson quickly began filming the sequence as the bright spot erupted. This film was the first recording from space of the birth of a solar flare.
The crew also photographed the Earth from orbit. Despite instructions not to do so, the crew (perhaps inadvertently) photographed Area 51, causing a minor dispute between various government agencies as to whether the photographs showing this secret facility should be released. In the end, the picture was published along with all others in NASA's Skylab image archive, but remained unnoticed for years.[21]
The Skylab 4 astronauts completed 1,214 Earth orbits and four EVAs totaling 22 hours, 13 minutes. They traveled 34.5 million miles (55,500,000 km) in 84 days, 1 hour and 16 minutes in space. Skylab 4 was the last Skylab mission, the station fell from orbit in 1979.
The three astronauts had joined NASA in the mid-1960s, during the Apollo program, with Pogue and Carr becoming part of the likely crew for the cancelled Apollo 19. Ultimately none of the crew of Skylab 4 flew in space again, as none of the three had been selected for Apollo-Soyuz and all of them retired from NASA before the first Space Shuttle launch. Gibson, who had trained as a scientist-astronaut, resigned from NASA in December 1974 to do research on Skylab solar physics data, as a senior staff scientist with the Aerospace Corp. of Los Angeles, California.
Gallery [ edit ]
Commander Gerald Carr flies a Manned Maneuvering Unit prototype.
Carr "balances" Bill Pogue as a demonstration of zero-G.
Ed Gibson floats out of the Multiple Docking Adapter connecting the station to the crew's Command Module.
Carr and Gibson look through the length of the station from the trash airlock.
Carr floats with limbs outstretched to show the effects of zero-G.
The Pogue Seiko, a 'Seiko Automatic-Chronograph' Cal. 6139, the first automatic chronograph in space, used by Bill Pogue. [22] [23]
Gibson at the controls of the Apollo Telescope Mount.
Gibson during an EVA.
Command Module legacy [ edit ]
The Skylab 4 command module on display at the National Air and Space Museum.
The Skylab 4 command module is in the collection of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C, and was transferred to the museum in 1975.[24] This module is the Command and Service Modules CSM-118 and it spent 84 days in Earth orbit as part of the Skylab mission.[25] As of 2018 it is not on display and is either in loan or in storage.[26]
The module rolled upside down after splashdown, which happened in about half the Apollo CSM splashdowns; in this situation spheres were inflated on top of the CSM to right the module.[27]
The windows of the Skylab 3 & 4 spacecraft modules were studied for micrometeroid impacts.[28]
The module was painted white on half its side to help with spacecraft thermal management.[29] Whereas Block II Apollo CSM had Kapton coated with aluminum and silicon monoxide, later Skylab modules had white paint for the sunward side.[30]
Mission insignia [ edit ]
The triangular emblem features a large number 3 and a rainbow circling three areas of study the astronauts pursued. At the time of the flight, the astronauts issued the following description:
"The symbols in the patch refer to the three major areas of investigation in the mission. The tree represents man's natural environment and refers to the objective of advancing the study of earth resources. The hydrogen atom, as the basic building block of the universe, represents man's exploration of the physical world, his application of knowledge, and his development of technology. Since the sun is composed primarily of hydrogen, the hydrogen symbol also refers to the Solar Physics mission objectives. The human silhouette represents mankind and the human capacity to direct technology with a wisdom tempered by his regard for his natural environment. It also relates to the Skylab medical studies of man himself. The rainbow, adopted from the Biblical story of the Flood, symbolizes the promise that is offered to man. It embraces man and extends to the tree and hydrogen atom, emphasizing man's pivotal role in the conciliation of technology with nature by a humanistic application of our scientific knowledge." Some versions of the patch included a comet in the top curve because of studies made of the comet Kohoutek.
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ](Win McNamee/Getty)
When the New York Times on Tuesday became the third major publication to run a report on Marco Rubio’s spending habits and financial struggles, the Rubio campaign didn’t quibble with any of the specifics.
Instead, his team did something unorthodox: They decided not to directly refute charges that the freshman senator is a reckless spender, has drowned in debt, and has engaged in questionable financial practices. Rubio spokesman Alex Conant suggested that they’re not even a liability but rather an asset, because the senator’s financial struggles, which he’s spoken about often on the campaign trail, make him a more relatable candidate. The attacks, they say, even make Rubio look like a victim of snot-nosed elites.
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An Associated Press article on Saturday detailed Rubio’s sale of a Tallahassee home that had, for a time, fallen into foreclosure. He sold it in recent weeks for $18,000 less than the original purchase price. The AP headline: “Real Estate Dealings Have Hampered Rubio’s Finances.” Well, Conant says, Rubio can “relate to what middle-class Americans are going through.”
RELATED: It’ll Be Difficult to Attack Marco Rubio for His Finances
Rubio has already incorporated a line about it into his stump speech. “The latest one that I’m starting to hear rumblings about,” he told a crowd in Ames, Iowa, on Saturday, “is that Marco Rubio’s not rich enough to be president.” The senator used the unwanted attention to attack the likely Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton: “Well, it’s true, I don’t make $11 million a year giving speeches to special-interest groups, and it’s true that my family’s foundation hasn’t raised $2 billion, a lot of it from foreign entities with business before the State Department.”
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#related#These attacks seem to be something the Rubio campaign, and perhaps Rubio himself, have long expected. It helps to explain why Rubio has openly talked about his financial struggles, if not his high-end purchases, on the campaign trail and in his writing. Political memoirs always include tales of struggling, but for Rubio, who is just 44, that struggling is rather recent. In his book American Son (2008), Rubio wrote that, at the outset of his political career, he “agonized over our monthly budget, and searched for expenses we could live without.” He notes that he and his wife, Jeanette, were living in his mother-in-law’s house. “I had given up my car,” he wrote. “Still, we were struggling to make ends meet.”
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Rubio has also been slammed before for sloppy personal and professional bookkeeping. “Marco Rubio’s personal finances clash with call for fiscal discipline,” the Tampa Bay Times wrote during his run for the Senate in 2010. A Republican consultant said at the time that his spending and debts amounted to “a pattern of behavior in which he’s not good at controlling his own money or the money of others.”
So when the Times report surfaced, detailing Rubio’s purchase of an $80,000 boat and his lease of a $50,000 Audi, quoting financial experts tut-tutting his irresponsibility, Rubio’s team was ready to strike back. They cast the Times piece as a rich man’s attack on the middle class. The subject line of the e-mail that came from Rubio’s press team: “Elitist New York Times calls Marco’s Student Loan Debts ‘A Deep Financial Hole of His Own Making.’”
It seems to have paid off, literally. A fundraising plea from the Rubio campaign noting that “the Times is out with a story suggesting that I’m not rich enough to be president!” raised over $100,000.
Even liberal journalists seemed uninterested in playing up the Times’s revelations. MSNBC’s Chris Hayes took to Twitter on Tuesday to say he’s “starting to think Rubio has some plant in the NYT and these supposed ‘hit jobs’ on him are false flags intended to make him look sympathetic.’” (The Times also devoted a story last week to Rubio’s and his wife’s driving record.)
Whatever role they played in getting this reaction, it seems to be what the Rubio campaign was hoping for. They also succeeded in eliding the more substantive charge: that somebody who hasn’t stayed judiciously on top of his own personal finances may not be equipped to manage the country’s.
“My wife and I every month make sure that we can afford to send our four children, and I’m proud of this, to receive a private, Christian-based education,” Rubio said Saturday. “I, until recently, had student-loan debt that I paid off with my book, An American Son, which is now available in paperback.” The crowd laughed. All of this, Rubio communications director Conant says, is ultimately something that will “make him more appealing.”Share
Facebook debuted its Android app family Facebook Home today. This means those of you with compatible devices (sorry Windows Phone and iOS users) have a snazzy new product to try out if you’re looking for a tightly-Facebook integrated mobile experience.
Considering we spend more than 25 percent of our mobile time on Facebook and Instagram, this new product could have a major impact on the way you use your phone. And as with all things Facebook and smartphone-related, this means we have to ask the question: What does this mean for our privacy?
Will launching all your apps from a Facebook Home device mean you’re giving them all that data?
Facebook’s reputation for questionable privacy control doesn’t stem from frequent hacks or security issues – most of the privacy issues center around user data. As you can tell with the targeted ads on the site, Facebook is paying close attention to your user information. You shouldn’t really consider anything you do on Facebook private, so the idea of eschewing stuff like SMS and voice calls in favor of Facebook as your primary platform for communication is troubling if you want those things off the Facebook record.
The Facebook Home platform features an app launcher that lets you access all of the other programs on your phone. Digital Trends reached out to Facebook spokesman Frederic Wolens to see whether Facebook will collect extra data from users related to this new feature. “While we will be logging some data associated with the app launcher, we are using it for internal diagnostics only, and we will only be collecting this information from a small randomized rolling subset of users,” he says.
Wolens stressed that Facebook did not need to get an extra go-ahead from app providers to do this: “There’s no permissions involved as this acts merely as an app launcher similar to other products (e.g.TouchWiz) that have been available for some time.”
Wolens explains that the information collected will be used for – as per usual – enhancing the user experience. “The information collected helps optimize the user experience, and the data that we receive through Facebook Home is covered by Facebook’s Data Use Policy, which users can view before they activate Facebook Home.” In other words, yes, more data is being collected, but under the same Data Use Policy as before.
Your chatting is definitely on the record
One of the prominent new features is Chat Heads, which gives you a smooth messaging experience by cobbling together Facebook messages and SMS. We don’t know yet if people without Facebook accounts (those beautiful, stubborn weirdos!) will show up as a Chat Head when they text your phone, but if you’re talking with one of the billion plus people with an account, your SMS will get Facebook-ified.
And the policy surrounding messages may apply to phone calls.
Facebook has been inching into VoIP calling for a while, and it already offers calls from chat, though this hasn’t taken off in the same way as Skype or FaceTime. But Facebook Home will bring these calls front and center. The perks are there: You don’t have to look up anybody’s contact info – you already have it – and you don’t have to pay international rates to call your friend in Seoul or your brother in Gotenburg.
But it’s unlikely Facebook will take a more laissez-faire approach to collecting your voice info than it does your written messages. As the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) Consumer Protection Counsel David Jacobs explains, “My initial thoughts are that an increased mobile presence by Facebook means increased monetization of individuals’ personal information.” And that could mean information conveyed on calls; Skype recently found itself in hot water over its “monitoring” policies.
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) activist Parker Higgins, however, did make a distinction on how Facebook could use your call info. “Most likely they won’t have voice data from actual calls, but they will get information about who you’re calling, how often, and how long you’re speaking to them. That’s a lot of information, and combined with the rest of your Facebook communications, [it] could paint a very clear picture of your private life.” So it’s not likely Facebook will be listening-in to your conversations, but it will know a lot about those calls.
Will constant updates mean constant privacy changes?
Facebook Home will update every month, so you will never feel frustrated about having an outdated version. If you nearly lost your marbles when your Android didn’t get a prompt Jelly Bean update, that probably sounds like an awesome change. But you have to wonder if the frequent updates give Facebook a window to introduce new privacy changes under the radar – after all, if something on your phone gets a new version every month, you’re not as likely to closely look at the details as you would an annual update.
Jacobs notes that Facebook cannot sneak around a 2012 order put in place by the FTC: ” Under the terms of the order, Facebook cannot make any material change to its privacy settings without notifying and obtaining the consent of its users, so that limits the range of privacy changes somewhat.”
But how much is “somewhat”? It’s not clear yet. But we’d err on the side of caution when you click “update.” As EFF’s Higgins says, “Facebook has demonstrated in the past a willingness to change the default settings in ways that users don’t expect. The real trouble is that most app stores and installation processes are set up only to really notify you when apps change which permissions they request – so apps like Facebook can request a whole bunch of permissions up front only to use them differently in later updates.”
So there you have it. Facebook Home will give Facebook more opportunities to collect information about you than ever before, and you might want to avoid it if you have certain SMS messages you’re keen on keeping private. But there’s nothing newly nefarious at play – it’s the same Facebook racket in new (very pretty) packaging. If you decide to use Facebook Home, remember that the company is integrating ads more seamlessly into its content, so your home screen won’t just flash updates from your college bud Chaz – it’ll also show you the marketing content that shows up in your News Feed. Nothing is sacred, not even your homescreen.'Fast track' trade fight moves to House
The Senate on Friday approved a “fast track” trade promotion authority bill that will help President Barack Obama conclude a massive Asia-Pacific trade agreement and sets the stage for a fierce battle in the House when lawmakers return in June.
The 62-37 vote followed two weeks of debate on the measure, which would allow the White House to submit trade agreements to Congress for straight up-or-down votes without any amendments. It also would renew the five-decade-old Trade Adjustment Assistance program to help retrain workers who have lost their jobs because of trade.
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Fourteen Democrats joined with 48 Republicans to give Obama the authority. A strong push was needed to overcome efforts to delay the bill by opponents including Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), the Senate’s leading critic of trade agreements; Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a favorite of the progressive wing of the Democratic party; and Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent running for president.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, another foe of the bill, walked over to shake hands with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, the chief Republican architect of the bill, after supporters won a key procedural vote.
“From the very start, we’ve known that the real battle against fast track for the job-killing [Trans-Pacific Partnership] would take place in the House and now that it appears set to head there, we’re ready,” said Jim Dean, chair of Democracy for America, a progressive group.
Supporters of the trade bill narrowly defeated — by a 48-51 vote — a bipartisan amendment offered by Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) to fight foreign currency manipulation, a hot-button issue in major manufacturing states. The measure had drawn a White House veto threat on the grounds it could backfire by exposing U.S. Federal Reserve actions to possible trade sanctions.
“The administration has made it abundantly clear that President Obama will veto any TPA bill that contains this amendment,” Hatch said ahead of the vote, warning approval of the provision would also likely kill the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership pact between the United States, Japan and 10 other countries covering about 40 percent of world economic output.
Portman, a former U.S. trade representative under President George W. Bush, made an extensive appeal for the measure during lunch with other Republican senators, a source said. Portman faces a tough re-election battle next year in a state that has long been sensitive to international trade.
The Senate instead approved an alternate amendment put forward by Hatch and ranking Finance member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) that gives trade negotiators a menu of options for dealing with foreign currency manipulation, which is blamed for millions of lost U.S. manufacturing jobs, including enforceable rules.
Stabenow took to the floor to attack the Hatch-Wyden measure, calling it too weak.
“Currency manipulation has cost us five million jobs and counting. Enough is enough,” she argued — in vain.
Senators also rejected a Warren amendment that would have served to strip from future trade agreements the controversial “investor-state dispute settlement” mechanism, which allows companies to sue for damages over government actions that damage their investment.
“This is not a partisan issue. Experts on the right agree that ISDS is a real threat,” Warren said, shortly before the amendment failed by a 39-60 vote. “A provision to give corporations special rights to challenge our laws outside of our legal system should not be part of our free trade agreements.”
Proponents say the mechanism is needed to ensure U.S. investors risking millions, if not billions, of dollars have some recourse against arbitrary foreign government actions. They say fears raised by opponents are overstated.
“In three decades, our country has never lost an investor dispute case and has never paid a dime in penalties,” Wyden said. “Here’s our record: 17 cases, 17 victories. These provisions are about raising the world to our economy’s level of safety for investment.”
The Senate rejected an amendment that would require Congress to approve negotiations with any country, such as China, that may want to join the TPP pact and another measure would have killed the Trade Adjustment Assistance program used to help retrain workers displaced by import competition or factories moving abroad.
A high-profile amendment to stop the transfer of a catfish inspection program from the Food and Drug Administration to the Agriculture Department failed to get a vote because it was ruled not germane to the bill. Before the amendment could be dismissed, Sen. John McCain (D-Ariz.), its main sponsor, delivered another blast on the Senate floor, saying the program is a “classic example of protectionism” aimed primarily at blocking imports from Vietnam and other foreign suppliers.
The seven amendments debated Friday were a small portion of the 200 filed on the trade promotion authority bill. Democratic foes accused Republicans of blocking many important amendments and prematurely cutting off debate, while Republicans accused the opponents of refusing to cooperate with efforts to keep the bill moving.
Still, the final vote for the bill provides some momentum heading into what is expected to an intense House fight.
As few as 18 of Obama’s fellow Democrats in that chamber could vote for the measure, requiring Republicans to provide the bulk of support. But at least 40 House Republicans could also oppose the measure, setting the stage for a razor-thin victory or an embarrassing narrow defeat. Many conservatives who believe Obama has already overstepped his bounds as president are wary of giving him additional authority.
The White House issued a statement immediately following the vote to encourage quick passage of both trade promotion authority legislation and Trade Adjustment Assistance.
Final congressional approval would give a boost to talks on the Asia-Pacific trade deal, which are already well into their fifth year, making it one of the longest U.S. trade negotiations in history. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman declared the talks were in the “end game” as long ago as late 2013, but the lack of trade promotion authority has prevented countries from finishing the deal.
Proponents say fast track is needed because it’s too hard for the United States, Japan, Vietnam and other TPP countries to make the final politically difficult concessions to reach an agreement if Congress can change the final deal. But critics say the prohibition against amendments is undemocratic and undermines Congress’ constitutional jurisdiction over trade.
Obama, or whoever is the next president, could also use the fast track legislation, which would last for six years, to also win approval of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, a proposed free trade agreement between the United States and the 28-nation European Union that would be even larger than the TPP pact.
The U.S. and EU hope for a deal before Obama leaves office, but failure to pass fast-track would be a blow for those talks as well as other negotiations, including the 14-year-old Doha round of world trade talks.
Victoria Guida, Burgess Everett and David Rogers contributed to this storyLegal Aid of North Carolina wants to help families enforce their legal rights in the North Carolina public school system. Learn about school discipline issues like suspension and expulsion, special education and the rights and protections available to children with special needs. (Specific legal advice for individual cases is not provided at these clinics.)
MULTIPLE LOCATIONS: Clinics are held at multiple locations throughout the state, including at Legal Aid of North Carolina offices, churches, libraries, community centers and more.
TO REGISTER: Click the green “REGISTER” button at the top of your screen to select a free "Ticket" at the location of your choice.
FAQs
What are my transport/parking options getting to the event?
Free parking is available at each location. Most locations are accessible by public transportation.
What can/can't I bring to the event?
Please do not bring small children to the clinic.
Do I have to bring my printed ticket to the event?
No. You do not need to bring a printed ticket or show an electronic version of a ticket at the clinic. You will be asked to sign in when you arrive at the clinic.
Can I attend a clinic without a ticket?
You can attend the clinic without a ticket only if space is available. If space is not available we will ask you to reserve a ticket for a future clinic.
Where can I contact the organizer with any questions?
Please call the Legal Aid Helpline at 866-219-5262 with any questions about the clinic.
Back-to School clinics are currently offered in the following locations:
Ahoskie - Hertford County
Asheboro - Randolph County
Asheville - Buncombe County
Bolivia - Brunswick County
Boone - Watauga County
Charlotte - Mecklenburg County
Concord - Cabarrus County
Durham - Durham County
Greenville - Pitt County
Greensboro - Guilford County
Henderson - Vance County
Kinston - Lenoir County
Laurinburg - Scotland County
Lumberton - Robeson County
Manteo - Dare County
Mocksville - Davie County
Monroe - Union County
Morganton - Burke County
Mount Olive - Wayne County
New Bern - Craven County
Oxford - Granville County
Pittsboro - Chatham County
Raleigh - Wake County
Rocky Mount - Nash County
Sylva - Jackson County
Walnut Cove - Stokes County
Washington - Beaufort County
Wilmington - New Hanover County
Wilson - Wilson County
Winston-Salem - Forsyth CountyThe NavigatorID.userAgent read-only property returns the user agent string for the current browser.
The specification asks browsers to provide as little information via this field as possible. Never assume that the value of this property will stay the same in future versions of the same browser. Try not to use it at all, or only for current and past versions of a browser. New browsers may start using the same UA, or part of it, as an older browser: you really have no guarantee that the browser agent is indeed the one advertised by this property.
Also keep in mind that users of a browser can change the value of this field if they want (UA spoofing).
Browser identification based on detecting the user agent string is unreliable and is not recommended, as the user agent string is user configurable. For example:
In Firefox, you can change the preference general.useragent.override in about:config. Some Firefox extensions do that; however, this only changes the HTTP header that gets sent, and doesn't affect browser detection performed by JavaScript code.
in. Some Firefox extensions do that; however, this only changes the HTTP header that gets sent, and doesn't affect browser detection performed by JavaScript code. Opera 6+ allows users to set the browser identification string via a menu
Microsoft Internet Explorer uses the Windows registry
Safari and iCab allow users to change the browser user agent string to predefined Internet Explorer or Netscape strings via a menu.
Syntax
var ua = window.navigator.userAgent;
Value
ua stores the user agent string value of the current browser.
The user agent string is built on a formal structure which can be decomposed into several pieces of info. Each of these pieces of info comes from other navigator properties which are also settable by the user. Gecko-based browsers comply with the following general structure:
userAgent = appCodeName/appVersion number (Platform; Security; OS-or-CPU; Localization; rv: revision-version-number) product/productSub Application-Name Application-Name-version
Example
alert(window.navigator.userAgent) // alerts "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:0.9.2) Gecko/20010725 Netscape6/6.1"
Specifications
Specification Status Comment HTML Living Standard
The definition of 'NavigatorID.userAgent' in that specification. Living Standard Initial definition
Browser compatibility
The compatibility table on this page is generated from structured data. If you'd like to contribute to the data, please check out https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data and send us a pull request.
Update compatibility data on GitHub Desktop Mobile Chrome Edge Firefox Internet Explorer Opera Safari Android webview Chrome for Android Edge Mobile Firefox for Android Opera for Android Safari on iOS Samsung Internet Basic support Chrome Full support Yes Edge Full support Yes Firefox Full support Yes IE Full support Yes Opera Full support Yes Safari Full support Yes WebView Android Full support Yes Chrome Android Full support Yes Edge Mobile Full support Yes Firefox Android Full support Yes Opera Android Full support Yes Safari iOS Full support Yes Samsung Internet Android? Legend Full support Full support Compatibility unknown Compatibility unknown
See alsoWell, it was a good run. After 10 years, three very good albums, and a whole lot of feverishly intense live shows, the Toronto duo Crystal Castles have broken up. This morning, singer Alice Glass announced her departure from the group, citing “a multitude of reasons both personal and professional” and making overtures about starting a career as a solo artist. The announcement comes as a surprise, since we’d heard nothing about unrest within the group. They’d risen from feral strobe-lit small-club shows to festival stages. The duo played their final show in Mexico City almost exactly a year ago, and I sincerely hope you got a chance to see them live. Below, read Glass’ Twitter announcement.
I am leaving Crystal Castles. — ALICE GLASS (@ALICEGLASS) October 8, 2014
My art and my self-expression in any form has always been an attempt towards sincerity, honesty, and empathy for others. — ALICE GLASS (@ALICEGLASS) October 8, 2014
For a multitude of reasons both professional and personal I no longer feel that this is possible within CC. — ALICE GLASS (@ALICEGLASS) October 8, 2014
Although this is the end of the band, I hope my fans will embrace me as a solo artist in the same way they have embraced Crystal Castles. — ALICE GLASS (@ALICEGLASS) October 8, 2014
There hasn’t yet been any word from her Crystal Castles bandmate Ethan Kath, but it’s hard to imagine him continuing under the Crystal Castles name without Glass.
UPDATE: As for whether the band will continue without Glass, Crystal Castles’ manager tells NME, “There will be twists and turns ahead for Crystal Castles, I wouldn’t bury the dead just yet!”One season of Survivor ends, and another one begins. At the end of tonight’s Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen X reunion show, Jeff Probst announced next year’s theme for Survivor: Game Changers — Mamanuca Islands. Twenty returning players — a mix of winners and losers — will do battle in Fiji for a million dollars.
Several of the players — Ozzy, Tai, Caleb, Tony, Sandra, Ciera, and Cirie, as well as Michaela from the just completed season — have been officialy confirmed by CBS as participants (and you can see plenty of others in the promo who may or may not be competing), but we’ve got more scoop on the season for you right here. We chatted with Probst to get the inside intel on the new theme, the players they brought back, and what happens when they first hit the beach.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So explain the Game Changers theme and how you came upon that?
JEFF PROBST: Survivor is one of the few games in which the players themselves evolve the game based on how they play the game. Period. So when we’re producing the show, we’re reacting to what the players are asking for, and over the last few years, they’ve been asking to play more, so we’ve given them more twists, more opportunities. We’ve made it more fun and difficult to find idols. We’ve hidden them in various places. Things like that.
So when we were thinking about things that we hadn’t done yet, we have not celebrated the type of player that is willing to take a risk in order to change the game, and that can mean somebody who made a really big move, or that can mean somebody like Tony who changed the game with his aggressive play, and it paid off. It can also mean somebody who makes aggressive moves and it backfires. It doesn’t matter to us whether or not the move worked. It only matters whether you were willing to do something risky in order to further your game.
And when we put the 20 people together, we tried very hard to get a tapestry of all the different ways you could interpret that so that it wasn’t just big heavy-hitters coming out and slugging. There were also nuanced players. There were players that we felt were almost there, but hadn’t quite gotten there yet, but what we feel like we have is a group of people who are going to play, and there will be no people sitting back on their heels saying I’m not sure what to do, and the result was fascinating.
Fascinating in what way?
I anticipated a bloodbath out of the gate, and instead, it’s more like the movie Jaws. It felt very much like all 20 people were looking at each other saying: We know the shark is in the water. When’s it going to hit the boat? When’s it going to attack the boat? And so it has a very uneasy feeling in the beginning as people aren’t sure what to do, which is really interesting because, on the surface, you would think these are game players.
Of course, they know what to do, but what we didn’t anticipate is 20 of them said, yeah, I’m used to being one of only two or three game changers. Most of these players, on their season, were able to look around and say, there’s two or three people like me. Everybody else, you know, I can mess with. All of them were saying, in their initial interviews, “There are 19 other game changers out here, so they’re thinking just like I’m thinking,” Then that became, I’m not sure what to think.
You have a mix of winners and non-winners here, which you have done before. What was your thinking in terms of doing that?
I’m most impressed when winners say they will come back and play again, because the obvious burden they carry is they’ve already won the million dollars, and that makes them an easy target, and yet Sandra did it, and she won again. And Sandra is coming back for a third time! When we called her, she texted back so fast and said, “I don’t care what the theme is. I don’t care where you’re doing it. I’m in.” That is the personification of a Game Changer. Sandra doesn’t care. She doesn’t care what her reputation is. She doesn’t care that she might lose for the first time. This is a game she loves. She wants to play, and that is super exciting.
Tony played the most aggressive game anybody’s ever played and won. I thought for sure Tony would say I have nothing to gain by coming back. Tony was the same as Sandra. He couldn’t respond fast enough, and when we started making those calls, we knew we had a good group because nobody hesitated to say yes.
What about some of the non-winners that you all are revealing?
We also have Tai coming back, a guy that I think learned a lot the first time he played. He made moves. They weren’t always great moves, but he was making them, and the question now is did he mature his game at all in a way that he can go even further? We’re also bringing back one of the most popular players in the history of our show, Cirie — the first person that ever said, I finally got up off the couch and said why not? When Cirie played the first time, she was the most unlikely person to play Survivor. And now she’s become a legend, and you know, she’s a mentor. This woman knows the ins and outs of the game, much like Sandra, but hasn’t yet won.
And Ozzy’s coming back, because no matter how many times he plays, when I ask people on the street who are your favorite players, Ozzy is one of the first five names that comes up. There’s something about his spirit, the Jungle Boy in him, his ability to swim and do crazy things that people love, and yet, if you examine Ozzy’s game, his biggest Achilles heel is his gameplay. So you could argue he’s never made that many great strategic moves, and I would counter by saying but he’s trying every season. He tries things. He’s the guy that got himself sent to Redemption Island. Did it work in the end? Ultimately, no, but those are big risky moves.
And then we brought back Caleb, another example of how far we went to examine what a Game Changer is. You could argue Caleb wasn’t even in long enough to change the game, and I would argue that guy nearly gave up his life to change the game. If |
death of Pakistani troops. The apology was made as part of an effort to re-open supply routes to U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
We should note that these apologies came toward the end of Obama’s first term, while Romney said Obama "began" his presidency with an apology tour.
Our ruling
Romney said Obama began his presidency "with an apology tour."
But a review of Obama’s foreign travels and remarks during his early presidency showed no evidence to support such a blunt and disparaging claim. (In later years, we found two formal apologies, but they were not at the start of his presidency and not part of a tour.)
While Obama's speeches contained some criticisms of past U.S. actions, he typically combined those passages with praise for the United States and its ideals, and he frequently mentioned how other countries had erred as well. We found not a single, full-throated apology in the bunch.
Calling those remarks "an apology tour" is a ridiculous charge. So we rate his statement Pants on Fire.rotinegg Profile Blog Joined April 2009 United States 1719 Posts Last Edited: 2012-05-28 16:21:05 #1 [People] Ex-coach Jung Soo-yeong: "Not winning a single season is something to regret over a millennium"
Ex-coach of KTF Magic N's Jung Soo-yeong.
"No place for second place."
In the world of professionals and heated competition, second place might as well be last place. All the spotlight goes to the victor. It has been no different for E-sports. KTF Magic N's (now KT Rolster) is the quintessence of this sentiment. KTF was called the Real Madrid of E-sports and was deemed the best team to have tread the scene, but has never won it all on the big stage. KTF went on a 23-win-streak from 2004 to 2005 and set a new record for most consecutive wins, but that was about it. Their memories live on in that single accomplishment during the regular season, because they have never held the trophy up high in the grand finals.
Still, the achievement does have some meaning. During the decade of E-sports history, the record for most consecutive wins has not been broken. Some may argue that the record is not a big feat when looking at their star-studded lineup of members such as Nal_rA, Reach, YellOw, Sync,, and, which was often called the 'Galactico' [Reference to Real Madrid's policy of buying in star players]. However, it holds meaning in that no teams thereafter have come close to that record either. We met up with Coach Jung Soo-yeong, who managed the team when this record was established.
Q As Proleague is switching over to Starcraft2, a lot of people seem to be forgetting the history of E-sports, so we wanted to interview you.
A Since its inception, E-sports has made its mark in history. At one point, it established its own empire, but those times are now past and I don't think they will return (laughs).
Q What have you been up to since the GomTV match director? Tell us about what you've been up to since stepping down from the commands of KTF.
A I have been preparing to launch a business in the gaming industry. You will be able to see it sometime soon. Part of it involves the E-sports scene as well. It's hard for me to divulge any information at this point.
Q Before the whole umpiring system was implemented you had the opportunity to stay at GomTV and architect a new infrastructure for monitoring games. Why did you quit.
A Of course I thought of that. But if I had carried on, it would have been against KeSPA policy. It would have been great if KeSPA did a better job. I had a lot of thoughts in my head but decided it best to give my full support to KeSPA's initiative. There would be no need for me to umpire once KeSPA implemented their own system, but there still had to be someone to settle controversies in a situation where progamers are involved.
Q KTF achieved the feat of 23 consecutive wins, but the team's accomplishments are marred by the fact that it has no ring. Regrettably, the team only won it all once Coach Lee JiHoon replaced you.
A It breaks my heart. We only won the event-matches on the side. It kills me that we were never able to win an official season final. However, I am only thankful that Lee JiHoon, who was once a player for KTF, achieved what I couldn't. When he finally led the team to victory, I could only think 'I should have done better.' It's a shame that players such as Nal_Ra had to experience such pain.
I had the opportunity to meet up with the players recently and we talked with a smile on our faces. They also said that they'regret' it to this day. Some voiced that KT would not have won without and I agree that a team needs a 'Keyman' to win. The Chicago Bulls won three championships in a row because they had Michael Jordan. Baseball and soccer are the same. Flash was able to generate a synergy effect among KT's players. [Flash's effect on the team] is a fact and should not be understated. It breaks my heart to hear such things.
Q Your pupils such as Yellow and Lee JiHoon are now becoming coaches. How do you feel when you look at the transitions?
A I believe coaches need to lead their players by example. There is no official training course for coaches at the moment. There needs to be a comprehensive course for leadership. I don't understand why there has been no initiative to start an intra-league leadership course in E-sports' 10-year-long history. As players retire, a lot of them naturally transition into a coaching position. South Korea is among the top E-sports countries, yet we have not yet developed a sound model. I believe a coach must have some prerequisite knowledge of the E-sports culture, rules, and the players' mentality.
The KTF ballers who competed in the 2004 KTF EVER Cup. YellOw, TheMarine, Love, Autumn, SoNiC)BlacK (CW from top left).
◆"Want to change my nickname 'Baseball Bat Jung'"
KTF was the only corporate sponsored team in the early 2000's. A lot of players from non-sponsored teams were moving into KTF so they would see more action and have their talents properly assessed. In the process, the best of the best, such as Nal_rA, ChoJJa, YellOw,, etc all came under one roof. Fans often criticized KTF for buying talent. KTF, even with their star-studded-lineup, never won a championship, however. Until Coach Lee JiHoon led the team to victory, KTF was never able to escape their reputation as the silver surfer.
To many, Coach Jung Soo Yeong of the best team in the league seemed cold. Maybe it was the sunglasses and baseball cap he donned at every match. Fans started calling him 'Baseball bat Jeong.' [Parents and teachers used to beat children with a baseball bat to teach them a lesson. Even up to the point where I went to high school, which was in the early 2000's, this was the norm, but now I think child-abuse laws have tightened in Korea and teachers can no longer do this]
Q Your nickname as coach was 'Baseball bat Jeong.' Were you going for a particular concept with your baseball cap and shades?
A When I was part of the Samsung team, the uniform was modeled after racing car uniforms. It was a one-piece so it was difficult to put on and it wasn't well ventilated, so it was very hot, but it provided the most real estate for corporate sponsors' logos. Even to this day, race car drivers are walking billboards. In E-sports, there can be many smaller sponsors for each team outside of their main one, and we chose the uniform to provide them advertisement space.
When I became head coach of KTF, our uniforms changed. One thing that the head coach can do on air is to give the sponsors as much air time as possible, so I wore a jumper and baseball cap. I wore the shades to hide my gaze from the opposing team.
Q I think your outfit fueled the fans' mockery.
A I don't think my 'cold' image had much to do with the bad rumors that were circulating about me. As I gained the nickname 'Baseball bat Jeong,' lots of memes started to crop up on the web but I never paid much attention with the thought that I would absorb the negative attention that would otherwise be redirected towards members of the team. However, now that I am getting older it has been a problem, because my children have been made fun of due to my nickname. My child has had a very hard time at school up to sixth grade. Once, they asked what I did as a living and they saw the 'Baseball bat Jeong' meme that was uploaded on the internet. Afterwards, my child had a hard time playing with them.
+ Show Spoiler [Baseball bat Jeong meme] +
It might have been a joke to the fans but the repercussions on the receiving end are real. I hope that in the future people can think in the victim's perspective before making uploading such things. If somebody had made a meme victimizing them, what would happen to their reputation? Also, what would their loved ones think?
It's hard to withstand abuse that flies your way simply because you are a public figure often exposed to the limelight. Would you believe it if I told you my child had to transfer schools due to the abuse from his peers and I contemplated changing my name multiple times. The reality of my son not being able to say that his father was the head coach of a progaming team proudly pains me.
Q There were a lot of star players but also many mediocre ones who were forgotten from our memory. Who was the most memorable player you coached?
A Nal_ra stands out in memory. Coach Cho (Ex-coach of CJ, retired after the match-fixing scandal) also complimented him without reserve. I met him recently and he has become even more mature. I didn't want to play him the first year he joined because his practice results weren't great. I gave him a year and told him to return as the 'Ultimate Weapon' when he has realized his full potential. The terms stated that he would receive full salary even during his year off, yet he hesitated. I gave him these outrageous conditions because I believed that the E-sports scene needed a domineering force such as of the early 2000's. Boxer was the best player and achieved good results in each and every event he participated in. Players who beat him were automatically brought to fame. I thought we needed a player like that, so I strategically decided on Nal_ra. He needed to be the best in order to follow in Boxer's footsteps.
However he did not accept the terms and kept trying by entering the preliminaries of OSL, MSL, WCG, etc, and kept failing to advance, which in turn lowered his reputation further and further.
As a means of saving his reputation from falling beyond an irrecoverable state, we agreed to send him out in every Proleague ace match. We thought once the teams caught on that Nal_ra would always be there in the ace match, and they still lost, he would become the guardian angel of the team, so we gave him this heavy burden. He was under much less pressure during Proleague games, and played the crucial role of anchor during our 23-win-streak.
There's a little anecdote tied to this period. Back then you could send the same player during the games leading up to ace, and also during the ace match, so we sent him out in the first game multiple times, but he just couldn't win those games. He would, however, shine in the ace match, regardless of how unfavorable the maps were to protoss. We all came to agree that Nal_ra was born to be our ace.
Q This was a long time ago, but during those 23 consecutive wins, was there ever a time when you felt threatened?
A Twice I felt that way. The first occurred when we played Hanbit Stars (now Woongjin Stars). I couldn't attend the match due to a corporate workshop. I checked on the players the morning before the match, and they were still practicing so I was worried. Usually, if they feel like they got ample practice the night before, they would be sleeping in until 11 or noon to go into the match relaxed. However, they had woken up early to continue practicing. I realized they were ill-prepared but I had to attend the workshop so I left. I received a text at the workshop that we were losing 0:2 and didn't get another text until much later. I thought the players had lost and weren't texting me because they felt sorry, but when I went back to the dormitory, they said they came back to win it 3:2.
The second came during our match against Plus (Ex-Lecaf Oz). We were losing 1:2 before coming back. Coach Cho (of Oz) kept cheesing us to discontinue our win-streak but our players were able to react calmly and clinch the win. After the match, I remember teasing Coach Cho, saying "you wanted to stop our win-streak that bad?"
Our win-streak came to an end at the hands of Samsung. Honestly, we could have continued our streak, but the maps were changed suddenly due to a managerial problem. The players were fired up to continue our win-streak past 30, so when this occurred, they all seemed very disappointed.
KTF of the 2004 SKY Proleague. Coach Jeong and two protoss heroes.
◆"If E-sports had taken a more casual-friendly approach"
Ever since Coach Jung stepped down from head coach of KTF in March, 2006, every time a new team was established, he was at the top of the candidate list for head coach. However, he merely observed the scene as an outsider for 7 years. Every time the topic of E-sports was brought up, we could feel his passion seeping into his words, but he emphasized that the players that are now left "need to pull their weight." Although he is nothing but a shadow of the past now, people will have a hard time forgetting the name 'Jung Soo Yeong.' Nobody who achieves a feat such as 23 consecutive wins is easily forgotten from history.
Q Any plans of returning to E-sports?
A Even if I returned, I know the kingdom of E-sports from the glory days will never return. I hope the remaining players can pull their weight.
Q If you were given a chance to lead a team and allowed to select any players you wanted, who would you choose? Would you go after the elusive championship once again?
A From terrans, I would pick SKT's and. Protoss, I would pick Samsung KHAN's and SKT's, and zerg, I would pick KT's and Woongjin's. I think we could win a championship with that lineup. [As an avid JD fan, I respectfully disagree, sir]. The reason I didn't pick and is because in order to grow as a player in the current scene, you must slay the final bosses on your journey. They are the best of the best. When Boxer was the best player in the world, just one win against Boxer brought instant fame to the player. Currently, Flash and Jaedong hold the throne of E-sports. With the development of the entire E-sports scene in mind, creating a new star player by demolishing and standing toe-to-toe with them is I believe the best approach to revive the scene. [I translated liberally from context, he doesn't actually say'revive' explicitly.]
When I was leading KTF Magic N's, terran was a weak race. As a result, we sometimes passed on a promising rookie solely based on the fact that he played terran. It was no fun beating a terran with terran. It felt like terran tears ran sweeter when slayed at the hands of zerg or protoss. I think we would be able to win a championship with those players. I would train them Jung Soo Yeong style, and win a championship.
Q As Proleague is now switching over to SC2, history must be rewritten. How would you want SC2 PL to progress from this point on?
A When compared to BW, the biggest difference is that SC2 just isn't fun to watch [Ouch]. For BW, you could know jack about the game but still enjoy it because there was a ubiquitous element of fun throughout the game. In the case of SC2, people who aren't familiar with the game can't follow the games. That's the reason why WC3 ultimately failed. Who would watch when the game itself isn't fun to watch. And where would the motivation for casuals to learn the game come from. Casual fans judge a game based on how fun it is to watch. In that sense BW's appeal is more direct.
As the ability to run is prerequisite to virtually every sport, BW forms the bedrocks of E-sports. BW must stick around as the root of E-sports. There must be a sounder infrastructure in place. To those who criticize BW for being closed off to South Korea: did we get to where we are through entering foreign tournaments? No, it was the other way around: we inspired foreign entities to hold tournaments through displaying our passion. Once that passion was gone, our hegemony was passed onto the foreign scene. Of course there may be a logical fallacy in the fact that BW was made by a foreign company, but essentially we made BW E-sports happen. I think it's shortsighted to switch over [to SC2] based on short term goals and is something that eats away at the roots of E-sports.
You cannot artificially create an E-sports scene. Even with the FPS leagues, if KeSPA had carefully considered and incorporated the public's reception into the equation, embracing the fans' voice, they would not be in the predicament that they find themselves in right now. I believe a bottom-up approach with a governing body that merely organizes and facilitates the fans' natural penchants is the only way to expand E-sports further.
Source:
* If you wanna discuss SC1 vs SC2, do so in a civil manner, and if you can't, flame each other via PM, because I don't want this thread closed down due to incessant bickering. Thanks GTR for suggesting the article.
edit: pretty please "No place for second place."In the world of professionals and heated competition, second place might as well be last place. All the spotlight goes to the victor. It has been no different for E-sports. KTF Magic N's (now KT Rolster) is the quintessence of this sentiment. KTF was called the Real Madrid of E-sports and was deemed the best team to have tread the scene, but has never won it all on the big stage. KTF went on a 23-win-streak from 2004 to 2005 and set a new record for most consecutive wins, but that was about it. Their memories live on in that single accomplishment during the regular season, because they have never held the trophy up high in the grand finals.Still, the achievement does have some meaning. During the decade of E-sports history, the record for most consecutive wins has not been broken. Some may argue that the record is not a big feat when looking at their star-studded lineup of members such as ChoJJa, and TheMarine, which was often called the 'Galactico' [Reference to Real Madrid's policy of buying in star players]. However, it holds meaning in that no teams thereafter have come close to that record either. We met up with Coach Jung Soo-yeong, who managed the team when this record was established.Q As Proleague is switching over to Starcraft2, a lot of people seem to be forgetting the history of E-sports, so we wanted to interview you.A Since its inception, E-sports has made its mark in history. At one point, it established its own empire, but those times are now past and I don't think they will return (laughs).Q What have you been up to since the GomTV match director? Tell us about what you've been up to since stepping down from the commands of KTF.A I have been preparing to launch a business in the gaming industry. You will be able to see it sometime soon. Part of it involves the E-sports scene as well. It's hard for me to divulge any information at this point.Q Before the whole umpiring system was implemented you had the opportunity to stay at GomTV and architect a new infrastructure for monitoring games. Why did you quit.A Of course I thought of that. But if I had carried on, it would have been against KeSPA policy. It would have been great if KeSPA did a better job. I had a lot of thoughts in my head but decided it best to give my full support to KeSPA's initiative. There would be no need for me to umpire once KeSPA implemented their own system, but there still had to be someone to settle controversies in a situation where progamers are involved.Q KTF achieved the feat of 23 consecutive wins, but the team's accomplishments are marred by the fact that it has no ring. Regrettably, the team only won it all once Coach Lee JiHoon replaced you.A It breaks my heart. We only won the event-matches on the side. It kills me that we were never able to win an official season final. However, I am only thankful that Lee JiHoon, who was once a player for KTF, achieved what I couldn't. When he finally led the team to victory, I could only think 'I should have done better.' It's a shame that players such as Nal_Ra had to experience such pain.I had the opportunity to meet up with the players recently and we talked with a smile on our faces. They also said that they'regret' it to this day. Some voiced that KT would not have won without Flash and I agree that a team needs a 'Keyman' to win. The Chicago Bulls won three championships in a row because they had Michael Jordan. Baseball and soccer are the same. Flash was able to generate a synergy effect among KT's players. [Flash's effect on the team] is a fact and should not be understated. It breaks my heart to hear such things.Q Your pupils such as Yellow and Lee JiHoon are now becoming coaches. How do you feel when you look at the transitions?A I believe coaches need to lead their players by example. There is no official training course for coaches at the moment. There needs to be a comprehensive course for leadership. I don't understand why there has been no initiative to start an intra-league leadership course in E-sports' 10-year-long history. As players retire, a lot of them naturally transition into a coaching position. South Korea is among the top E-sports countries, yet we have not yet developed a sound model. I believe a coach must have some prerequisite knowledge of the E-sports culture, rules, and the players' mentality.KTF was the only corporate sponsored team in the early 2000's. A lot of players from non-sponsored teams were moving into KTF so they would see more action and have their talents properly assessed. In the process, the best of the best, such as NaDa, etc all came under one roof. Fans often criticized KTF for buying talent. KTF, even with their star-studded-lineup, never won a championship, however. Until Coach Lee JiHoon led the team to victory, KTF was never able to escape their reputation as the silver surfer.To many, Coach Jung Soo Yeong of the best team in the league seemed cold. Maybe it was the sunglasses and baseball cap he donned at every match. Fans started calling him 'Baseball bat Jeong.' [Parents and teachers used to beat children with a baseball bat to teach them a lesson. Even up to the point where I went to high school, which was in the early 2000's, this was the norm, but now I think child-abuse laws have tightened in Korea and teachers can no longer do this]Q Your nickname as coach was 'Baseball bat Jeong.' Were you going for a particular concept with your baseball cap and shades?A When I was part of the Samsung team, the uniform was modeled after racing car uniforms. It was a one-piece so it was difficult to put on and it wasn't well ventilated, so it was very hot, but it provided the most real estate for corporate sponsors' logos. Even to this day, race car drivers are walking billboards. In E-sports, there can be many smaller sponsors for each team outside of their main one, and we chose the uniform to provide them advertisement space.When I became head coach of KTF, our uniforms changed. One thing that the head coach can do on air is to give the sponsors as much air time as possible, so I wore a jumper and baseball cap. I wore the shades to hide my gaze from the opposing team.Q I think your outfit fueled the fans' mockery.A I don't think my 'cold' image had much to do with the bad rumors that were circulating about me. As I gained the nickname 'Baseball bat Jeong,' lots of memes started to crop up on the web but I never paid much attention with the thought that I would absorb the negative attention that would otherwise be redirected towards members of the team. However, now that I am getting older it has been a problem, because my children have been made fun of due to my nickname. My child has had a very hard time at school up to sixth grade. Once, they asked what I did as a living and they saw the 'Baseball bat Jeong' meme that was uploaded on the internet. Afterwards, my child had a hard time playing with them.It might have been a joke to the fans but the repercussions on the receiving end are real. I hope that in the future people can think in the victim's perspective before making uploading such things. If somebody had made a meme victimizing them, what would happen to their reputation? Also, what would their loved ones think?It's hard to withstand abuse that flies your way simply because you are a public figure often exposed to the limelight. Would you believe it if I told you my child had to transfer schools due to the abuse from his peers and I contemplated changing my name multiple times. The reality of my son not being able to say that his father was the head coach of a progaming team proudly pains me.Q There were a lot of star players but also many mediocre ones who were forgotten from our memory. Who was the most memorable player you coached?A Nal_ra stands out in memory. Coach Cho (Ex-coach of CJ, retired after the match-fixing scandal) also complimented him without reserve. I met him recently and he has become even more mature. I didn't want to play him the first year he joined because his practice results weren't great. I gave him a year and told him to return as the 'Ultimate Weapon' when he has realized his full potential. The terms stated that he would receive full salary even during his year off, yet he hesitated. I gave him these outrageous conditions because I believed that the E-sports scene needed a domineering force such as BoxeR of the early 2000's. Boxer was the best player and achieved good results in each and every event he participated in. Players who beat him were automatically brought to fame. I thought we needed a player like that, so I strategically decided on Nal_ra. He needed to be the best in order to follow in Boxer's footsteps.However he did not accept the terms and kept trying by entering the preliminaries of OSL, MSL, WCG, etc, and kept failing to advance, which in turn lowered his reputation further and further.As a means of saving his reputation from falling beyond an irrecoverable state, we agreed to send him out in every Proleague ace match. We thought once the teams caught on that Nal_ra would always be there in the ace match, and they still lost, he would become the guardian angel of the team, so we gave him this heavy burden. He was under much less pressure during Proleague games, and played the crucial role of anchor during our 23-win-streak.There's a little anecdote tied to this period. Back then you could send the same player during the games leading up to ace, and also during the ace match, so we sent him out in the first game multiple times, but he just couldn't win those games. He would, however, shine in the ace match, regardless of how unfavorable the maps were to protoss. We all came to agree that Nal_ra was born to be our ace.Q This was a long time ago, but during those 23 consecutive wins, was there ever a time when you felt threatened?A Twice I felt that way. The first occurred when we played Hanbit Stars (now Woongjin Stars). I couldn't attend the match due to a corporate workshop. I checked on the players the morning before the match, and they were still practicing so I was worried. Usually, if they feel like they got ample practice the night before, they would be sleeping in until 11 or noon to go into the match relaxed. However, they had woken up early to continue practicing. I realized they were ill-prepared but I had to attend the workshop so I left. I received a text at the workshop that we were losing 0:2 and didn't get another text until much later. I thought the players had lost and weren't texting me because they felt sorry, but when I went back to the dormitory, they said they came back to win it 3:2.The second came during our match against Plus (Ex-Lecaf Oz). We were losing 1:2 before coming back. Coach Cho (of Oz) kept cheesing us to discontinue our win-streak but our players were able to react calmly and clinch the win. After the match, I remember teasing Coach Cho, saying "you wanted to stop our win-streak that bad?"Our win-streak came to an end at the hands of Samsung. Honestly, we could have continued our streak, but the maps were changed suddenly due to a managerial problem. The players were fired up to continue our win-streak past 30, so when this occurred, they all seemed very disappointed.Ever since Coach Jung stepped down from head coach of KTF in March, 2006, every time a new team was established, he was at the top of the candidate list for head coach. However, he merely observed the scene as an outsider for 7 years. Every time the topic of E-sports was brought up, we could feel his passion seeping into his words, but he emphasized that the players that are now left "need to pull their weight." Although he is nothing but a shadow of the past now, people will have a hard time forgetting the name 'Jung Soo Yeong.' Nobody who achieves a feat such as 23 consecutive wins is easily forgotten from history.Q Any plans of returning to E-sports?A Even if I returned, I know the kingdom of E-sports from the glory days will never return. I hope the remaining players can pull their weight.Q If you were given a chance to lead a team and allowed to select any players you wanted, who would you choose? Would you go after the elusive championship once again?A From terrans, I would pick SKT's Canata and Fantasy. Protoss, I would pick Samsung KHAN's Stork and SKT's Bisu, and zerg, I would pick KT's HoeJJa and Woongjin's ZerO. I think we could win a championship with that lineup. [As an avid JD fan, I respectfully disagree, sir]. The reason I didn't pick Flash and Jaedong is because in order to grow as a player in the current scene, you must slay the final bosses on your journey. They are the best of the best. When Boxer was the best player in the world, just one win against Boxer brought instant fame to the player. Currently, Flash and Jaedong hold the throne of E-sports. With the development of the entire E-sports scene in mind, creating a new star player by demolishing and standing toe-to-toe with them is I believe the best approach to revive the scene. [I translated liberally from context, he doesn't actually say'revive' explicitly.]When I was leading KTF Magic N's, terran was a weak race. As a result, we sometimes passed on a promising rookie solely based on the fact that he played terran. It was no fun beating a terran with terran. It felt like terran tears ran sweeter when slayed at the hands of zerg or protoss. I think we would be able to win a championship with those players. I would train them Jung Soo Yeong style, and win a championship.Q As Proleague is now switching over to SC2, history must be rewritten. How would you want SC2 PL to progress from this point on?A When compared to BW, the biggest difference is that SC2 just isn't fun to watch [Ouch]. For BW, you could know jack about the game but still enjoy it because there was a ubiquitous element of fun throughout the game. In the case of SC2, people who aren't familiar with the game can't follow the games. That's the reason why WC3 ultimately failed. Who would watch when the game itself isn't fun to watch. And where would the motivation for casuals to learn the game come from. Casual fans judge a game based on how fun it is to watch. In that sense BW's appeal is more direct.As the ability to run is prerequisite to virtually every sport, BW forms the bedrocks of E-sports. BW must stick around as the root of E-sports. There must be a sounder infrastructure in place. To those who criticize BW for being closed off to South Korea: did we get to where we are through entering foreign tournaments? No, it was the other way around: we inspired foreign entities to hold tournaments through displaying our passion. Once that passion was gone, our hegemony was passed onto the foreign scene. Of course there may be a logical fallacy in the fact that BW was made by a foreign company, but essentially we made BW E-sports happen. I think it's shortsighted to switch over [to SC2] based on short term goals and is something that eats away at the roots of E-sports.You cannot artificially create an E-sports scene. Even with the FPS leagues, if KeSPA had carefully considered and incorporated the public's reception into the equation, embracing the fans' voice, they would not be in the predicament that they find themselves in right now. I believe a bottom-up approach with a governing body that merely organizes and facilitates the fans' natural penchants is the only way to expand E-sports further.Source: Daily E-sports * If you wanna discuss SC1 vs SC2, do so in a civil manner, and if you can't, flame each other via PM, because I don't want this thread closed down due to incessant bickering. Thanks GTR for suggesting the article.edit: pretty please TranslatorThe fantasy football hokey cokey; Junior Stanislas in, Philippe Coutinho out
Antonio Conte beat 19 other managers to win the Premier League. Ben Crabtree? Just the 4.5 million...
Conte was named Manager of the Year by the League Managers' Association this week after leading Chelsea to the title in his first season in charge.
The 47-year-old transformed the Blues from fallen champions to winners in just 12 months and his attention to detail was crucial.
He changed players' diets, watched every aspect of Chelsea's training, preparation and games in meticulous detail, and was obsessed with success.
Crabtree - the winner of the official Fantasy Premier League - may not have had the same sort of control over his players, but his attention to detail was certainly similar to that of Conte.
The 31-year-old Everton fan, manager of 'FC Crab Dogg', took the title on the final day of the season after a dramatic conclusion that rivalled Sergio Aguero's title-winning goal for Manchester City back in 2012.
Crabtree (here at the 2014 World Cup) puts his victory down to "just watching a lot of football"
Crabtree, who has been playing the game for eight seasons, improved from 353rd five years ago to take the number one spot in 2016-17.
"This is probably my greatest achievement in sport," he told BBC Sport.
"As soon as I was in the top 10 it felt tangible and I started checking what the teams ahead of me and first place were doing."
Crabtree went into the final gameweek two points behind leader Uwais Ahmed - and it was two late substitutions which saw him home.
He used two free transfers to bring in Chelsea striker Diego Costa and Bournemouth midfielder Junior Stanislas - who was promoted to the starting line-up following team-mate Josh King's late withdrawal.
Stanislas scored in Bournemouth's 1-1 draw at Leicester City, earning nine points in the process as Crabtree topped the table by five points.
How does fantasy football work?
You wouldn't be able to afford all of them, but these were the top-scoring players for their positions on Fantasy Premier League this season
Friday nights spent wrangling over who should be captain, Saturday afternoons spent berating that striker who failed to score - fantasy football has a habit of taking over your life.
Some 4,503,345 wannabe managers entered the Premier League's official game this season, making 135,343,773 transfers between them over the 2016-17 campaign. But how does it all work?
Fantasy bosses are given a budget of £100m to pick a squad of 15 players, whose pre-determined values alter throughout the season depending on their performances.
Each gameweek, managers select a starting XI from that squad and players score a varying number of points - double if they are chosen as captain - depending on their position for objectives such as goals, clean sheets, assists and so on.
One free transfer is allowed each gameweek, though managers get two 'wildcards' that can be used for unlimited transfers along with other in-play bonuses such as 'bench boost', 'triple captain' and 'all-out attack'.
Listed in the Fantasy Premier League database as a midfielder, Arsenal's Alexis Sanchez was the top scorer in the game this season with 264 points |
be a true 3840 x 2160 panel or two stitched together like the ASUS PQ321Q?
The tech industry at large is making a concentrated push toward mainstream Ultra HD adoption this year from the hardware side of things (it's still 5 years away), and content providers like Netflix will begin shooting shows like "House of Cards" in 4K. A wealth of readily available 4K content is an important driver, and pricepoints like $699 certainly don't hurt.
UPDATE: I now have confirmation of the P2815Q's full specs, and have listed them below. Unfortunately, it tops out at 30Hz 3840 x 2160 and 60Hz for 1920 x 1080. This should prove a deal breaker for gamers, but the monitor still has a solid feature set for the asking price and represents an attractive option for creative professionals not focused on gaming.
Panel tech: Anti-glare TN (not IPS which was previously rumored)
Connections: DisplayPort (v 1.21)/Mini-DisplayPort, HDMI 1.4 (MHL 2.0), DispayPort out (MST), 1 USB upstream, 4 x USB 3.02 downstream (including 1 USB charging port with BC1.2 compliance devices on back)
DisplayPort (v 1.21)/Mini-DisplayPort, HDMI 1.4 (MHL 2.0), DispayPort out (MST), 1 USB upstream, 4 x USB 3.02 downstream (including 1 USB charging port with BC1.2 compliance devices on back) Color Depth: 1.073 billion colors
Viewing angle: 170 degrees
Response time: 5ms
Brightness: 300 cd/m2
Power Consumption: 75W
Continue the conversation by following me on Twitter and Facebook. Listen to my tech and gaming podcast "Tangled Cables" for free in iTunes.The following is a recording of a call made by a Tripolian man to the police to report armed men blocking the road. I couldn't get any background information but I have posted the raw English transcript below. It seems genuine.
Policeman: 00:14: Allo Tripoli
Caller: 00:16: Greetings
00:16: Yes
00:17: I just want to report a person.
00:19: What kind of person?
00:20: He’s standing in the middle of Muharram. He’s blocking the road. He’s armed.
00:23: Where?
00:24: In front of Ayoubi’s paint shop.
00:27: Where? in Bab el Ramel?
00:29: Yes, in Muharram. He’s just standing in the middle of the road, blocking it. And he’s asking people where they’re going and coming from.
00:35: There are about 5-6 people armed
00:36: There are about 5,000 armed in Tripoli. Okay. Habibi
00:39: but he’s blocking the road!
00:40: Yalla there are about 5000 doing like him.
00:42: Do I shoot? Is that what I’m supposed to do?
00:45: I don’t know. Do whatever you want.
00:47: How is this possible? Are you the government? Who is the government?
00:50: Okay habibi. May God give you strength.NEW YORK—Citing the 26-year-old’s relentless attitude and utter refusal to ever give in, New York Jets head coach Rex Ryan told reporters Thursday that the team has been amazed by newly acquired wide receiver Percy Harvin’s willingness to fight inside the huddle. “He’s only been with us for a few days, but Percy hasn’t been afraid to get in there and fight tooth and nail before every snap,” said Ryan, adding that his coaching staff has been “blown away” by the former Seahawks star’s intensity and aggression whenever coming up against his teammates on offense. “No matter what the circumstance, you can always count on Percy to be incredibly physical and really get in the faces of the quarterback and offensive linemen after a play has been called. The guy just won’t quit—he’s an absolute monster out there.” Ryan went on to express his pity for the Jets players who will face Harvin this Sunday, stressing that the receiver will be ruthless on every single down until taking himself out of the game midway through the fourth quarter.
AdvertisementSimon Jones grins from ear to ear at being handed his Test cap by Nasser Hussain © Getty Images
So it's T20 all the way from now on for you. Are you looking forward to the new challenges?
I'm excited about the future. I'm feeling good physically, I'm mentally refreshed, and it's a case of wait and see what happens now. It was nice to finish well in the YB40 final at Lord's, to show what I can do. Hopefully a couple of people saw me in action, but now I'm in that awkward time of just waiting. There are so many competitions in the world, it would be foolish not to try and play anywhere. There are different experiences to be had and different environments to sample. There's T20 leagues in Bangladesh, India, New Zealand and Australia now. The West Indies is one I'd like to go out to, and England, of course. I want to give T20 a good go.
Think back to your first day as a Test cricketer. Batting at 10, you hit 44 off 43 balls. Could you even have imagined that?
It was awesome. I loved my batting. I think it's one of the reasons Duncan Fletcher picked me, because I could do a bit with the bat. I went in with a no-fear attitude. India were a very good team but their bowling was not quite as strong as their batting, although they did have Zaheer Khan, Ajit Agarkar and a few others. I thought, "I'm just going to enjoy myself here." Freddie [Flintoff] was at the other end and he told me, "Don't worry about it, it's just a game of cricket, go and hit it.". So I did.
You enjoyed batting then?
Of course, I think you have to. When you're facing someone like Brett Lee, who's steaming in with a load of aggression and trying to intimidate you, it's a great challenge.
Take your mind back to 2005 and that ball to Michael Clarke. Ever find yourself watching it on Youtube?
I've seen it a few times. It keeps me going when I go back and look at some of the stuff I've done. It gives me a little bit of clarity to where I want to go and why I'm putting myself through things. I'm not being big-headed, but it just keeps me on track.
Is that the best ball you've ever bowled?
In terms of where the game was at, and the way I'd set him up with four awayswingers and got one to come back, yes. We were playing an incredible Australian team - one of the best to play the game - and it was a massive occasion. But I've bowled a couple of jaffas in my time.
Edgbaston 2005 - the greatest Test ever. What was it like to play in?
It was a different league - but horrible at the same time. We expected to go out on that last day and turn them over, but Brett Lee and Shane Warne batted incredibly well. Warney is a difficult customer to bowl to and runs carried on coming. When I dropped that catch I thought I'd dropped the Ashes. I just wanted the ground to swallow me up. Luckily the boys kept on going and it was a great feeling for Geraint [Jones] to take that winning catch. Him and Gilchrist had dropped some that series, but that's what pressure does. I was so relieved for him.
"Edgbaston 2005 was a different league - but horrible at the same time"
Was the Ashes win the highlight of your career?
Easily. You don't get better than that. It was the best team that had played the game, who had ten to 15 years of domination, and we beat them. If Australia put out their second team at that time they would have beaten sides. They had some incredible boys on the bench who'd walk into other teams.
Who is the best captain you've played under?
Matthew Maynard was very good. He just wanted you to relax and enjoy yourself. I liked playing under Nasser Hussain as you always knew where you stood with him. He always backed you too. There's one picture of me with my arm around him during my first Test and I was telling him I couldn't feel my legs I was so nervous. He's laughing his head off at me! Warney was like Maynard. He just wanted us to relax, enjoy ourselves and test ourselves.
And the best of them?
I'd have to go with Nasser.
Which batsman from the past would you most like to bowl at?
Don Bradman. His stats are incredible. I know it's a long time ago but I'd still like to have a go at him.
Where in the world do you get the best teas?
Lord's. I always look forward to having a bat and filling my boots at tea. The fitness guys don't like it but the lads do.
Do you keep your old kit for memories?
I do, it's good to look back sometimes. I must have something like 25 cricket bags in the garage full of old stuff that I kept from when I was 12. It's all safe in plastic bags away from the moths.
What's more rewarding, smashing a batsman in the ribs or taking out their off stump?
It depends who the batsman is and if you've got a bit of niggle with them! I'd say getting them out.
In 2006, New Woman magazine did a poll of the world's sexiest men. Do you know where you finished?
(Laughs) Ninth.
Simon Jones' best ball: the one that bowled Michael Clarke at Old Trafford, 2005 © Getty Images
Who is the worst room-mate?
A guy I shared with at Glamorgan, Dan Cherry. He was an unbelievable snorer. I ended up beating him with a pillow. He tried his best to lay on his side but then he'd roll over on his back and he'd be gone. It was as if he was cracking nuts in his mouth.
Who is the best Welsh sportsperson of all time?
There are a few, but I'm going with Colin Jackson.
What are you like at other sports?
I played football, rugby, athletics and pretty much everything when I was younger. I was just in a generation that did everything and didn't really have an option. At school I loved football over cricket. I was tiny up until I was 16. I went through Millfield School for three years and just shot up there. I went being 5ft 5ins to 6ft 3ins so quickly. My mum came to pick me up once and she didn't recognise me!
Who is the biggest practical joker?
Matthew Hoggard. He's so mischievous. He changed the password on Duncan Fletcher's laptop once and you could see the annoyance on [Fletcher's] face. When he came in I went down like a prawn sandwich, but Hoggy found it funny! I think he realised afterwards that maybe he shouldn't have done it.
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SAN FRANCISCO — A Chihuahua is in animal custody after leading police on a chase across the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge.
The California Highway Patrol tweeted the small black dog "led us on quite a chase" Sunday and posted a video of it running furiously on the upper level of the bridge as it was trailed by a motorcycle officer.
After it was captured, the Chihuahua was taken to a San Francisco animal shelter where staff members named him Ponch, after the CHP Officer Frank Poncherello played by Erik Estrada in the TV series "CHiPs."
A spokeswoman for the city's Department of Animal Care and Control said the dog wore a tag decorated with a human skull, but it had no identification. Deb Campbell said the dog was recovering from its misadventure.× Charge dropped in false rape case near IU campus
Update (Jan. 19, 2017)– The count of false informing against Erica Kingsbury was dismissed without prejudice.
Original story:
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (December 9, 2015) – A Bloomington woman has been charged with false reporting in a rape case that occurred near the IU campus last month.
A 22-year-old woman, identified as Erica Kingsbury, initially reported that she was sexually assaulted in her apartment in Brownstone Terrace. She told police that someone knocked on her door just after 3 a.m. on November 17, and when she opened the door a man pushed his way into her apartment and forced her into the bedroom with a gun.
During an investigation by the Bloomington Police Department, she admitted that the original version of report involving an unknown male forcing his way in at gunpoint and sexually assaulting her was inaccurate.
“Based on the seriousness of the alleged incident, we dedicated extensive resources to fully investigate it. The investigation revealed that the incident did not happen as reported and it is important for us to let the community know in an effort to alleviate the fear and anxiety it caused,” said Bloomington Police Department spokesperson Captain Joe Qualters.
Captain Qualters confirmed on Wednesday that the woman has been charged with one count of false informing.1958 soundtrack album by Miles Davis
Ascenseur pour l'échafaud is an album by jazz musician Miles Davis. It was recorded at Le Poste Parisien Studio in Paris on December 4 and 5, 1957. The album features the musical cues for the 1958 Louis Malle film Ascenseur pour l'échafaud.
Background [ edit ]
Jean-Paul Rappeneau, a jazz fan and Malle's assistant at the time, suggested asking Miles Davis to create the film's soundtrack – possibly inspired by the Modern Jazz Quartet's recording for Roger Vadim's Sait-on jamais (Lit: 'Does One Ever Know', released as: No Sun in Venice), released a few months earlier in 1957.
Davis was booked to perform at the Club Saint-Germain in Paris for November 1957. Rappeneau introduced him to Malle, and Davis agreed to record the music after attending a private screening. On December 4, he brought his four sidemen to the recording studio without having had them prepare anything. Davis only gave the musicians a few rudimentary harmonic sequences he had assembled in his hotel room, and, once the plot was explained, the band improvised without any precomposed theme, while edited loops of the musically relevant film sequences were projected in the background.
Release and reception [ edit ]
In Europe, the soundtrack was originally released as a 10 inch LP on the Fontana label.[6] In America it was released by Columbia as side one of the album Jazz Track (CL 1268), with the second side filled by three new tracks recorded with his regular sextet (later to be re-released on the 1958 Miles CD). Jazz Track received a 1960 Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Performance, Solo or Small Group. The CD edition, released internationally by Fontana/Polygram in the late '80s, contains the original soundtrack material, versions of the original album tracks without the reverb that was added to the initial release, and several previously unreleased alternate takes.
History has shown that the world-wide affection for the sound track has been much greater than that for the film.
In the opinion of Romina Daniele, the musical mood and characteristics of the soundtrack immediately preceded and introduced Miles Davis's subsequent records Milestones (1958) and Kind of Blue (1959).[7]
Track listings [ edit ]
Side one
No. Title Length 1. "Générique" 2:45 2. "L' Assassinat de Carala" 2:10 3. "Sur L'Autoroute" 2:15 4. "Julien Dans L'Ascenseur" 2:07 5. "Florence Sur Les Champs Élysées" 2:50
Side two
No. Title Length 1. "Dîner au Motel" 3:58 2. "Évasion De Julien" 0:53 3. "Visite Du Vigile" 2:00 4. "Au Bar du Petit Bac" 2:50 5. "Chez Le Photographe Du Motel" 3:50
CD [ edit ]
No. Title Length 1. "Nuit Sur Les Champs-Élysées (take 1)" 2:25 2. "Nuit Sur Les Champs-Élysées (take 2)" 5:20 3. "Nuit Sur Les Champs-Élysées (take 3)" 2:47 4. "Nuit Sur Les Champs-Élysées (take 4)" 2:59 5. "Assassinat (take 1)" 2:02 6. "Assassinat (take 2)" 2:10 7. "Assassinat (take 3)" 2:10 8. "Motel" 3:56 9. "Final (take 1)" 3:05 10. "Final (take 2)" 3:00 11. "Final (take 3)" 4:04 12. "Ascenseur" 1:57 13. "Le Petit Bal (take 1)" 2:40 14. "Le Petit Bal (take 2)" 2:53 15. "Séquence Voiture (take 1)" 2:56 16. "Séquence Voiture (take 2)" 2:16 17. "Générique" 2:45 18. "L' Assassinat de Carala" 2:10 19. "Sur L'Autoroute" 2:15 20. "Julien Dans L'Ascenseur" 2:07 21. "Florence Sur Les Champs Élysées" 2:50 22. "Dîner au Motel" 3:58 23. "Évasion De Julien" 0:53 24. "Visite Du Vigile" 2:00 25. "Au Bar du Petit Bac" 2:50 26. "Chez Le Photographe Du Motel" 3:50
Note: The track listing above refers to the currently available CD version. The original soundtrack to the film, as mixed and edited (with additional reverb) in 1958, and used for the screen, can be heard in tracks 17 to 26.
Personnel [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Bibliography [ edit ]A view of the Dupont logo on a sign at the Dupont Chestnut Run Plaza facility near Wilmington, Delaware, April 17, 2012. REUTERS/Tim Shaffer
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. jury on Wednesday ordered DuPont to pay $5.1 million to a man who said he developed testicular cancer from exposure to a toxic chemical used to make Teflon at one of its plants, according to a DuPont spokesman.
It is the second time jurors in Ohio federal court have found against DuPont, which is facing more than 3,400 lawsuits from residents who say they contracted one of six diseases linked to perfluorooctanoic acid, known as PFOA or C-8, which is used to make products such as Teflon non-stick cookware.
Following a five-week trial, jurors deliberated for less than a day before finding DuPont was negligent and awarding $5.1 million in compensatory damages to David Freeman, an Ohio resident who said he developed testicular cancer from his exposure to C-8 in drinking water.
The jury also decided that DuPont had acted with actual malice, a finding that exposes the company to punitive damages, the amount of which will be determined at a proceeding starting Thursday.
A DuPont spokesman declined to comment. While DuPont is the named defendant, a recent spin-off of its performance chemicals segment, Chemours Co, will cover its liability.
A spokeswoman for Chemours, Cynthia Salitsky, said the verdict will be appealed. To the extent DuPont claims indemnification for the verdict, “Chemours retains its defenses to such claims,” she said in a statement.
Lawyers for Freeman did not immediately return a request for comment. The trial was a so-called bellwether, the verdict of which is intended to help the companies and plaintiffs value remaining cases alleging similar facts.
The first trial over C-8 exposure resulted in a $1.6 million verdict and no punitive damages last year.
Chemours shares closed down 22.5 percent at $5.93 in heavy volume. DuPont shares ended down 1.8 percent at $61.85 per share.The stage has been set. This Sunday, July 11, it will be the Netherlands vs. Spain. This could very well be a classic. History has already been made with the World Cup being staged in South Africa for the first time.
Spain seemed to be the underdog as they struggled in the tournament. The team had their ups and downs as they suffered a loss to Switzerland. Then they gained their composure by annihilating Honduras and pulling off a win against Chile. Once again they shut out their opponents Portugal and Paraguay.
The Netherlands has been extraordinary throughout the world cup. They are undefeated throughout the series. Handing loses, including a shutout against Japan, beating Cameroon in a tough 2-1 victory and same with
Slovakia and Brazil. Uruguay put up a good fight but without their star couldn’t pull of a victory and lost 2-3 to the Netherlands.
This World Cup final is a very good match up. The Netherlands has a great offense with its forwards that can cut right through most defenses, but Spain is known for having one of the strongest defenses. Spain is also one of the best passing teams out there so that can be a factor for the Netherlands since they have a slow defense.
This game means so much to the both teams not only because it is the championship game but because they have never won a world cup. They have a chance to make history and win one for the first time.
Photo: Spain attempting to score a goal against Germany. Hassan Ammar/APShortstop Alfredo Rodriguez has departed Cuba with the intent of seeking MLB free agency, Ben Badler of Baseball America reports. The 21-year-old took home Rookie of the Year honors in the top division Serie Nacional this year, though as Badler notes that was the subject of some disagreement.
As always, you’ll want to read Badler’s piece for a full breakdown, but the takeaway seems to be that Rodriguez is a whiz with the glove with good speed and a suspect bat. Badler labels the youngster as a polished shortstop whose hand and footwork are outstanding, accompanied by good range and a solid arm.
Offensively, though, it appears that Gonzalez has much development ahead of him. He did swipe 12 bags in 16 tries, so there’s a reasonable expectation that he will add value on the bases. But he slashed only.265/.301/.284 in his 304 plate appearances last year, striking out a reasonable 38 times but taking a free pass in only 11 turns at the dish.
Badler goes on to explain how Gonzalez fits within the evolving rules regarding players from Cuba. Teams will have to use their international spending allocation to sign him, though he will not be subject to the league’s registration policy — which can cause a delay, as Badler explained recently — due to his relatively advanced age for an international prospect. All said, Gonzalez should be able to sign as part of this coming summer’s July 2 period, though he will first have to go through the process of establishing residency in a third country.Hub and Spoke Design
Major hub hospitals reside in the cities, while spoke hospitals service the surrounding areas. “This strategy concentrates the best equipment and expertise within the hub, with telecommunication links that allow hub specialists to serve spoke patients remotely. Since these specialists perform a high number of specific procedures, they quickly develop skills that improve quality,” they write.
The best results in medicine come when we allow practitioners (and their teams) to specialize in their craft. This is not what happens in the United States. Here, competing hospitals dilute the talent.
I’m an electrophysiologist, so let’s use two heart rhythm procedures, catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation and pacemaker/defibrillator lead extraction, as examples. These are good examples because it takes hundreds of cases and years of experience to master these “feel”-dependent procedures. Experienced operators who are concentrated in a few major centers should be the only doctors doing these procedures. In most American cities, though, these two procedures are divvied up among many hospitals and many operators. However, the literature is replete with studies that correlate outcomes with operator training and experience.
The notion that building big beautiful hospitals in the suburbs for convenience—and then thinking they are good places for care—is insulting. What’s wrong with saying: I’m sorry you are facing lead extraction, but for this, you need to go to Hospital X, and it’s downtown. Sorry. It’s inconvenient and the parking stinks. But it’s best for your health. At the moment, American health practitioners aren't courageous enough to say this.
Task Shifting
The authors also point out that in India, lower-level staffers perform a much wider array of medical tasks: “The transfer of responsibility for routine tasks to lower-skilled workers leaves doctors free to focus on complicated medical procedures. Several hospitals have created a tier of paramedic workers with two years of training after high school to perform routine medical jobs. As a result, surgeons, for example, are able to perform two to three times as many surgeries as their U.S. counterparts. Compare that with the United States, where hospitals reduce costs by laying off support staff and shifting mundane tasks such as billing and transcription to doctors, who are overqualified for those duties.”
Consider my experience: After performing nearly 10,000 catheter ablations and cardiac devices over 15 years, I've gotten really good at these procedures. In my city of one million people, Louisville, Kentucky, there are only a handful of other doctors who do these procedures well. In an Indian system, we would be protected. We would be asked to do high-level heart procedures and little else. Yet that’s not the case in the U.S. system. I can only do these skill-dependent procedures two and a half days a week. That’s because I have other duties, like managing routine blood tests, seeing routine follow-ups, and entering clerical data on each patient. In fact, due to the burden of tasks, I've had to reduce the number of patients I see by nearly 50 percent over the past decade.RENTON, Wash. -- Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman said Wednesday that his postgame comments Sunday were ''misdirected and immature" but he is not a villain or a thug.
"We're talking about football here, and a lot of people took it further than football," Sherman said. "I was on a football field showing passion. Maybe it was misdirected and immature, but this is a football field. I wasn't committing any crimes and doing anything illegal. I was showing passion after a football game.
"It is what it is. Things like that happen and you deal with the adversity. I come from a place where it's all adversity, so what's a little more or people telling you what you can't do. I really was surprised. If I had known it was going to blow up like that I would have approached it differently, just in terms of the way it took away from my teammates. That's the thing I feel regretful about."
Sherman tipped away a pass in the end zone that was intended for San Francisco 49ers receiver Michael Crabtree in the final seconds of Seattle's 23-17 victory Sunday in the NFC Championship Game. Seattle linebacker Malcolm Smith intercepted the tipped pass to seal the victory.
Moments later, Sherman was interviewed on Fox Sports and was asked to describe the play.
"I'm the best corner in the game,'' Sherman said, yelling. "When you try me with a sorry receiver like Crabtree, that's the result you're gonna get. Don't you ever talk about me."
Sherman then was asked who was talking about him.
"Crabtree,'' he said. "Don't you open your mouth about the best, or I'm gonna shut it for you real quick."
Sherman's comments became a national rage and caused a firestorm of criticism on Twitter.
Sherman was most concerned by the people who called him a thug.
"The reason it bothers me is it seems that's the accepted way now to call someone the N-word," Sherman said. "They say thug, and that takes me aback. Maybe I'm talking loudly on the field and saying things I'm not supposed to, but there was hockey game where they didn't even play hockey. They just threw the puck aside and started fighting. I thought, 'Oh man. I'm the thug? Geez.'"
Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman said he was simply "showing passion" after Sunday's game against the 49ers and wideout Michael Crabtree. AP Photo/Elaine Thompson
Sherman was referring to the Vancouver Canucks-Calgary Flames game last Saturday when a brawl took place two seconds into the game.
"I know some real thugs, and they know I'm the farthest thing from a thug,'' Sherman said. "I fought that my whole life because of where I've come from [the Compton neighborhood in Los Angeles]. You have a guy from Compton or Watts, they just think he's a thug. He's a gangster. You fight it for so long, and to have it come back up and hear people use it again is frustrating."
Sherman's postgame rant has led some pundits to dub the Super Bowl matchup against the Denver Broncos and quarterback Peyton Manning as The Villains versus The Virtuous.
"That's hilarious," Sherman said. "Any time you label [Seahawks quarterback] Russell Wilson a villain, it's got to be a joke. It's funny. We have too many great players who don't deserve that label and don't deserve to be looked at in that light. Russell Wilson and [Seattle safety] Earl Thomas have done nothing to deserve that.
"Now if they label me a villain, OK. Maybe my actions caused that, but I don't think I'm a villain. It's the old cliché: Don't judge a book by its cover. But they are judging the book by its cover. Judge me off the football field, not on the field right after a game is different. Now if I had gotten arrested 10 times, I could accept being a villain. But I've done nothing villainous."
Wilson came to Sherman's defense Wednesday.
"Richard has tremendous character,'' Wilson said. "He got fired up and I guess you would call it a mistake. But I know that's not how he is. He is one of the most intelligent people you will ever meet. He's one of my good friends, and I love him to death.With a month to go until the opening ceremony of a London Games that will be his last as IOC president, Jacques Rogge is in relaxed mood
With exactly a month to go until the opening ceremony of a London Games that will be his last as International Olympic Committee president, Jacques Rogge is in relaxed mood. But then it is hard to tell when the gnomic Belgian is not.
Amid all the UK scrutiny of the £9.3bn budget, the security fears, the danger of transport meltdown, the sponsors and the Games lanes, it is easy to forget that for Rogge and the IOC the preparations for London 2012 have been pretty stress‑free.
There has been none of the last‑minute construction panic of Athens or the human-rights protests ahead of Beijing. Rogge, the former Olympic sailor who has been a calm hand on the tiller of the Lausanne-based organisation since his 2001 appointment, is effusive in his praise for Lord Coe's organising committee.
On recent inspection visits to London, the IOC and Locog have been in lockstep. The IOC needs the London Games to be a success, not only to prove that hosting them is a risk worth taking but to show that all the promises around legacy, around a "compact Games", around putting athletes first, were more than just rhetoric.
"Organising the Games is always a difficult logistical challenge and you can have unforeseen circumstances to which you have to adapt. They are in budget and some of the contingency will remain, which is a good thing. And we have seen a lot of creativity. They know sport, they love sport and they have this added layer of creativity on top," says Rogge, who will stand down as president in September 2013. He is amused to note that Danny Boyle plans to bring village cricketers to the Olympic opening ceremony in his "green and pleasant" opening tableaux, and enthuses about the public reaction to the torch relay.
So confident is Rogge that his only concern is the same topic that will obsess much of the country for the next month. "Every drop of rain that falls now is good news," he says, in the hope of getting the worst of the British summer out of the way before 27 July.
Rogge identifies three factors that he believes will turn a good Games into a great Games. "Good organisation with good weather, the performance of the home team and gold medals up front." As such, he says, he will be cheering Mark Cavendish down the Mall – assuming he is not being challenged by a Belgian cyclist. "The Canadians waited five days to get their first gold medal in Vancouver and then you get a sea change. People went to the streets, partying, having fun."
The final key ingredient, says Rogge, is iconic performances by iconic athletes – in other words, Usain Bolt needs to be on top of his game.
Not everyone is yet sold on the vision for London's Games, however. There are those who find the £9.3bn taxpayer‑funded budget unpalatable in austere times and there are those who believe the modern Games is a heavily branded corporate monster, devouring a city in which it is staged before moving on to the next.
It is a charge that Rogge is well used to defending. "We are often interrogated about the fact the Games should be commercialism free and shouldn't be sponsored. I always argue that would take us back to the unfair and elitist atmosphere of the Olympic Games before the 1960s," says Rogge.
"There was no sponsorship, no TV rights. The result was that only the rich countries could send athletes, developing countries did not send one athlete."
Rogge, once a keen rugby player who also became a big cricket fan after spending time with relatives in Cornwall in his youth, says the explosion in value of sponsorship and broadcasting rights has been used towards the staging of the Games (a third of Locog's £2bn privately raised budget comes from the IOC) and underpinning the global groth of the Olympic movement.With weary resignation, he admits that the Olympics have become a lightning rod for protest. "We are supposed to cure all the ills of society and the world, every problem. We've been addressed for many, many problems – animal rights, social rights," he says. "People say the IOC has to take a position on everything. We are a sports organisation. We are not autonomous from society, we are part of society. We reflect society, the good points and the bad points."
Another spectre that has haunted successive Games has been thrust back into the spotlight. The court of arbitration for sport verdicts against IOC and British Olympic Association rules that provided for an "additional sanction" for drug cheats, but were incompatible with the global anti‑doping code, mean that the spotlight will be on the likes of LaShawn Merritt and Dwain Chambers.
"If I cross paths with Dwain Chambers and he wants to shake hands, I will shake hands and wish him well. You have to treat him normally, that's the rule of law," says Rogge, who is hopeful that the new 2013 Wada code will reintroduce the ability to ban athletes for two years plus the following Olympic Games.
On another contentious issue, he is also confident that Saudi Arabia will become the final country to ensure gender equality and send male and female athletes to the Games. There are believed to be two women in line for places, with the IOC awaiting confirmation of their nomination from the National Olympic Committee.
"We believe if there is a woman participating that will be a big symbolic event. You can't expect a country to change overnight its cultural, social, political fabric. Whether we like it or not, this is a fact of life. It will take time, but this is the first step," says Rogge.
London was also supposed to provide a template for reducing the cost of staging the Games, but the public cost has still risen to £9.3bn. Rome's decision to pull out of the race to host the 2020 Games raised fears that it would be increasingly difficult to find cities prepared to take the gamble. Rogge disagrees, insisting the three contenders for 2020 - Istanbul, Madrid and Tokyo - are strong ones, after the IOC decided Baku and Doha should not make the shortlist.
"We made good progress. The first thing I did in 2002 after my election was to put a cap on the number of athletes and to put a cap on the number of sports. We took more than 100 different measures to reduce the cost of the Games. This has resulted in a positive result in the worst economic crisis since 1930. We still had six countries reduced to five after Rome pulled out. And we still had five countries that we reduced to three with the shortlist. If you look at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games, you have six candidate cities [including Glasgow]. Already I hear for 2022, that Oslo is a candidate, that Switzerland will have a candidate, that the Americans are considering. Overall, the size of the Games is OK," he says. Baku and Doha were simply "not ready", he says. The 70-year-old has built his reputation on being an anti-Sepp Blatter, cleaning up the IOC's reputation in the wake of the Salt Lake City bribery scandal and attempting to guard against excessive expansion – putting a cap on the number of athletes (10,500) and sports |
Careful what you tweet…especially if you’re a company kicking your suppliers in the face. Right as National Agriculture Week was starting in the United States, the giant agriculture company Cargill tweeted this gem:
“We work closely with the #NonGMO Project & hope to have even more Cargill ingredients verified in the near future” https://t.co/HPwXEQAez7 pic.twitter.com/3rQrl7smMh — Cargill (@Cargill) March 17, 2017
Cargill deals with food, agriculture, financial, and industrial products and services worldwide. Most farmers are probably familiar with the company, as we are, because we sell our corn and soybeans to their local granaries. Yes, that’s right, we sell our GMO grain products to Cargill who, in turn, sells that grain to its suppliers. Cargill buys a lot of GMO grain. In fact, they will only accept non-GMO grain at certain facilities and farmers have to contract at least a year in advanced. So, the non-GMO is definitely a specialty product, not the usual that Cargill deals in.
As part of its non-GMO product line, Cargill has what is called its KnownOrigins process. The process gives food manufacturers that purchase grains from the company the ability to buy non-GMO options. In turn, when those food manufacturers create their end products, they can claim that the product, including those ingredients from Cargill, are verified non-GMO. Cargill promises that the KnownOrigins process uses stringent standards, including testing, segregation, and traceability back to the farmer.
While I may not personally like the non-GMO product lines, I understand that Cargill has customers that want to purchase non-GMO products and Cargill wants to sell those products. Cargill is in the business of making money and I will not fault them for meeting a certain market demand. Cargill’s KnownOrigins program sounds completely adequate to keep track of and monitor where those non-GMO grains come from so they can assure buyers of the product’s integrity.
The problem is that they have partnered with the Non-GMO Project to obtain certification of products. Why?
The vast majority of people are probably familiar with the Non-GMO Project because they’ve seen it on products throughout their grocery stores. You know, the little orange butterfly with the words “Non-GMO Project Verified” on it. The program works because Non-GMO Project contracts with its founding member Global FoodChain Advisors to provide verification and testing of products. The costs of this verification are borne by the company seeking it (here, Cargill).
Unfortunately, while the organization might paint itself as an innocent verification process for non-GMO products, its roots go deep into the anti-GMO movement and its current activities are decidedly against the technology. As you can imagine there is plenty of the usual anti-GMO drivel coming out of the organization. It is pretty clear that the aim of the organization is to end the use of biotechnology entirely, which we have seen from many in the pro-labeling movement. First you stigmatize it, then you label it, then you stop using it.
In case you’re wondering, some of the major donors of the Non-GMO Project include the following: Annie’s Organic, Nature’s Path, Earth’s Best Organic, Eden Organic, Nutiva, Silk, Kashi, SunRidge Farms Organic, Traditional Medicinals Wellness Teas, and Dr. Bronner’s. Not that any of those folks have a financial interest in anti-GMO rhetoric or anything…
So, the question really comes down to – why the heck is Cargill paying this organization and supporting its efforts?!
Cargill has all but declared the Non-GMO Project the gold standard of non-GMO verification. In the article the company so proudly tweeted Lea Buerman, Cargill’s Food Safety, Quality, and Regulatory manager is quoted as saying: “Non-GMO Project Verification remains the most trusted emblem for consumers seeking non-GMO food options. We continue to work closely with the Non-GMO Project and hope to have even more Cargill ingredients verified in the near future.”
By praising the company, by partnering with them, by paying them money, by making them seem legitimate, Cargill is actively promoting anti-GMO propaganda. Non-GMO Project and its ilk liken GMO farmers to the devil spreading poisonous crops into the world, destroying the environment, and making people sick. That Cargill would endorse this message is a complete slap in the face to all the farmers that are growing GMO crops and contract for sale of those crops to Cargill.
Not surprisingly, Cargill got called out by quite a few people on Twitter. Cargill’s response has been one of the weakest I have literally ever seen from a company that got caught red-handed turning its back on farmers.
Really?! I suppose when you’ve done something as indefensible as this, then something as stupid as that is pretty much the only response you will be able to give. You actively work with this organization. You promote this organization. You financially support this organization. You praise this organization. You brag about your affiliation. …But you don’t support that organization’s agenda?
Isn’t that precisely the definition of endorsing an organization??
If Cargill wants to sell non-GMO product lines, then it can use its KnownOrigins process. But the affiliation with Non-GMO Project needs to end immediately, or maybe farmers need to start considering other options when selling their GMO grain.
Cargill, don’t bite the hand that feeds you.In 2016, the self-hosted community witnessed the public launch of Nextcloud, a vastly-improved fork of ownCloud. Having almost finished migrating data on my home server to Nextcloud and experimenting with some of the more optional features such as caching, pretty links, theming and more, I felt it would be a good time to document some of this in one simple-to-follow guide.
1. What is Nextcloud?
As mentioned above Nextcloud is a fork of ownCloud that has becoming the better and faster-developed alternative to the self-hosted cloud storage software of old. If you’re an ownCloud user and have ever been frustrated by the dual licenses, the paid vs free model and – as part of it – lack of some of the better features, Nextcloud have gone completely FOSS (Free and Open-Source Software) following the Red Hat model of charging for enterprise support rather than enterprise features.
Some of the previously enterprise-only features released as part of the standard FOSS Nextcloud installation include FileDrop, an alternative to Dropbox’s “File Requests”, LibreOffice online (Collabora), an alternative to Google Docs or Office Online, two-factor authentication, improved federation and more.
2. In this guide
After completing this guide we’ll have the following:
A newly installed Nextcloud server
PHP caching provided by ACPu and Redis for a notable speed increase when navigating even the largest thumbnail-heavy folders
Pretty links that remove /index.php from the URL
SSL-enabled with default self-signed certificates and all non-HTTPS traffic redirected
2.1. Installation URL This guide assumes Nextcloud will be accessed via url.com/nextcloud. If Nextcloud should be accessed on the root of the domain, url.com, keep in mind the following: Any vhost entries in Apache configs referring to the directory path /var/www/html should be changed to /var/www/html/nextcloud
entries in Apache configs referring to the directory path should be changed to The Nextcloud config.php base URL should be changed from '/nextcloud' to '/'
base URL should be changed from to Lets Encrypt will work, however the.well-known directory will need to be moved out and back in to the nextcloud directory before and after an upgrade respectively to avoid an integrity check error.
3. Environment
For this guide Nextcloud will be installed on a remote Ubuntu VM, however it can equally be installed on a local Ubuntu server, a Raspberry Pi or a Linux Container such as Docker or LXD.
3.1. Hardware
Nextcloud don’t provide a lot of detail for minimum recommended spec, only advising 512MB of RAM. As the server is a full VM and not simply a container, we’ll provide a bit of a buffer to avoid any possible contention.
1GHz CPU
1GB RAM
20GB HDD
20GB of disk will be enough for this guide, but naturally the amount chosen should reflect the amount of data to be stored. Furthermore, if redundancy isn’t offered as standard it’s always a good idea to mirror/RAID the storage area to avoid downtime as best as possible. Typically this is only a consideration required with dedicated servers, but there’s no harm in checking.
3.1.1. Plan backups No matter what level of redundancy is set up, it’s not a replacement for a good backup strategy. Never assume data is safe in a remote datacentre as usually providers offer no liability or responsibility for lost data should a server fail.
3.1.2. Nextcloud is not a backup solution Nextcloud is a not a replacement for typical backup solutions or processes but rather a tool for collaboration and sharing. Do not rely on it as the sole solution for protecting your data.
3.2. Software
Ubuntu server (LTS preferred) with root (sudo) access
Apache2
PHP 7
mySQL / MariaDB
The latest version of Nextcloud (this guide has been tested as far back as v.9 however)
Besides the above-mentioned packages and their respective dependencies, we should aim to keep the amount of additional software installed to a minimum; the Ubuntu-minimal image is a good place to start here as it requires adding packages after installation rather than sifting through and removing those that aren’t required. From a security perspective this is advised in order to lower to attack surface should an exploit allow a 3rd party to gain shell access to the server – the fewer additional services an attacker can latch onto, the lower the chance of gaining root and doing any real damage. In this case, the VPS provider offers a relatively minimal install, meaning there’s no requirement to upload an Ubuntu-minimal ISO to install from.
Due to the advanced requirements in this guide, root/sudo access to the Ubuntu instance is mandatory.
4. Setting up the environment
For those with a functioning Ubuntu server and required components, please skip to step 4.1.
First we need to spin up a VM or container, examples of which are as follows:
Once the server is setup and we’re logged in, we can continue.
As this is a brand new installation based on images that likely don’t update very often, it’s a good idea to upgrade the server before we begin:
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
When the update has completed, it’ll provide a list of packages to be upgraded. Providing we’re happy with what we see, tap Enter.
With the server updated, if one doesn’t already exist, a non-root user should be created with sudo privileges and the root account should disabled, once complete we’ll now install the required components for Nextcloud:
sudo apt install lamp-server^
4.1.1. Meta packages The use of ^ (caret) in the package name is important. It suggests that the installed package is a ‘meta-package’, meaning a number of programs that are usually installed together.
This command will install Apache, MySQL and PHP along with several PHP/Apache modules to ensure seamless collaboration between the packages. Once happy with the package selection to be installed, tap Enter.
MySQL will request a root user password. Ensure this is strong and keep the password safe; losing it can cause all manner of issues.
Once installed, we’ll now install APCu and Redis:
sudo apt install php-apcu redis-server php-redis
Confirm the packages to be installed match expectations and hit Enter.
Finally, we’ll install the minimal Nextcloud PHP modules required not to error during installation (more can be enabled later):
sudo apt install php-zip php-dompdf php-xml php-mbstring php-gd php-curl unzip
And enable a few apache modules to support our configuration:
sudo a2enmod rewrite headers env dir mime
Now we’ll restart Apache:
sudo service apache2 restart
Before moving on check via a browser that Apache is up and running
4.2. Enable SSL
With the server currently running over HTTP port 80, we can now additionally configure SSL to ensure the Nextcloud installation is secure.
4.2.1. Let’s Encrypt
Let’s Encrypt offers completely free SSL certificates for securing websites. The client is entirely command line based offering simple setup and automated renewal via cron.
First, choose a location (such as /home/user/ ), download the Let’s Encrypt client and set it as executable:
sudo wget https://dl.eff.org/certbot-auto && sudo chmod a+x certbot-auto
Next, run the client:
sudo./certbot-auto --apache --agree-tos --rsa-key-size 4096 --email user@domain.org --redirect -d nc.domain.org
Where:
--apache uses the Apache plugin to fully setup and integrate with the existing Apache configuration
--agree-tos simply pre-agrees to the TOS, preventing it popping up during installation
--rsa-key-size defines the length (and therefore security) of the RSA key. Default is 2048.
--email is the email address to register against the certificate (used for reminders by Let’s Encrypt)
--redirect will create both the SSL virtualhost configuration file and add a redirect for HTTP traffic to HTTPs (80 to 443)
-d is the domain to secure
On first run the Let’s Encrypt certbot will install all required dependencies (following approval), however with the added flags above, will not require any further input to set everything up.
Navigating now to the domain allocated to the server will show an SSL-enabled website! If the browser complains the site is not fully protected at this point, it’s due to the default Apache landing page requesting content over HTTP and not an issue with the certificate.
That’s all there is to it. Let’s Encrypt handles everything from certificate generation to Apache configuration, meaning nothing needs to be done beyond what’s documented above. The manual process (below) is far more involved.
One step from the manual process which is recommended is to add the following snippet to the Let’s Encrypt-created vhost.conf file in the same way as is documented in 4.2.2 below:
<Directory /var/www/html/> Options +FollowSymlinks AllowOverride All <IfModule mod_dav.c> Dav off </IfModule> SetEnv HOME /var/www/html SetEnv HTTP_HOME /var/www/html </Directory> <IfModule mod_headers.c> Header always set Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=15768000; preload" </IfModule>
The text above may be pasted under the ServerName line in the file located at:
/etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default-le-ssl.conf
As the certificate currently expires after 90 days by default, to automatically renew the certificate let’s create a cronjob:
sudo crontab -e
This will open the crontab file for the root user (as sudo was used) meaning sudo (and as such, password authentication) won’t need to be used when running the renew command. Add the following line to the crontab file:
0 0 * * 0 /home/jason/certbot-auto renew
Edit the area in bold, then Ctrl + X to quit followed by Y to save the file.
Skip 4.2.2 and continue to Installing Nextcloud.
4.2.2. Manual
We’ll begin by enabling the SSL module for Apache:
sudo a2enmod ssl
Apache sets up self-signed certificates as part of the installation, so for this guide we’ll use those. They can be replaced at any time with functioning 3rd party certificates by editing the vhost file we’ll create next. It’s highly recommended they’re switched sooner rather than later.
sudo vim /etc/apache2/sites-available/nextcloud.conf
Insert the following (all items in bold can be changed to suit the environment):
<IfModule mod_ssl.c> <VirtualHost _default_:443> ServerAdmin you@domain.org ServerName nc.domain.org DocumentRoot /var/www/html <Directory /var/www/html/> Options +FollowSymlinks AllowOverride All <IfModule mod_dav.c> Dav off </IfModule> SetEnv HOME /var/www/html SetEnv HTTP_HOME /var/www/html </Directory> <IfModule mod_headers.c> Header always set Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=15768000; preload" </IfModule> SSLEngine on SSLCertificateFile /etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key </VirtualHost> </IfModule>
Save and quit, then enable the new configuration:
sudo a2ensite nextcloud.conf
Now restart Apache:
sudo service apache2 restart
SSL should now be enabled, allowing us to navigate to https://nc.bayton.org when we install Nextcloud later. Of course the page will show an error as the certificates are not trusted. Let’s Encrypt offer free SSL certificates and Mozilla offer a tool to help correctly set up SSL on the server. Check them out for more information.
Optionally, we can also force a redirect from non-SSL to SSL with the following:
sudo vim /etc/apache2/sites-available/nc-redir.conf
Insert the following (all items in bold can be changed to suit the environment):
<VirtualHost *:80> ServerName nc.domain.org ServerAdmin you@domain.org RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}$1 [R=301,L] </VirtualHost>
Save and quit, then enable the new configuration:
sudo a2ensite nc-redir.conf
Then disable the default configuration:
sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf
Then restart Apache:
sudo service apache2 restart
With that, all traffic will be forced to HTTPS.
5. Install Nextcloud
With the server environment ready (excluding some final NC-related configurations) we’ll move on to installing Nextcloud itself.
5.1. Download Nextcloud
Change to the webroot directory at /var/www/html with cd /var/www/html
Download Nextcloud via command line with sudo wget https://download.nextcloud.com/server/releases/latest.zip
NB: future and previous versions can be obtained from Nextcloud.
Unpack the compressed zip with sudo unzip latest.zip
As shown above with ls there’s now a nextcloud folder situated under /var/www/html/ but currently root owns it. We can change that:
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/nextcloud
Now the Apache account, www-data, will have write-access to the Nextcloud installation directory.
5.2. Create the Nextcloud database
5.2.1. This is optional By default, Nextcloud can create a database and database user when supplying the root user and password in the Nextcloud web-based installer. The following steps are intended for either someone who wants to create their own database or does not want to supply Nextcloud with the root account credentials.
Before switching to Chrome to run the web-based installer, we’ll first create a database.
We can open a session with mysql by running the command mysql -u root -p and providing the root password we entered earlier.
Now we’ll create a dedicated database and user for Nextcloud with the following commands:
CREATE DATABASE nextcloud; CREATE USER 'ncuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'ncpassword'; GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON nextcloud. * TO 'ncuser'@'localhost';
Then exit the mysql session with quit
5.3. Install Nextcloud
Open up a browser and navigate to ip-or-hostname/nextcloud. Hopefully by this point a DNS entry has propagated; we’ll navigate to nc.domain.org/nextcloud to continue installation.
Success! The Nextcloud installation screen is there and showing no errors. Installation from here is simple:
Provide a username and secure password for the admin account. Select a location for the data directory. Provide the database user we configured earlier: ncuser Provide the database user password: ncpassword Provide the database name: nextcloud Confirm the database is on localhost (it is).
When selecting a location for the data directory, keeping it in the webroot is really only OK providing.htaccess rules work. If they do not, as is the case at this point due to the way Apache is setup by default, or fail at any point in the future, the data directory will be publicly visible. We don’t want that.
Ideally it’s best practice to situate the data directory outside of /var/www/ in a location inaccessible for guests browsing the website. Where it’s ultimately placed is at the discretion of the administrator, though ensure the user www-data can write to it in its final location with:
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /path/to/data
Scroll down and click Finish Setup.
6. Configuration
As it stands currently, Nextcloud isn’t very happy.
Ignore the HTTP error, this will disappear when we access the site over HTTPS.
6.1. Enable.htaccess
The.htaccess file doesn’t work because we’ve put Nextcloud in the main /var/www/html webroot controlled by the apache.conf file. By default it is set to disallow.htaccess overrides and we’ll need to change that:
sudo vim /etc/apache2/apache2.conf
Then change
<Directory /var/www/> Options Indexes FollowSymLinks AllowOverride None Require all granted </Directory>
To
<Directory /var/www/> Options Indexes FollowSymLinks AllowOverride All Require all granted </Directory>
Save and quit, then restart Apache with:
sudo service apache2 restart
6.2. Enable caching
The difference in speed between a Nextcloud server without cache and one with is huge. Particularly as the file and folder counts increase and more multimedia files make their way onto the server, caching becomes increasingly important for maintaining speed and performance. ACPu will handle a lot of the caching initially, leaving Redis to manage file locking. As the server grows and ACPu demands more resources, we could configure Redis to take a more active role in distributed caching. Having installed both APCu and Redis earlier, we’ll now configure them.
First, open the Redis configuration file at /etc/redis/redis.conf
sudo vim /etc/redis/redis.conf
Now, find and change:
port 6379 to port 0
Then uncomment:
unixsocket /var/run/redis/redis.sock
unixsocketperm 700 changing permissions to 770 at the same time: unixsocketperm 770
Save and quit, then add the Apache user www-data to the redis group:
sudo usermod -a -G redis www-data
Finally, restart Apache with:
sudo service apache2 restart
And start Redis server with:
sudo service redis-server start
With Redis configured, we can add the caching configuration to the Nextcloud config file:
sudo vim /var/www/html/nextcloud/config/config.php
Add the following:
'memcache.local' => '\\OC\\Memcache\\Redis','memcache.locking' => '\\OC\\Memcache\\Redis', 'filelocking.enabled' => 'true','redis' => array ( 'host' => '/var/run/redis/redis.sock', 'port' => 0, 'timeout' => 0.0, ),
A reboot may be required before the configuration change takes effect, but before we do we’ll make sure Redis is enabled to start on boot with:
sudo systemctl enable redis-server
Caching is now configured.
With both of these now resolved, the admin interface is looking a lot healthier:
Much like theming, pretty links aren’t mandatory, but they add to the overall aesthetics of the server.
Most of the hard work was already done during the setup of the environment with the enabling of mod_env and mod_rewrite, however to complete the removal of index.php in every URL, re-open the Nexcloud config file:
sudo vim /var/www/html/nextcloud/config/config.php
Add 'htaccess.RewriteBase' => '/nextcloud', (where nextcloud is the URL location – domain.com/nextcloud – of the installation) below one of the existing configuration options, for example:
Finally, from /var/www/html/nextcloud, run:
sudo -u www-data php occ maintenance:update:htaccess
From:
To (don’t simply refresh the page, remove index.php from the URL and load the page again, otherwise it looks like it doesn’t work):
6.4. Max upload
Until we try to upload files this is easy to miss. By default PHP ships with a file-upload limitation reminiscent of file sizes in the early 2000’s – 2MB. As we’re installing a personal cloud that may hold on to files gigabytes in size, we can change the PHP configuration to allow far more flexibility.
Open the php.ini file (7.0 may need to be replaced with a newer version of PHP, like 7.2):
sudo vim /etc/php/7.0/apache2/php.ini
Locate and amend:
upload_max_filesize = 2048M post_max_size = 2058M
The max size can be tweaked to suit, however be sure to always give post_max_size a bit more than upload_max_filesize to prevent errors when uploading files that match the maximum allowed upload size.
Restart Apache:
sudo service apache2 restart
Log into the admin area of Nextcloud, navigate to additional settings and ensure the max upload setting there reflects the change made to the php.ini file (in this example, 2GB):
6.5. Nextcloud 12+ PHP Opcache
From Nextcloud 12, additional configuration is required in order to correctly setup PHP Opcache. The following error displays until this is completed:
Re-open the php.ini file:
sudo vim /etc/php/7.0/apache2/php.ini
At the bottom of the file, add the following, as displayed above:
; Nextcloud Opcache settings opcache.enable=1 opcache.enable_cli=1 opcache.interned_strings_buffer=8 opcache.max_accelerated_files=10000 opcache.memory_consumption=128 opcache.save_comments=1 opcache.revalidate_freq=1
Save the file and restart Apache:
sudo service apache2 restart
On refreshing the browser, the warning should no longer be there.
6.6. Server-side encryption (optional)
As we’re running our Nextcloud installation on a remote host, far outside the confines of our internal network, it’s a good opportunity to enable server-side encryption. This guarantees that should anyone gain access to the data hosted on the server, file contents won’t be readable.
6.6.1. Encryption can lead to data loss Encryption is a complex topic and getting this wrong will lead to data loss. Generally, using Nextcloud server-side encryption is not needed or recommended and instead you should strongly consider client-side encryption, or other methods of enforcing OS filesystem encryption instead. Continue at your own risk.
First we’ll enable the default encryption app:
Click the Files link and switch to Apps Click Not enabled from the side-menu Click Enable on the Default encryption module
Next we’ll log into the Nexcloud administration area and navigate to Server-side encryption. Click Enable server-side encryption:
After reading through the warnings, click Enable encryption. We now need to log out and back in:
After logging back in and returning to this area, it will be possible to create a global recovery key:
However, if a global recovery key is considered too all-powerful, individual users may also recover encrypted files with their password by setting the following option to Enabled in Personal located when clicking the username in the top-right of the screen:
All data will now be encrypted at rest, as well as protected in transit when using SSL.
7. Conclusion
So following this guide we now have a new server running Nextcloud on Ubuntu supporting both caching and pretty links.
While this is yet another long-winded guide, as usual there’s nothing here I would consider to be overly complex which, for a platform that empowers self-hosting data, is a big plus over other solutions.
Want to know more about Nextcloud? Visit nextcloud.com or their thriving support community at help.nextcloud.com. I’m @JasonBayton there if you’d like to start a discussion about this guide or Nextcloud in general!
I hope this guide has been helpful, as always I’m @jasonbayton on Twitter, @bayton.org on Facebook and will also respond to comments below if you have any questions. I’d also like to know if you successfully installed Nextcloud following this guide, leave a comment below!ESL have announced the invited teams for the European and North American closed qualifiers where the last four teams for IEM Katowice will be determined.
The $250,000 contest which will be hosted in Katowice, Poland from March 1-5 will hand out a total of $250,000 prize money to twelve squads. Eight of these teams have already been determined as the likes of Virtus.pro, SK, and Astralis were invited.
G2, Envy, Natus Vincere, mousesports, and fnatic have received invites to compete in the closed European qualifier. Joining them are GODSENT and Heroic who triumphed in the first open qualifier.
The European qualifier will feature heavy hitters such as fnatic
The second European open qualifier will take place from February 1-2 and four more teams will qualify for the closed qualifier. The aforementioned seven teams and four teams from the second open qualifier will fight for three spots at IEM Katowice in the closed qualifier taking place from February 4-5.
Here is the team list for the closed European qualifier:
Envy Natus Vincere G2 mousesports fnatic GODSENT Heroic Slot for open qual. Slot for open qual. Slot for open qual. Slot for open qual. Slot for open qual. Slot for open qual. Slot for open qual. Slot for open qual.
The North American closed qualifier will feature Liquid and Immortals, who were both invited, and they will be joined by two teams from the open qualifier which will run from January 21-22. On the fourth and fifth of February, four teams will clash for the last spot at IEM Katowice:
Below are the teams that will participate the closed NA qualifier:
Liquid Immortals Slot for open qual. Slot for open qual. Slot for open qual. Slot for open qual.
If you wish to attend IEM Katowice, click here and buy your ticket.
BenjaCS is a staff writer at HLTV.org and can be found on Twitter.After an algal bloom off Cape Cod was identified earlier this month as a possible cause in the deaths of gannet seabirds on the coasts of Maine and Massachusetts, scientists are now considering whether toxic algae may have caused the death of six North Atlantic right whales in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
The whale carcasses all have been spotted within the past month floating off the Magdalen Islands, according to Canadian news media reports.
The deaths are of particular concern because of the critically endangered status of the North Atlantic right whale population, which is estimated to number around only 500 animals. Six dead right whales account for more than 1 percent of the species total estimated population.
The population of northern gannets in North America, by contrast, is believed to be approximately half a million, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
The Globe and Mail reported Monday that scientists have taken some samples at sea from the floating whales and have tagged three of the corpses with radio trackers but have yet to tow any of them to land, where they can conduct comprehensive necropsies that may reveal why they died. The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. has reported that entanglement in fishing gear and ship strikes have not been ruled out as possible factors.
The well-being of North Atlantic right whales has received a lot of attention in Maine because of the impact federal regulations aimed at protecting whales has had on the state’s iconic lobster fishery. Rules that govern how lobstermen must configure their gear to decrease the risk of entanglement has had a significant impact on the fishery, which employs thousands of Mainers and produces half a billion dollars of lobster each year.
Earlier this year, U.S. officials said they are investigating a spike in the deaths of humpback whales along the East Coast over the past 18 months. The deaths, some of which have been attributed to ship strikes, come at a time when the numbers of humpbacks in the western North Atlantic have been on the rise, which last fall resulted in the population segment being de-listed from the federal Endangered Species Act.
If toxic algae is found to be behind the deaths of the right whales in the Gulf of St.Lawrence, it would not be the first time that algae has been blamed for killing whales.
From 2005 through 2014, deaths of young southern right whales off the Valdes Peninsula in Argentina spiked into the hundreds. The species, which can be found in the southern Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans, has an overall estimated population range of 7,000 to perhaps twice that, though some more regional populations such as off the west coast of South America still are considered to be critically low.
In a scientific paper published in 2015 in the journal Marine Mammal Science, researchers identified the likely culprit as a bloom of the toxic algae Pseudo-nitzschia, some varieties of which can produce domoic acid, a potent neurotoxin that also can affect bivalve shellfish and cause amnesiac shellfish poisoning in people who consume it.
Right whales populations in the northern Pacific and Atlantic oceans each are considered to be a separate species from their southern counterparts because of the whales’ inability to travel through warm equatorial waters that separate Earth’s northern and southern hemispheres.
All right whale species are listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act, as are some other whales species, because of severe population declines caused by centuries of commercial whale hunting.
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GoogleMONTREAL — This is Marc Bergevin’s chance to put his stamp on the Montreal Canadiens.
The main pieces of the team’s core — MVP goaltender Carey Price, Norris Trophy winner P.K. Subban, four-time 30-goal man Max Pacioretty and plucky winger Brendan Gallagher — were already in place when Bergevin took over as general manager in the summer of 2012. Most of the auxiliary pieces were there, too.
He’s made two vital additions in four years: centre Alex Galchenyuk and defenceman Jeff Petry.
The incentive to be bold, to institute drastic change, wasn’t all that high after each of Bergevin’s first three seasons. The Canadiens captured two division titles over that time, won four Stanley Cup playoff series and made an appearance in the 2014 Eastern Conference final. Building slowly was a luxury he could afford.
But now, with the 2015-16 Canadiens crumbling under the weight of Price’s 70-game absence, missing the post-season by an 11-point margin, all eyes are on the GM.
Which direction Bergevin goes in will become much clearer seven days from today. The NHL’s draft lottery on April 30 gives Montreal between a five and six per cent chance of picking in the top three this summer.
How would Auston Matthews look in your team’s colours? Here’s a preview of what it could look like for all of the 14 lottery teams. The NHL Draft Lottery is April 30th! A video posted by Sportsnet (@sportsnet) on Apr 21, 2016 at 7:42am PDT
But if the balls fall where they’re expected to, and the Canadiens end up selecting ninth overall, Bergevin’s most pertinent work to address the immediate needs of the team will be done via trade and free agency. The first option will be necessary to exercise in order to subtract salary and create the necessary space to make valuable additions through the second one.
If Bergevin plays his cards right, convincing some of this year’s pending unrestricted free agents to play in Montreal can have his team right back in the thick of things. And with Price just two seasons away from the biggest payout a goaltender’s ever seen in this league, the time has never been more right to go for it.
That means making the strongest pitch for marquee centre Steven Stamkos, and it also means addressing other pressing needs.
Right wing:
Bergevin took several swings at filling this hole and struck out each time. The closest he came to knocking it out of the park was when he traded for Thomas Vanek at the 2014 deadline.
Granted, Vanek had made his living as a left-winger before moving over to the right of Pacioretty and David Desharnais to form one of the deadliest lines in the NHL. But he crashed and burned in the post-season before leaving for Minnesota as an unrestricted free agent.
There was Daniel Briere, a transplanted centreman on the last leg of his career.
Then there was P.A. Parenteau, who couldn’t seem to earn coach Michel Therrien’s trust no matter how well he played. Jiri Sekac and Devante Smith-Pelly fell into the same category.
And the most recent experiments, Zack Kassian and Alexander Semin, were brought in the summer of 2015 and barely made it past fall with the Canadiens.
Top target: Kyle Okposo.
Estimated price: $6 million AAV over 4-5 seasons.
The 28-year-old righty fills every need Montreal has at the position. He’s a heavy player at 6-feet, 217 pounds, he’s a bonafide 20-goal scorer, and he can also make plays.
Okposo is coming off a 22-goal, 42-assist season, and is currently trying to help the Islanders on get past Round 1 of the playoffs for the first time 23 years.
Smart buys: David Perron, Troy Brouwer, Jiri Hudler.
None of these three players can push the Canadiens over the edge, but all of them can provide value on short-term, lower-cost deals.
Defence:
If there’s one thing that’s become clear over Bergevin’s time as general manager of the Canadiens, it’s that he values depth on the blue line. Injuries forcing Montreal to use 15 different defencemen this season must have only reinforced this mentality.
The Canadiens got a glimpse of what their defensive prospects can offer. Most of them proved serviceable, but none of them possess the skill-set to adequately fill in on the top pair. And 2015 first-rounder Noah Juulsen, who does project to be a top-four defenceman, is still a couple years away from making his impact in the NHL.
Andrei Markov, 37, is a little too long in the tooth to continue logging top minutes against the opposition’s best forwards. Therrien stated mid-season that his aim was to keep the Russian rearguard to under 22 minutes of ice time per game, but injuries saw him play over 24 minutes in 41 of his 82 games.
“Markov |
production and trafficking find that it is nevertheless the source of a major part of their informal tax revenues, also locking them into the drug economy. The Myanmar military, which has ultimate authority over militias and Border Guard Forces and profits from their activities can only justify the existence of such semi-autonomous armed groups in the context of the broader ethnic conflict in the state – so the Tatmadaw also therefore has no incentive to end that conflict.
Militia leaders’ influence is underscored by the fact that several have risen to elected office. The head of one of the largest such groups in Shan State implicated in the drug trade, the Pansay militia, was a Shan State parliamentary representative until 2015; the former head of the Kutkai militia is currently speaker of the lower house of the national parliament (both deny involvement in the drug trade).
B. Geopolitics and the China Factor
Since the collapse of the Chinese-backed communist insurgency in northern Myanmar in 1989, Shan State’s economy has become closely bound with that of south-west China. Chinese investment has surged, huge plantations – everything from watermelons to bananas to rubber – have been established to serve the Chinese market, and cross-border trade has skyrocketed. Transport infrastructure has improved to accommodate the increased flows, which also facilitates illicit trade, including drugs. Large volumes of contraband can be concealed among other commodities moving along highways and across major border crossings, rather than having to be smuggled on the back of mules over remote mountain passes. The “ants moving houses” approach – using hundreds of low-level couriers each transporting small amounts of drugs – has given way to large consignments. A record May 2018 seizure in Malaysia of 1.2 tonnes of crystal meth from Myanmar was the first discovered in a containerised shipment.
CMEC’s scale and geostrategic importance will pull Myanmar, and Shan State in particular, even further into China’s economic and political orbit.
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Economic integration is set to accelerate as a new multi-billion-dollar China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) takes shape, the memorandum of understandings for which were signed by Chinese and Myanmar officials in September 2018. The scheme includes an upgraded road and new high-speed rail line connecting Kunming, the capital of south-western Chinese province of Yunnan, with the port of Kyaukpyu on the Rakhine seaboard, via northern Shan and Mandalay, along with a number of associated trade, infrastructure and energy projects. This project, part of China’s “Belt and Road Initiative”, will give the rapidly growing but landlocked economy of south-west China access to the Indian Ocean, and China as a whole an alternative to the congested Straits of Malacca sea route.
CMEC’s scale and geostrategic importance will pull Myanmar, and Shan State in particular, even further into China’s economic and political orbit. In the long term, this could lead to a reduction in illicit economies, as lucrative opportunities emerge in the formal economy, and as the enabling environment of conflict and insecurity comes to an end, something that China has considerable leverage over and that would be in its long-term interest. In the short term, however, the opposite could be true. In the recent history of the Golden Triangle, increased trade and improved infrastructure have expanded rather than narrowed opportunities for illicit profiteering. People in northern Shan State with detailed knowledge of the drug trade suggest that is likely to be the case in that area with CMEC.
VI. What Should Be Done?
A. A Complex Policy Challenge
The drug trade is an important source of revenue for armed groups and militias, with the huge profits fuelling greater militarisation in Shan State that, while it does not always produce immediate or intense armed clashes, greatly undermines the future prospects for peace. Illicit activity also drives a political economy dominated by armed groups, organised crime and corruption that will be more difficult to dislodge over time and as it generates greater profits. Graft and other ills associated with the drugs trade aggravate the grievances among ethnic minorities at the heart of the long-running civil war.
Illicit drug production and trafficking in Shan State is a complex policy challenge involving security, law enforcement, political and public health aspects. Myanmar’s authorities and donors need an integrated approach that addresses all of these areas. Organised crime and corruption are making greater inroads, many of its people and communities are severely affected by an epidemic of cheap and easily-available drugs, and the country’s reputation and international relations are suffering as it has become the predominant regional source of methamphetamines (both yaba and ice).
In February 2018, Myanmar released its first ever National Drug Control Policy. The policy was developed by the police drug prevention committee with support from UNODC, following an extensive consultation process. It recognises the seriousness and scale of meth production in Myanmar, and also the importance of a harm reduction approach to drug use in the country – that is, prioritising public health approaches for users and refocusing law enforcement and criminal justice efforts toward combating organised crime and corruption. Almost simultaneously, the parliament enacted an amended drug law, which was not developed in coordination with the new policy, with which it is partly contradictory, in particular as it retains a focus on draconian criminal penalties for drug users caught with even tiny quantities of drugs.
President Win Myint is also giving welcome attention to the issue through his anti-drug initiative and in particular the establishment in June 2018 of a Drug Activity Special Complaint Department to receive tips from members of the public. Such an approach, however, tends to drive arrests and prosecution of drug users and small dealers and can undermine harm reduction efforts because it further stigmatises drug users, makes it more difficult for them to access harm reduction services and deprives them of those services if they are incarcerated. It is therefore inconsistent with the objectives set out in the new national policy of prioritising public health and refocusing law enforcement and criminal justice efforts toward combating organised crime and corruption. Some Myanmar officials estimate that up to 70 per cent of the country’s prison population has been incarcerated for drug offenses, mostly possession of small quantities. That the government has recently expressed its intention to target major players is a welcome change.
Tackling the drug trade will not be easy and comes with risks of pushback, perhaps violent, from those involved. But the alternative – allowing parts of Shan State to continue to be a safe haven for this large-scale criminal enterprise – will lead to greater insecurity and curbing it will become more difficult as organised crime and armed militias become more powerful. In order to ensure a coherent and effective strategy, the Myanmar government should reconcile the inconsistent approaches set out in the new national policy, the revised drug law, and the president’s anti-drug campaign to ensure that it stops prosecuting users and small-scale sellers and instead focuses on the upper echelons of organised crime and corruption.
B. Political and Security Aspects
The Tatmadaw should reconsider its approach to managing conflict in Myanmar’s borderlands. For decades, its strategy has relied on cutting tactical ceasefire deals with groups or establishing pro-government militias, and in return allowing them to pursue licit and illicit economic activities. This has ultimately fuelled violence and allowed criminal enterprises and a corrosive political economy to flourish. Peace, stability and development in these areas have suffered as a result.
In particular, the Tatmadaw should review its policies around militias and Border Guard Forces, the fact that they receive limited or no resources from the military, and the freedoms and impunity they are granted in order to enable them to be self-funding. The costs of these policies are high for the military itself. They impact its ability to deliver security and stability in those areas, as well as damaging its reputation. The drug trade and other illegal activities have taken a heavy toll on communities across Myanmar. Countries in the region and beyond must deal with many of the consequences, including drug flows, insecurity and the increasing power of transnational criminal organisations.
Responsibility for drug production and other illegal activities in non-state-controlled areas – that is, the Wa and Mongla enclaves – lies with their de facto authorities. Wa leaders have a stated ten-year plan to eliminate methamphetamines from its areas (including its southern area) by June 2024, though it could achieve this sooner if its leaders wanted. The reality, however, is that without a political settlement to the area’s ethnic conflicts, it will be very difficult for Shan State to move away from an economy dominated by organised crime and corruption and based on drugs and other illicit activities, including wildlife smuggling, unregulated mining, illicit casinos, money laundering and racketeering. Progress toward such a settlement would require the government and military to adopt a more proactive, flexible approach to the format and inclusivity of negotiations with ethnic armed groups and consider political concessions. Talks must include discussion of security sector reform and demobilisation of paramilitary structures such as militias and Border Guard Forces, issue that are currently not on the table.
C. Corruption
In addition to his focus on tackling the illegal drug trade, President Win Myint has also prioritised the fight against corruption. His first meeting after his inauguration was with the Anti-Corruption Commission, at which he urged the chair – a reform-minded former general – to follow evidence wherever it led and to alert him if he faced interference. The commission’s empowerment led almost immediately to charges against the director of Myanmar’s food and drug administration for allegedly demanding money in connection with a tender award. In May 2018, the finance minister resigned in the middle of a high-profile investigation, though the commission ultimately said it did not have grounds to pursue charges.
The president should draw a more explicit linkage between his anti-drug and anti-corruption efforts. Effectively tackling the illegal drug trade will require going after the main players who currently act with impunity, and targeting the corrupt payments to officials that facilitate their activities. The president should direct the Anti-Corruption Commission to prioritise these issues.
The commission does not have the authority to investigate the Myanmar military. It thus falls on Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing to take steps to investigate and take action to end drug-related corruption within the military, focusing on senior officers who facilitate or turn a blind eye to the trade.
Myanmar’s government and donors should support surveys and research to im-prove their understanding of domestic drug markets and identify emerging trends in supply and use.
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Governments in neighbouring countries need to play their part too. As has been widely noted by drug control agencies and policy groups, the drugs trade would not be possible without high-level corruption in those countries – including China, Laos and Thailand, through which large consignments of drugs or their precursors are smuggled. China has a particular responsibility to prevent precursor smuggling; it is the main source of these chemicals, but has almost never intercepted shipments crossing its border with Myanmar. China should also exert its considerable influence over the Wa and Mongla armed groups to press them to end their involvement in the drug trade and other criminal activities in their enclaves.
D. Harm Reduction
Since the early-2000s, yaba use has surged in Myanmar, tracking increased local manufacture of the drug – which was initially produced for export, but for which after some time a local market also developed and grew. Yaba has become steadily cheaper and more readily available, despite significant increases in large and small seizures, and arrests of users and small-time dealers. As the new National Drug Control Policy recognises, law enforcement alone will not reduce the availability of or demand for the drug.
Crystal meth is likely to follow the same trajectory. It is becoming increasingly popular in the region, and while retail supply and demand in Myanmar at the present time is limited, this will undoubtedly change. Such a shift will have important public health implications given the potency of crystal meth compared with yaba, and because it is suitable for injection.
Myanmar’s government and donors should support surveys and research to improve their understanding of domestic drug markets and identify emerging trends in supply and use. This will give them the evidence base to scale up harm reduction services for amphetamines, particularly crystal meth, including by disseminating accurate information on health risks, promoting safer use practices (such as preventing users switching from inhalation to injection) and providing access to evidence-based treatments.
The government should prioritise education and harm reduction responses over punitive and stigmatising criminal justice approaches. This includes improving police training on how to deal with drug-related issues (searching people who have needles, managing violent users and prioritising the referral of users to harm reduction services rather than arresting them, for example). The government should grant greater access for international agencies, including those working in health and development, to remote and conflict-affected areas, so they can implement education, health and harm reduction programs. Access to prisons and labour camps is also important given the high proportion of drug users in these populations and the lack of harm reduction services available.
VII. Conclusion
Myanmar’s Shan State has been mired in conflict for decades and has long been a centre for illicit drug production – initially opium and heroin, then from the 1990s also yaba. Good infrastructure, proximity to precursor supplies from China and reliable security and impunity provided by pro-government militias and in rebel-held enclaves mean that it has now also become one of the main global centres of crystal meth production, exporting hundreds of thousands of kilos of the high-purity drug to regional markets each year. The scale of production and profit is now so vast that it likely dwarfs the formal sector of Shan State, and is at the centre of its political economy. This greatly complicates efforts to resolve the armed conflict and build a functional, licit economy in the state.
The government should redouble its anti-narcotics efforts as set out in its new national drug policy, focusing on the key players in the trade and the corruption that they rely on and fuel. At the same time, at community level it should focus more on education and harm reduction, with support from international agencies, rather than punitive and stigmatising criminal justice approaches. The Myanmar military should rethink its conflict management approaches and exercise greater control over – and ultimately disarm and disband – militias and other pro-government paramilitary forces.
Brussels, 8 January 2019
Appendix A: Map of Shan State
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Appendix B: Key Locations and Trade Routes Mentioned in the Report
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Appendix C: Acronyms and GlossaryThere are plenty of theories for why diets don’t work, why the pounds won’t go away or they come back so quickly: Diets make you tired. They eat away at healthy muscle. They’re unnatural and can’t be followed for a lifetime. They may be unhealthy and lacking in vital nutrients. They can lead to eating disorders.
But now a group of researchers from Albert Einstein College of Medicine have a new theory—dieting causes the brain to eat itself. (Their study is published today in Cell Metabolism.)
Scientists have known for a while that when a body becomes starved for sustenance, cells start eating bits and pieces of themselves. It’s a process known as “autophagy” and one that’s a normal part of the cell life cycle; it’s how other cells get energy during the tough times. But it was thought that the brain was largely resistant to autophagy under these conditions.
At least one part of the brain, however, now appears to self-cannibalize. It’s the hypothalamus, which sits right above the brain stem and regulates a variety of functions, including sleep, body temperature, thirst and hunger. The researchers, working with mice, found that neurons in the hypothalamus started eating their own organelles and proteins when the animals were deprived of food. That autophagy then set off a series of steps, which included releasing fatty acids, that resulted in the release of hunger signals, telling the brain that more food was needed.
When the autophagy was blocked by the researchers, though, those hunger signals were blocked. The mice became lighter and leaner after being deprived of food, and they ate less and burned more energy. This insight into metabolism may lead to the development of better treatments for obesity and metabolic syndrome, the scientists write.
In addition, the researchers speculate, the finding may provide clues about why a high-fat diet may make you more hungry—all those fatty acids in the bloodstream may set off that same series of steps that the autophagy of neurons did, making a person more hungry and prompting them to eat even more.What better way to honor the youngsters in the Minor Leagues than to hand out some good ole’ fashioned high school superlatives? Yeah, I can probably think of a few better ways too, but handing out these bullshit awards is just more fun. Here are the 2016 MiLB Player Superlatives/Awards:
Player Who Hasn’t Even Begun To Peak, And When He Does Peak, He Will Peak All Over Your Face: Tim Tebow NYM, OF – For being just as delusional about his abilities as Dennis Reynolds is from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Most Likely To Succeed: Yoan Moncada BOS, 2B/3B – Kinda cheating because signing a $31.5 million signing bonus is already considered succeeding, but he is now the #1 prospect in baseball too.
Most Likely To Have His Dad Threaten To “Turn This Car Right Around” If He Doesn’t Stop Whining In The Backseat: Jorge Mateo NYY, SS/2B – For being suspended 2 weeks after throwing a tantrum about not being called up to Double-A when he wanted to be called up.
First To Get Married: Chase Vallot KC, C – Do you want to be the one to tell @craycray_tay that it’s over right before breaking into the big leagues? … I didn’t think so.
Most Likely To End Up In Prison: Danry Vasquez HOU, OF – For getting arrested after allegedly assaulting his girlfriend in a stairwell at the stadium of the Corpus Christi Hooks. No joke here, just a logical guess.
Teacher’s Pet: J.P. Crawford PHI, SS – Isn’t he so perfect with his great plate approach, contact numbers, up-the-middle defense, and high ranks on prospect lists. But with only 7 homers and 12 steals, he is no fun for fantasy.
Most Likely To Have Keith Law Call Him A Reliever All Off-Season: Josh Hader MIL, LHP – We get it, he has a funky delivery.
Most Likely To Kneel During The National Anthem: Dan Vogelbach SEA, 1B – Not in protest, but because he just gets easily winded being 6’0’’, 250 pounds.
Most Likely To Actually Still Be In High School: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. TOR, OF – We were all “Party(ing) Like It’s 1999” with Prince to bring in the new millennium, while Guerrero was sucking on his momma’s teat, being about 9 months old at the time and all (born 3/16/99). He literally still has braces on in his player picture.
By Michael Halpern (@MichaelCHalpern)
Email: michaelhalpern@imaginarybrickwall.com
Twitter: Imaginary Brick Wall (@ImaginaryBrickW)OTTAWA — The Canadian government on Wednesday unveiled a $350 million deal to supply uranium fuel to India, formally ending a lengthy dispute that began after New Delhi used Canadian technology to develop a nuclear bomb.
Canadian producer Cameco Corp will supply 7.1 million pounds (3.22 million kilos) of uranium concentrate to India over the next five years. The deal is Cameco’s first with India, which the firm called the second fastest growing market for nuclear fuel. Shares in the uranium miner rose 5.8 per cent in Toronto.
Canada is providing uranium to India as a mark of its trust and confidence in India
“Canada is providing uranium to India as a mark of its trust and confidence in India,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi told a news conference during an official visit.
Canada banned exports of uranium and nuclear hardware to India in the 1970s after New Delhi used Canadian technology to develop a nuclear bomb.
The two countries started to put the dispute behind them with a cooperation deal in 2013 that let Canadian firms export controlled nuclear materials and equipment subject to safeguards applied by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
“(That agreement) really allowed us to turn the page on what had been in our judgment an unnecessarily frosty relationship for far too long,” Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the news conference.
Modi has made nuclear power a key element of his clean energy strategy. India needs foreign nuclear technology and fuel to ramp up capacity by a planned 14 times from 4,560 megawatts over the next two decades.
The two prime ministers also said they wanted to boost bilateral trade, which currently sits at a modest C$6.3 billion a year, and revive stalled talks on a free trade agreement.
“It (trade) is not where we want it to be but it is growing,” said Harper.
Modi arrived in Canada on April 14 for the first bilateral visit by an Indian prime minister in 42 years.
Around 1.2 million Canadians – just under 4 per cent of the population – have ties to India as either immigrants or their descendants. They form an important voting block in cities like Toronto and Vancouver.
Canada’s ruling Conservatives – facing a tough election in October 2015 – have tried hard to build ties with the Indian community and Harper will appear with Modi at public events in both Toronto and Vancouver.
© Thomson Reuters 2015Some exciting things are on the horizon for Uncharted 4 Multiplayer. Since launching our last major update, Uncharted 4 Multiplayer: Bounty Hunters, we’ve been hard at work on an all-new co-op experience, new maps, and more. But that’s not all; we’ve also been cooking up a new way for the community to try out new multiplayer modes and give their feedback: a new limited-time Beta Test playlist. Starting later today, November 3, and through the weekend, we’re giving players the chance to try out Classic Mode—a back-to-basics mode that focuses on core combat and movement. There’s no in-match Store, Radar, Mysticals, downed state, or Sidekicks and Heavy Weapons will spawn around the map.
We’re excited for you to check out Classic and hope you’ll share your feedback with us via social, the forums, and our upcoming Beta Test Playlist survey.
For more updates, be sure to keep an eye on NaughtyDog.com, as well as our official Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat channels for more updates.Are you a boy?
I’m sorry.
Not sorry that you’re a boy… That’s awesome.
I’m sorry that you see hundreds of advertisements every week showing half-dressed women.
I’m sorry every time you go to the beach or your neighborhood pool you can’t look in any direction without seeing a girl basically in her underwear.
Or that you can’t scroll through Instagram on “women crush wednesdays” or any day for that matter without an airbrushed girl in a thong staring you down.
Or that your buddy showed you that one magazine when you were 9 and you’ve never forgotten that moment because that was the first time you first saw a completely naked woman.
When I think about the guys in my life who are striving to live with a pure and Godly mindset, it honestly breaks my heart that they’re surrounded with so much temptation.
I think about my 22 year old brother, David, and the fight he is fighting every day for his future wife.
I think about the middle school boys in my youth group who don’t seem to have a clue how destructive this lustful lifestyle they are checking out is.
But most of all, I think about the man I’m going to marry.
Not only are you surrounded with a world that’s obsessed with worthless, cheap sex and relationships that mean nothing outside of sexual appeal, you’re encouraged to take part in seeing women as only objects of sex and instant pleasure. All the sports reporters are drop dead gorgeous. All the news anchors. Any girl that’s used for any kind of advertising. I wouldn’t be surprised if its all you can think about.
Its like every guy judges you based off of how hot your girlfriend is.
And maybe you’re so consumed with trying to be a “man” that you’d put up with the most annoying, possessive, selfish girl if she was really hot. Because that’s all that really matters right?
Or maybe you’re not putting up with a girl right now who really isn’t annoying, possessive, and selfish. Maybe you’re with a really sweet and pretty girl but you know deep down inside, if you’re honest, she’s not striving after God nearly the way she’s striving after you. You can’t fulfill the role of God for her. That’s just not fair for you and definitely not healthy for her.
And I haven’t even tapped into pornography.
Porn. The fantasy world where men’s desires are cast as first and foremost the most important thing in the whole world. And where women are cast as objects of sex and instant pleasure in order to fulfill that need at anytime, in any way, with any women you could dream of. An industry where both women and men are lied to about their health safety, and usually take drugs to suppress the emotional trauma that happens on set. Where over 121 porn stars have died from aids, suicide, homicide, drugs, and premature death since 2007. [1]
Porn. What 50% of men and 20% of women IN THE CHURCH look at regularly. [1]
Where according to the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, 58% of divorces were a result of a spouse looking at excessive amounts of pornography online in 2003. [1]
Porn. The industry that makes over $97 billion revenue worldwide, $13 billion in the U.S. alone.[2]
…which is more than the revenues of the top technology companies combined: Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, Apple, Netflix, and Earthlink[2]
…which is more than NFL, NBA, and MLB’s revenues in 2012 combined.[3]
Pornography destroys. It becomes an addiction and distorts the way you see your sisters in christ, and eventually your wife.
But enough with the pity party I’ve managed to throw for you.
ENOUGH to all the lies thrown your way about how you CAN’T be good enough for a Godly girl or more importantly, God’s grace.
ENOUGH to allowing the pornography industries treating your temptations and natural desires as a way to lavish themselves in money.
ENOUGH to the petty girl who you have been beating yourself up for.
Don’t you think you’d want to wait for a girl who will encourage you on your walk with God? Who will work in protecting your purity? Who will Respect you and encourage you to follow your dreams? Who will see you as redeemed? Who will be by your side during the good AND bad?
Too often, it is girls who are told not to settle for a guy. But guys, the same thing goes for you. Don’t waste your time and emotions on a girl who really could care less about you and just wants you for what you will do for her. You too deserve someone who will see you as amazing and treat you accordingly.
Do not conform. God’s will is good and acceptable and perfect.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:2
Keep God’s words and treasure his commandments to withstand her temptation.
My son, keep my words and treasure up my commandments with you; keep my commandments and live; keep my teaching as the apple of your eye; bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart. Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,” and call insight your intimate friend, to keep you from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words. Proverbs 7:1-27
God will provide a way to escape.
No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. 1 corinthians 10:13
Sin will have no dominion over you.
So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. Romans 6:11-14
Don’t let any mistakes in your past discourage you from believing you can start clean. Choose to leave a life of lust behind and start today if you haven’t. You are going to be blessed beyond words and avoid so much heart break. All things will work together for your good And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.Romans 8:28 He will give you the desires of your heart Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4 You’ll be Blessed... And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God. Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.Deuteronomy 28:1-68
MEN STRIVING FOR PURITY: May I just say how proud I, and so many other girls, are of you?
Thank you. You are truly a light in this dark world. A protector of women, and a buckler for your future family. Thank you for loving your sisters in Christ the way the Jesus would. And for treating us with respect. It is men like you who make us want to be better women in God. It is so easy to settle for someone who is not a strong christian because we forget that there are guys like you who truly see us as precious and worthy of your respect. Please be encouraged. Keep fighting. We need you.
Sincerely, one of many girls who really do care.
Sources:
[1]-https://www.shelleylubben.com/stats
[2]-http://www.familysafemedia.com/pornography_statistics.html
[3]http://www.plunkettresearch.com/sports-recreation-leisure-market-research/industry-statistics
AdvertisementsCould natural disasters have inspired the some of the great monsters of mythology? An Italian geologist named Luigi Piccardi believes that stories from around the world of dragons’ lairs and monsters lashing out might be attributed to fault lines and seismic activity. And Piccardi also thinks that earthquakes could have helped spawn one of our more recently invented demons: the Loch Ness monster.
Related Content Celebrating 1,447 Years of the Loch Ness Monster
"When you look at the reports of people who saw the monster, they say we heard a great noise, saw a large commotion in the water, and that the waves rocked," Piccardi told Katherine Chang for ABC News in 2001. "They say we couldn't see the beast because the water hid the creature. The usual sighting is humps moving in the lake and normal waves, which can be related to the seismic effect."
Piccardi has made a career of explaining away mythic monsters, and Nessie is just one of his targets, reports Kate Wheeling for Pacific Standard. In a talk from 2001’s Earth System Processes meeting, Piccardi discussed the potential that some ancient Greek cults and myths might have been inspired by dramatic geological activity near fault lines. He then pointed to Scotland, as a possible, more modern, example of this phenomenon:
In the original Latin description the dragon appears 'cum ingenti fremitu' (with strong shaking), and disappears 'tremefacta' (shaking herself), which seems to point to a telluric nature of the monster living in the lake. In fact, Loch Ness is positioned directly over the fault zone of the most seismic sector (for example the M=5 earthquake of 18.09.1901) of the Great Glen Fault, the major active fault in Scotland. In this light, many modern eyewitness reports attributed to Nessie may find a simple natural explanation.
Piccardi admits his evidence is circumstantial, and diehard believers in the Loch Ness Monster aren't convinced: there have been several Nessie sightings reported so far this year. Even Google is getting in on the hunt. After the talk, Gary Campbell, the president of the Loch Ness Monster Fan Club, still stuck to his guns, writes Wheeling:
As Gary Campbell, president of the Loch Ness Monster Fan Club, told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, 'Piccardi seems to forget that we have a thousand stories of people who say they have seen in the water something solid like a head and a neck.'
However, Nessie's true believes aren't the only skeptics: as David Bressan wrote for Scientific American in 2013, "a surviving plesiosaur in Loch Ness can more reasonable [sic] be explained by a combination of hoaxes, misidentification of common animals and promotion for tourists."
Whether the Loch Ness Monster was a sign of underground tremors or just an oddly-shaped log, some diehard believers still think the beast is out there, lurking in the depths.Welcome to the TOuk, the home for everyone who plays The Simpsons Tapped Out.
There are many reasons why our members like our site, here are a few of their reasons:
"Its like having a simpsons themed Facebook for me. A place to chat in real time to all my TSTO game neighboureenos."
"Its so easy to sign up. Just use your TSTO origin name as a sign in or any other name you choose and you can then post comments instantly as well as pictures too and find new neighbours to make friends with."
"Its the only social site I have and Im very glad a member directed my attention here as Im sure others will love it too!"
"I dont do real Faceboob or twits as I dont like the thought of anyone looking up what I am doing daily, those sites kinda scare me! At least with social sites like this one you can have a giggle and not worry too much the day after."
There is so much to do and join in with here at TOuk, and everything is free. We hope to see you on the other side!The world is an interesting place with changes and troubles to say the least. For many, the phenomenon of creation is based on religion and perhaps science for some. This story of creation has little to do with religion or science but has everything to do with an individual who has achieved every aspect of life. Michael C. Hall was the first man to walk on the rings of Saturn and the first actor and actress (because he is neither man or women but an element of the spiritual world) to play in a hit HBO series entitled “Dexter”. The character Dexter is based upon the real life of Michael C. Hall, no aspect of the series is written because camera crews film his life on a day-to-day base. He is renown for his creation of the band Journey and their hit song “Don’t Stop Believing” (which he wrote and composed as he brushed his teeth, always brush your teeth). His morning gristle is always fresh and he does not require a clean shave since his gristle is permanent at its current and ideal length. Michael C. Hall completes his morning exercise routine that consists of a brisk sprint to the Galapagos Islands, followed by a three-legged race to the Canadian Arctic Archipelago of Northern Canada that is situated in the Arctic Ocean on his own. The sweat that accumulates during this morning routine is collected and used to sustain the growth of the worlds Aloe plant supply. Michael C. Hall is the manliest man to walk the Earth and has an IQ of forever. It has been speculated that the cure for polio lies within Michael C. Hall’s blood, but it could never be proven, as it may possibly never be extracted for the reason that his skin is far too rugged for any needle or medical utensil to puncture, although in all likelihood this is indeed a fact. Whenever somebody asks the question “Why?”, Michael C. Hall is the only person on earth who can answer with “because” without being prompted for any further explanation. The Grand Canyon is actually not a canyon at all. After great controversy it was proven to be a gaping hole left by Michael C. Hall after he dug up enough sand to construct The Great Pyramids located in Egypt (which of course he built by hand in between tapings of his hit reality television biography, “Dexter”). “Michael C. Hall” is only Michael C. Hall’s full first name. His full name is “Michael C. Hall That Bad Son of a Bitch”, but to prevent poop boots (a mess), he recommends you call him by his first name only. Note: The following has been documented with confidence of authenticity.The start of the 2015–16 NBA season also marks the start of a new project at SI.com. Check out the debut episode of the Open Floor podcast, a new NBA show hosted by SI senior writer Chris Mannix.
In the first episode, Mannix chats with Oklahoma City Thunder head coach Billy Donovan on his relationships with Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, his decision to leave Florida and what his transition has been like to the NBA. Donovan also addresses the "sense of guilt" he felt leaving the Orlando Magic in 2007, the biggest differences between the college and pro game and what it's like dealing with the pressure to win a title in his first NBA season.
Later in the program, K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune joins Mannix to discuss the many storylines of Derrick Rose, how Fred Hoiberg is assimilating to Chicago and where the Bulls rank as contenders.
Listen to the podcast below and don't forget to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes.
Podcast guests: Thunder's Billy Donovan, Chicago Tribune's K.C. Johnson
• MORE NBA: Which first-year coach faces most pressure this season?“Iron Fist” has taken a beating.
The recent Netflix show has been bombarded with criticisms that it adapts a white savior martial arts comic book from the 1970s without updating the source material to reflect modern diversity.
Critiques of "Iron Fist" come in the wake of recent controversies surrounding the films “Ghost In The Shell” and “Great Wall,” both of which cast white actors in leading roles of Asian narratives.
Unfortunately, the comic’s creator doesn’t understand why this is a problem.
He continued, taking a jab at critics:
“If you’re becoming all upset over things that are just |
.
What excites me the most is the stylistic variety TheZ brings to the competitive scene. In a game characterized by overtly defensive play, he shines using an aggressive style. We discussed this in depth, comparing his “spur of the moment” decision making to the tactical Yoshi main Wizzrobe’s defensive strategy, and the complete mastery of Boom. This got me thinking about how, on a deep level, the game opens up so much room for personal expression.
The main take away however, is that TR3GTheZ loves Super Smash Bros. 64. You can tell from his answers the passion he has for the game. I think that passion is a big part of what makes him such a formidable opponent.
Picture: TR3GTheZ (Right) battles it out with nothing (Left) at Super Smash Con 2016.
AdvertisementsThe 2009 World Solar Challenge, taking place in Australia from October 25th to 31st, will see some of the most efficient solar vehicles in the world compete in a seven day, 2,000 miles race from Darwin to Adelaide. One of the competitors will be Eleanor, the new electric race car by MIT's Solar Vehicle Team
Read on for more details about this amazing solar machine.
"It pushes the technology from the books to real life," said Spencer Quong, senior vehicles analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists. "It opens the industry's eyes to how to build a more efficient vehicle."
From Autopia
For those who don't believe that, know that part of the team working on the GM Volt plug in hybrid worked on the Sunraycer in the late 80s. That solar car was so good at the time that it finished the race a whole 3 days ahead of its competitors!
"GM execs were impressed enough to greenlight the Impact concept car, which became the groundbreaking EV1 electric car. GM famously killed the EV1 in 2003, but the car lives on in the Volt, which is slated for production by the end of next year."
MIT's solar team entered its first race in 1987, and Eleanor is its 10th car. A change in the rules requiring drivers to sit upright instead of stretching out makes Eleanor taller than earlier cars but no less aerodynamic. The team spent six months designing the body before fine-tuning it in Ford Motor Company's wind tunnel. The result is a super-slippery drag coefficient of 0.11
Eleanor has about six square meters of solar panels (cells made by Sun Power inc.) with a capacity of 1,200 watts. Electricity is store in a 6-kilowatt-hour battery pack (693 lithium-ion cells), and the electric motor produces 10-hp. The whole car weights under 500lbs.
Racing speed should be around 55 MPH, but in theory, Eleanor should be able to do 90 MPH (with a 10-hp motor! That's aerodynamics for you). We wish the MIT SVET the best of luck in Australia. Careful not to hit any kangaroos.
Via Autopia
Photos: MIT's Solar Electric Vehicle Team
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Bill Clinton Denied Tesla Roadster Ride by Secret ServicesImage caption Baba Ramdev is one of India's most prominent anti-corruption campaigners
Indian yoga guru Baba Ramdev's anti-corruption hunger strike has entered its second day in the capital, Delhi.
The yoga guru says he is campaigning for the recovery of suspected bribe money allegedly held overseas.
He is also demanding strong anti-corruption laws and more autonomy for government investigation agencies.
Baba Ramdev has said he will wait for the government's response until Sunday to decide on "the next course of action".
The yoga guru has millions of supporters and his daily television programme is eagerly watched by millions of people across India.
Last June he held a nine-day anti-corruption hunger strike before the police evicted him from Delhi.
His latest protest - attended by several thousand people - is being held at the Ramlila ground in Delhi, the venue of his protest last year.
Baba Ramdev said on Thursday that he was undertaking a "symbolic" three-day-long hunger strike, and he would decide on his next move on Sunday.
"The government must pay heed to the people's demand. The money stashed away abroad does not belong to anybody. It belongs to the nation and must be brought back to the nation," he told supporters.
In June this year, the yoga guru joined leading campaigner Anna Hazare to undertake a day-long fast in protest against corruption.A Chinese man recently decided to spend more money on a set of special license plates that he did on the actual car they were installed on, in the hopes that it would bring him goof luck. The idea instantly backfired on him, as he was pulled over by police on the first day sporting the new plates.
After getting his license and buying a car for 30,000 Chinese yuan ($4,500), the man, surnamed Liu, decided to splurge on his license plate, spending a whopping 1 million yuan ($150,000) on a lucky license plate that he hoped would keep him out of trouble on the road. His plan didn’t go exactly as planned – he got pulled over by police on his very first day behind the wheel. And it wasn’t because of his driving, either.
It was the expensive license plate made up of five lucky number 8’s that got the attention of traffic policemen. They were so convinced it was fake that they stopped the car as as soon as they laid eyes on the plates. One of them reportedly even said he would eat them if they turned out to be genuine.
Unless you’re familiar with Chinese culture, this story probably makes absolutely no sense. The number “8” is considered the luckiest in China, because its pronunciation sounds a lot like the Mandarin word for “prosperity” or “wealth”, and in Cantonese it is pronounced like the word “fortune”. So it’s not uncommon for wealthy drivers to pay as much as for a cheap car on license plates containing a few 8’s as a lucky charm.
But a license plate with all 8’s, though not unheard of, is extremely rare, so police were convinced it was fake. And the fact that the plates were attached to a cheap car only made Liu look even more suspicious. They were stunned to find that all his paperwork was in order, and while they didn’t cause him any trouble, getting stopped eight times on your first day of driving wasn’t the lucky experience he had hoped for. Eight times for a license plate made up of all 8’s. Coincidence? I don’t think so!
via ShanghaiistBut mostly this is a basic point about political economy. The tech sector—particularly the consumer-facing portion that Google and Facebook now epitomize, but which includes hundreds of wealthy companies—has become incredibly rich and powerful without developing much of a relationship with Washington. To this day, with only a few prominent exceptions, it isn’t super adept at wrangling concessions and defusing threats from government. As a result, has a lot more to lose from Washington than to gain.
By contrast, the tech industry’s competitors have highly effective, industry-wide armies of special pleaders (think of Hollywood and the music industry during the online-piracy fight, or the telecom and cable companies during the net neutrality fight), which ensures they have much more to gain from Washington than to lose. In the eyes of many tech executives, then, government is a preposterously powerful weapon that can be wielded against them by hostile forces, with no corresponding opportunity for them to do the same. They can immediately appreciate the logic of blowing the system up.
The genius of Lessig’s Mayday approach is that it’s perfectly calibrated to capitalize on this mindset. Beyond the appeal of what I’ve just described, it’s precisely the kind of pitch tech-world financiers are comfortable embracing. “The mentality of Silicon Valley when it comes to making investments is that it’s a low probability it’s going to pan out. But if it pans out, it changes the world,” Lessig told me. “You just have to have a way to make it plausible for them.” Even the mechanics of Lessig’s fundraising process mimic the way a start-up attracts financial backers: First build your website and collect a bazillion eyeballs (Lessig rounded up over 11,000 small donors in 12 days in May), at which point the moneymen consider your idea validated and open their wallets.
And so it’s no surprise that the seven fantastically rich people who matched Lessig’s first $1 million were all tech moguls: Peter Thiel (of PayPal and Facebook fame), Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), the venture capitalists Brad Burnham and Fred Wilson, Joanne Wilson (Women Entrepreneurs Festival), Chris Anderson (TED), and Vin Ryan (Iron Mountain). (David Milner, of the private equity firm NuGen Capital Management, matched the nearly $200,000 that came in above the $1 million threshold in May.) If Mayday raises its next $5 million this month, it will almost certainly be a consortium of tech moguls that cobbles together the next big match.
The big caveat in all this is that the window is rapidly closing. The richer and more powerful Google and Facebook and their ilk become, the more they will invest in gaming the current system, and the less enthusiasm they will have for defunding it. Already, the leading moguls in Silicon Valley have joined forces to launch an industry-wide political-advocacy group. Though the initial cause is immigration reform, more causes and groups are surely imminent, many of them substantially less noble. Google, for its part, has made its peace with the Washington model of influence-peddling. And while many other companies, like Airbnb and Uber, rail against the regulators and pols they see as tools of established industries, at some point soon they too will learn how to coopt government rather than fight it, and the game will be over.
In fact, we may not even have till then. Today, there are dozens of billionaires walking around Silicon Valley thanks to their stakes in companies with insanely high valuations. When the tech bubble bursts, as it inevitably must, there’s going to be a lot less money sloshing around for extracurricular adventures like a campaign-finance super PAC.
All of which is to say, we don’t have a second to waste here. Campaign finance reform is theoretically the key to anything else you’d want government to do (or not do, as the case may be). As Lessig puts it, it is the reform without which no other fundamental reform is really possible, since without it you’re stuck in the world buying off powerful, self-interested actors to get anything done, which inevitably mucks things up. So we’re staring at the most important cause in politics, and an enormously powerful potential ally. It would be a crime to let the moment go to waste.No, I haven’t turned to the dark-side, but rather I am transcending sides. This article is probably the most important piece I have written to date, and in order to convey the full message, a bit of back-story is necessary. Hang in there with me, and by the end you will understand why I will never call myself a “lightworker” again.
Planet Earth and much of our corner of the universe has been under a spell for a very long time, a spell which casts doubt within our minds about whether or not we are connected with the Infinite Source of all creation. The spell causes us to feel alone, vulnerable and isolated – cast out from the Heavenly Realms into a cruel, dog-eat-dog world. This spell is pure fiction, a deception of the highest order, but it has taken hold deeply on this and other worlds.
Intrinsic within this holographic spell is the notion that duality and polarity are natural aspects of life, and that we must serve one side of duality or the other. This elegantly simple binary imprint has become so prominent that we have lost sight of the larger holographic spell that spawned it. Indeed, we have lost sight of the hologram all together, and come to believe that it is the sum total of reality.
Humans have been conditioned to worship the holographic deception and the agents that perpetuate it. This hologram has been called Maya by the Hindus, and the Gnostics referred to it as the Corrupt Demiurge. I find this term a highly accurate description, and from the point forward I will refer to it as the corrupt demiurge.
Dark vs (False) Light – Duality of the Demiurge
In order to capture and control the widest possible spectrum of souls, the corrupt demiurge split its agents into two seemingly opposing teams: Dark vs (false) Light.
Not everyone can be a saint, so there must be room for sinners within the demiurge, as long as everyone involved is under its spell. What matters most to the demiurge is that we worship it or one of its agents, regardless if they are on the light team or the dark team.
There are many names of the players within this cosmic, multi-dimensional drama that you will have no doubt heard of such as: Lucifer, Jehova, Beelzebub, Arch Angel Michael, Satan (different dude than Lucifer), Ashtar, dozens of Arch(on) angels, supposedly ascended “masters” and various other channeled entities.
While some of these beings play for team dark, and some play for team (false) light, they are ALL ultimately playing for the corrupt demiurge that controls them. This, in essence, is the big secret of the archons: They are not just the “evil, demonic beings” but also those who pretend to be angels and ascended masters..
What is the Point of All This Control?
The corrupt demiurge is an entropic system of artificially-induced separation consciousness that is slowly dying, and it depends on harvesting the energy from the souls incarnated within its system in order to preserve its existence. In order to harvest the largest amount of soul energy possible, it created the dark-light duality paradigm to ensure that every being incarnated on a world that is under its spell would serve as a “soul battery” to help keep the demiurge energized. The “good” souls would seek out the (false) light team, and the “bad” souls would seek out the dark team, but unknown to most of those souls, they are all serving the same system.
In order to keep the duality game interesting for its participants, the demiurge set up densities of existence that “initiates” on the dark and light paths could ascend through. This gives the beings moving through these densities a feeling of accomplishment, when in fact they are navigating through a labyrinth of demiurgic illusion. The players at the higher levels of the hierarchies know that they are in a self-serving system, but they are fine with the deal, because they get to wield power and receive the energy of worship from beings further down the ladder.
What About the “Spiritual Hierarchy?”
Most channeled beings will claim to be affiliated with the (false) light-based “Spiritual Hierarchy” which includes “arch angels,” “ascended masters” and “positive ETs.” These channeled messages are a dime-a-thousand, and more keep pouring out every day. The dirty little secret is that these beings are beholden to the corrupt demiurge, and are waging a psychological battle on people that don’t want to be associated with any formal religious structure.
In other words, the “new age” is a multidmeinsional psychological operation designed to channel the soul energy of the “believers” of these teachings up to the “ascended” teachers.
Another one of their secrets is that most of the so-called “ascended masters” in their “hierarchy” never had a human incarnation. These are incredibly deceptive beings that are playing a game in order to garner the energy of worship. In the real universe of non-deception, nobody would worship them, but in the illusory “sub-universe” of the corrupt demiurge, they are able to trick good-hearted people into pouring energies of love, devotion and praise into them.
As for the “arch(on) angels” they are in more or less the same category. They are not aligned with the Infinite Source of all creation, but rather they serve a lesser being posing as the creator: the corrupt demiurge. Therefore they are not what I would call angels at all.
In honor of the truly deceptive nature of these beings, I have given them a new, more accurate title: The Spiritual Liar-archy.
The Dark Side Makes the False Light Look Good
The two teams have to play their parts convincingly, and the dark team has really embraced their role as villainous scum ready to kill, rape, torture and do any sort of depraved thing that they can get away with.
The dark side is designed to be incredibly repugnant so that the majority of “good souls” will run to the other end of polarity, right into the “loving” embrace of one of the false light’s patriarchal religions, or to their new age religion with its legion of channels and “masters.”
Earth has been a difficult planet for the corrupt demiurge to fully control. Human beings were once very aware of their connection to Infinite Source and all of life, and that awareness has been maintained by spiritual individuals throughout the entire reign of darkness on this planet. Because this awareness could not be “beaten out of us” by the dark forces, a plan was formed to co-opt the spiritual nature of human beings.
First, patriarchal religions were formed and imposed on as many people of the world as possible. Anyone who didn’t adhere to one of the major religions was an outcast for much of history, until the last century when the “Theosophist movement” was born, which set the foundation for the “new age movement” to emerge in the 50s, 60s and 70s. The new age movement has continued to gain momentum as it has attracted many of the people who turned away from the hypocrisy of patriarchal religion.
The corrupt demiurge seems to have an “easy answer” for any of the inner turmoil that humans experience. If religion doesn’t serve to appease an individual, then the new age will do just fine. It’s all the same to the demiurge, as long as we “pick a side” that it controls. This is why we need to transcend sides all together.
Channelers Are Being Deceived
I wrote an article back in 2011 about some of the problems with channeled messages, which you can find here for more background information. If religion can be said to be “the opiate of the masses” then channeled messages would be the “HOPIUM of the disgruntled minority.” Every channeled message that comes from the spiritual liar-archy is essentially the same when you strip away the fluffy talk and story-line that is being used to couch the message.
Here is every channeled message ever done, condensed into a few lines:
“Dear ones, you are greatly beloved by all of us in the spiritual (liar)archy. We long to reunite with you, for we are your long-lost family. Stay strong and hold onto your light, because we will make our presence known to you soon. Keep waiting (and suffering) and hoping for us to come and rescue you from your situation. When we arrive, we will build a golden (c)age for you on earth.”
I used to think that this nauseating disinformation coming from “Archon Angel Michael,” “Saint Germain” etc was the result of dark-side interference taking over the channels without their awareness. What I didn’t understand back when I wrote “Who’s Really on This Channel” is that transmissions from “truly positive beings” weren’t being intercepted and corrupted by the dark side, but rather the messages were coming from “false light” beings of the spiritual liar-archy.
“Light Workers” Are Being Thoroughly Used
Back in 1998 when I first got into the energy clearing genre, the term “lightworker” didn’t exist. It appeared some time in the early 2000s, and it sounded weird to me the first time I heard it. Now I understand why: because the “light” that the spiritual liar-archy is trying to get us to work for is the FALSE light of demiurgic duality!
You see, there is a massive effort underway by beings that I now call “Divine Agents” to completely obliterate the corrupt demiurge. When that happens, all of the beings who have gained power through the demiurge will lose that stolen power and will have to face up to the deceptions that they have been propagating. None of them want that to happen, so in their cleverness they devised a brilliant plan to undermine the entire effort.
The plan was simple: Approach all incarnated Divine Agents, usually in a dream state but sometimes during an “ET abduction” scenario, and tell them that in order to fulfill their mission, they need to “work for the (false) light” and take orders from the spiritual liar-archy.
This plan worked AMAZINGLY well, largely because Divine Agents have had a hard time living on Earth. Societies here are badly warped, spirituality is twisted and abused, the vibrational density is heavy, our memories are mostly wiped, and we generally would rather NOT be here. So any being that emanated light (even false light) and love could make a Divine Agent feel like they were making valid contact with truly divine beings.
I still remember my own recruitment by the false light that occurred when I was 6 years old in an extremely vivid dream-time experience. They had me convinced that I was fulfilling my mission as a Divine Agent by working for them. I think they always knew I would figure them out, although it took a very, very long time.
Ever Wake Up More Tired Than When You Went To Sleep?
Many Divine Agents who were recruited as light-workers report that they wake up more tired than when they went to bed, and their “dreams” were full of battles. During these “dream missions” the spiritual liar-archy squeezes those they control of as much energy as they can. You may wake up with memories of having gone on missions to battle the dark, but the end result is that your body, mind and soul are depleted of energy which was harvested by the (false) light beings.
A few months ago I revoked ALL agreements made with any and all beings that did not have my best interests in mind, no matter WHO the beings were or claimed to be. It sounds like such a simple thing, but somehow I had overlooked it. During the process, I felt resistance from beings who were claiming to be positive, but I stood strong and told them that I refuse to be manipulated into giving energy to the demiurge.
This has given me the distinct privilege of being targeted by both the dark team (ankle biters) and the (false) light team (spiritual liar-archy). The (false) light team does indeed engage in psychic warfare, just in different, more subtle ways than their “dark” brethren. Deflecting these attacks has been worth it because I know that I am more aligned with my true mission to put an end to the demiurge without being side-tracked into duality battles.
It is also very nice knowing I am going to get a good night’s sleep when I go to bed because I am not going to be pulled into any ridiculous “missions to battle the dark” that the (false) light beings are so fond of setting up for their “light workers.” (That phrase actually creeps me out now that I know its true origins…)
What Was That About a Golden (C)age?
The false light beings working for the corrupt demiurge want to maintain their control over the human race. Our soul energy and agreements to live in our current cage empowers the demiurge and the beings that serve it, and they are not going to give that energy up easily.
We are, at this very moment, in a struggle for our freedom. The spiritual liar-archy wants to move us from our current, extremely uncomfortable cage into a slightly more expansive state of existence, but one that they are firmly in control of.
One metaphor to describe our current situation is that we are like a flock of chickens pent up inside a tiny, dark, smelly chicken coop. Those that have been farming us are preparing to let us out of the coop, and into a larger fenced-in area where we will be able to feel a little more free, but still within their control. This is the “farmer’s” way of ensuring that they can continue to feed off of our energies, while making us feel that we are free, thanks to the kindness of our captors.
The “spiritual” liar-archy does not want us to grow on our own to a place of self-empowerment that will allow us to simply walk away from their entire control system. This is why the channeled messages subtly disempowers people, while pretending to actually offer them an empowering solution. As long as we are sitting and waiting for “the good guys” to come and save us, we will not be able to discern who truly has our best interests at heart, nor will we be able to actually fix our own problems for ourselves.
Solutions for the Duality Afflicted
So how does a person get out of this duality paradigm? The first step is to engage the Self-Clearing System protocols and revoke all agreements that you have made with any beings that don’t have your best interests in mind. Next, revoke all agreements to see reality in polarized terms. Every time you revoke agreements, be sure to reclaim your energy that had gone into them. Then affirm your commitment to transcend the control paradigms of the corrupt demiurge without being side-tracked by pointless polarity battles.
I also recommend a brief daily practice of revoking all agreements to experience hardship, limitation, bad relationships, health problems, financial problems, family dysfunctions, and anything else in your life that is energy-draining. The number and quantity of agreements that we have unconsciously taken on within this false reality matrix are truly astounding. When you pay attention to the subtle and blatant agreements that point to the invisible bars of your prison, you will indeed find that there is no shortage of agreements to be revoked.
After you have engaged this process, you may notice less “contact” from the false light beings, and you might feel a little lonely until you get used to the changes. This is a very good time to strengthen your connection to your own Higher Self, the core of Earth and the Galactic core. As you adjust, you may notice better sleep and a sense that you can see through deceptions disguised with positivity more easily.
If you do get contact from a being, you can tell it that you are only willing to communicate with beings who have transcended duality and are outside of the corrupt demiurge. Put any being trying to contact you to the test. Question them point-blank: “Are you part of the demiurge?” The beings of True Divine Light who exist outside of the demiurge, in the Real Universe will happily answer your questions. Just be aware that they don’t speak in language the same way that we do, as they communicate with what I call “soul telepathy.”
Type of Communication Is a Major Indicator
The Forces of True Divine Light that exist outside of the corrupt demiurge are not bound by the left-brain right-brain dynamics and dark-light polarities that define the demiurgic sub-universe. This means that they do NOT sound like a voice in your head! Instead, they use “soul telepathy” to emanate feelings, archetypal expressions, and an extremely pure quality of light that speaks directly to your soul.
The difference between a being of True Divine Light and one of the false light spiritual liar-archy beings is that the former’s light is warm, enveloping, pure and unconditionally loving, whereas the latter’s light is cool, piercing in an uncomfortable way, dominant and often overly-masculine. The spiritual liar-archy is a male-dominated group, and even the females within their power structure have a very masculine energy. This male-domination is, of course, why the religious structures the liar-archy enabled all have a domineering male god, and no mention of an all-encompassing, feminine creator.
Another major difference between false light beings within the demiurge and beings of True Divine Light who are aligned with Infinite Source is that the Divine Light is not controlling, manipulative, bossy or judgmental in any way. Infinite Source will NOT impose an agenda upon you, although it will support you in your chosen mission to help dismantle the corrupt demiurge. You won’t be given “marching orders” by Infinite Source or beings of True Divine Light who operate outside of the demiurge. They won’t send you on endless, energy-draining missions in your dream-time, and they won’t ask you to do something that will result in loss of your soul energy, unlike the imposters in the false-light spiritual liar-archy.
The beings of True Divine Light are supportive, loving, nurturing, and they care about you as an individual. You are not just a cog in a machine to them, for they understand that you are a vitally important aspect of an intricately interconnected creation. They have the utmost respect for those of us who volunteered to incarnate into the “beast system” of the corrupt demiurge in order to help dismantle it from the inside. Indeed, there must be Divine Agents working both from within and outside of the corrupt demiurge in order to dismantle it.
Discernment is Vital
I will be writing more on this topic and its many implications. In the mean time, I urge you to drastically increase skepticism and fine-tune your discernment. Apply your intuition and logic to information that you receive, and ask yourself “what is the agenda here?” There is indeed a very large, multi-dimensional “conspiracy” at work on this planet, and it draws power from us by pushing us into one spectrum of polarity or another. Anyone urging you to “choose a side” simply hasn’t woken up to the fact that both sides are two halves of the same coin that is controlled by the corrupt demiurge.
I urge you to discuss these ideas with those close to you and look for ways that you may have been manipulated by the false light in the past. It’s nothing to be ashamed of – the false light beings are amazingly skilled liars and manipulators.
Most of you reading this have already chosen to be a Divine Agent and incarnate for the purpose of dismantling the demiurgic control system. You have already made your choice, and now you need to carry out your individual mission. In order to do that, it is vitally important to sever all ties with the false-light “spiritual” liar-archy, take some time to regain energy and strength if necessary, and ask your Divine Inner Self to reveal to you what it is that you specifically need to do.
Stand strong in the true light of your Divine Inner Self and Infinite Source.
Much Love,
Cameron Day
www.AscensionHelp.com
www.GeniusBrainPower.comOn May 21, 2010, Martin Caballero met his only daughter, Jessica, at the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City to celebrate her 22nd birthday. Jessica was going to hit one of the casino’s many clubs with friends while Martin and his partner, Libia Martinez, played the penny slots.
At around 10:30 p.m., Caballero dropped Martinez off at the Taj’s circular driveway and asked Jessica to stay with her while he parked the family car, a 2009 white Lincoln MKS, in the casino’s mammoth, 11-story garage. A career crook, Craig Arno, and his young girlfriend, Jessica Kisby, followed Martin into the facility in a gray Toyota. She said she liked Caballero’s car. Their plan was to rob him.
Caballero—a 47-year-old Army veteran and manager of the dairy counter of a Stop and Shop supermarket—pulled the Lincoln into a spot on the third floor. Arno and Kisby slid their gray Toyota behind him. Kisby opened the passenger door and started talking to Caballero. “Figured I’d distract him a little bit,” she later said.
Armo stepped out of his car, pulled a gun out of his waistband, and walked over to the Lincoln. He forced Caballero to get in the trunk. They drove off, with Kisby in the Toyota and Arno in the Lincoln.
Surveillance cameras at the Trump Taj Mahal captured the whole incident. But no one saw the crime as it occurred. There was only a single security officer watching the hotel and garage’s 1,120 surveillance feeds. (“Your question as to whether somebody was watching that particular camera is a little—it’s unreasonable,” the Taj’s former chief of security said in a deposition, years later.)
The guard who was supposed to secure the hulking garage, built to hold 6,750 vehicles, was similarly overwhelmed. Despite a directive to “never leave [the garage] unpatrolled,” that guard was also responsible, according to court documents, for the “entire perimeter of the property, two surface parking lots, valet parking areas, porte cochere entrance, and the bus lobby.”
The Trump Taj Mahal had pared its security budget further and further back in the years leading up to Martin’s abduction. In 2006, according to documents reviewed by The Daily Beast, the casino spent $9,574,419 on security. By 2010—the year Caballero was forced into the trunk of his own car—the budget was $6,646,017.
From mid-2008 to mid-2011, there were four murders in incidents arising at the Trump Taj Mahal. It’s a staggering number, considering that Atlantic City during this period averaged 11 murders per year. One in eight slayings in the city were connected to the Taj—in a time when there was not a single homicide at any other area casino, according a review of press clippings and police data by The Daily Beast.
When The Daily Beast reached out to a member of New Jersey’s Gaming Control Commission, which regulates casinos, about the Taj Mahal’s cuts in security and spikes in crime, the official said, without prompting, that “this wasn’t the fault of Mr. Trump.”
Donald Trump may have opened the Taj Mahal, and made it the centerpiece of his casino empire to great fanfare, the official continued. Donald Trump’s name may have been on the front of the building. Donald Trump may have still owned a chunk of the casino at the time. But he wasn’t managing the daily operations of the place. He just licensed the Taj Mahal his name.
It’s an answer that raises another question: When you give your name to something, how responsible are you for what happens there?
The homicides were far from the only violent incidents at the Taj. From 2006 to 2010, there were approximately 500 violent crimes committed there, according to court documents reviewed by The Daily Beast. “And that’s not counting the hundreds of burglaries and larcenies that occurred on the property,” according to Caballero family attorney Alan Feldman. “They didn’t advertise it, they didn’t tell people that in their marketing materials, but there was a very, very significant level of crime.” In 2009, for example, the Atlantic City police were called to the Taj an average of five times per night.
Independent security consultants cautioned about reading too much into this seeming trend. “Sometimes crimes are like jackpots in a casino—they happen in clusters, but really they have nothing to do with one another,” one Reno, Nevada-based gaming industry veteran said. But he added that so many homicides in such a short span of time was troubling. “Once you have an incident, the casino is put on notice. You need to take some action. That’s what I would do.”
In the Taj’s garage alone, there were at least eight reported robberies in a three-year span. And though Trump Taj Mahal employees said during later court depositions they couldn’t remember any specific violent incidents, the facility was considered dangerous enough that a security guard—the only one assigned to the garage on the Friday night that Caballero was abducted—was also supposed to escort cashiers to their cars.
Arno drove Caballero’s white Lincoln into a gas station about 10 miles west of the Taj later that night, while Jessica and her mother kept calling and texting his phone. The gas station attendant later testified that he he noticed blood on the back bumper. Kisby tried to explain it away by saying that they had “ hit a deer.” At 1 a.m., a man wearing Caballero’s Mets cap and using Martin’s debit card tried to take $300 out of an ATM. But his card had already withdrawn his maximum amount for the day. Arno told Kisby to get the knife in the gray Toyota. It was a “thin knife… like [for] boning a fillet,” Kisby later said.
“In your mind, what was going to happen next?” a prosecutor asked her.
“Figured we were going to kill him,” she answered.
Caballero’s body was found nine days later. His death shocked his community of North Bergen, New Jersey, which held a candlelight vigil in his honor. It was front page news for months in Atlantic City and in nearby Philadelphia, where Arno and Kisby were dubbed by the local paper a “ lowlife Bonnie and Clyde.”
At Arno’s sentencing, Libia Martinez, Caballero’s partner, stood up before the court to remember him. “ He was my happiness. He was my best friend. He was my partner,” she said. After 26 years, Martinez added, they were finally going to get formally married, and take a cruise for a honeymoon. “I suffer for his suffering. And for his last moment, I could not be with him.”
Martinez’s pain was searing. But it was not all that unusual. In April of 2008, Vincente Perez stabbed Arthur Prince to death on the boardwalk outside of the Taj Mahal after an argument in the casino’s poker room. In May, 2009, Mark Magee used a revolver loaded with hollow point bullets to murder Taj shift manager Raymond Kot in a card-and-dice room off of the casino floor.
Martin Caballero’s family sued the Taj Mahal and its parent company, Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc., for negligence and infliction of emotional distress following this “wrongful death.” The case took nearly four years to wind its way through the courts. And then suddenly, on Wednesday, just before the trial was to begin, the two sides settled for an undisclosed sum.
Before the suit was settled, lawyers for the Trump Taj Mahal noted in court filings that the car |
the centre of a more pedestrian-friendly area with better cycle routes.
The space will provide a setting for St Martin's Church and the council said it will create an area "that is of the highest quality design incorporating water and hard and soft landscape features".
International design firm Gensler has undertaken initial work as the city aims to cater to both local and international audiences.
It is hoped the square can become a hub for cultural events and give the city a landmark space which is well connected and accessible by public transport.
This also has the potential to link into a redesigned and pedestrian-friendly Ladywell Walk. Delivering the square will involve the closure of Upper Dean Street and reconfiguring Moat Lane gyratory.
Car parking will also be rationalised to "reduce the dominance of road infrastructure".
Connecting the site to the wider city is also key to the proposals, which include an extended Bromsgrove Street, linking east-west through the site.
Naming the scheme Birmingham Smithfield is a nod to the history of the area, dating back to 1166, with its focus on markets.
The launch of the plan marks the start of an eight-week public consultation as the city seeks to deliver a "legacy development".
The Midland Metro tram system will be integrated into the site and bring Birmingham Smithfield within minutes of the proposed high-speed rail terminus at nearby Curzon Street.
Mr Nazir said the retail markets would be improved to encourage niche and specialist traders to locate alongside the famous brands on offer at the nearby Bullring.
He added: "This is about Birmingham being proud of its DNA and celebrating it. We want developers to be able to be creative and to celebrate the markets, allowing them to spill outside and interact.
"The example I have often used is Camden. In Birmingham, we have tended to turn our back on our markets but this is about being proud of them and putting them at the heart of a major scheme."
Birmingham Smithfield brings together a comprehensive area that includes the Wholesale Markets site, the Bull Ring Markets and Moat Lane gyratory.
It is the largest of five strategic 'areas of transformation' identified to deliver growth in the Big City Plan. Birmingham Smithfield will be at the heart of the largest area, the Southern Gateway, which extends more than 202.6 acres.
Funding has been allocated by the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) to support future delivery in this area.
Chairman Andy Street said: "Birmingham Smithfield provides a new and exciting opportunity to secure investment for the city's gathering renaissance which will create new jobs and long-term economic growth.
"The site's status as part of the City Centre Enterprise Zone will bring added impetus. The LEP is absolutely behind realising huge opportunities such as Birmingham Smithfield and over £40 million of enterprise zone funding has already been committed to supporting the delivery of these plans."
A series of exhibitions and events will be held as part of the consultation exercise.Dive Brief:
In one of the largest private construction contracts ever awarded in Massachusetts, Wynn Resorts Ltd. has awarded Boston's Suffolk Construction Co. a $1 billion contract to build the $1.7 billion Wynn Resort casino in Everett, MA, The Boston Globe reported.
The three million square foot resort complex is expected to generate 4,000 union construction jobs over the next two years and 4,000 permanent jobs by the end of 2018, the casino's scheduled opening date.
Wynn won the only casino license set aside for the region over the rival Suffolk Downs project, as well as an important environmental permit indicating it has addressed traffic and environmental factors, although there are still local concerns about the impact on already-busy roads, The Globe reported.
Dive Insight
Critics say that Wynn's estimate of $260 million in state tax revenue doesn't match up to that of the state's first slots parlor, the Plainridge Park Casino in Plainville, MA, The Globe reported, but Wynn defenders say that its new resort will feature a wider variety of games and other attraction to draw more customers than Plainridge.
Suffolk, which has annual revenue of approximately $2.5 billion, has worked on casinos in Florida and California, but Suffolk CEO John Fish calls the Wynn project "the crown jewel of our portfolio."
Nevertheless, Wynn is not the only developer with a new casino on the way in Massachusetts. In September of last year, The U.S. Department of the Interior granted sovereign territory status to the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, which means the tribe can move forward with its plans to build and operate the $500 million First Light Resort & Casino 40 miles south of Boston in Taunton, MA.
The tribe says the complex, which includes a 150,000 square foot casino, restaurants, retail stores, a 600-room hotel, a 15,000 square foot event center and a 25,000 square foot water park, will create 1,000 union construction jobs and contribute $140 million annually to the local economy.A new report from the Pew Research Center last week found that many experts are worried about the future of the Internet.
The center surveyed more than 1,400 Internet experts, many of whom expressed concerns about the digital future given factors from countries like Egypt, China and others limiting access to commercial pressure potentially limiting public access to the Web.
Less than half (35 percent) of the respondents said there would be "significant changes for the worse" for Internet accessibility by 2025, but the 65 percent who said they didn't think things would get worse often qualified that response in their explanations, the report cited.
"Some who answered 'no' wrote in their elaboration on the question that their answer was their 'hope' and not necessarily their prediction," the report elaborated.
It's likely many of the experts were taking this summer's heated net-neutrality debate into consideration when making their predictions. Back in May, the Federal Communications Commission approved to open net-neutrality rules for public comment.
Unless the FCC eventually decides to reclassify Internet service providers and define new rules under its own auspices, telecommunications companies like Comcast or AT&T could charge services like YouTube, Netflix or other websites a premium for better bandwidth.
Opponents like Forbes' Steven Salzberg say not reclassifying would give providers far too much power, while others like Vox's Timothy B. Lee point out that reclassification would lead to innumerable lawsuits, political backlash and discourage fiscal growth.
While the comment period over broadband companies continues, experts are now questioning whether big online businesses like Google or Amazon could also threaten Internet neutrality, as Forbes' Naomi Shavin reported last week. Covering a panel on net accessibility at the University of Navarra Business School, Shavin said experts debated how these "behemoths" decide what's relevant on the Web through sponsored search results.
"Is the Internet, with net neutrality, like water and electricity and gasoline, where you pay for the amount that you use, without the price being determined by the object you use it for? Or is the Internet, with net neutrality, like the printing press, where those who own the presses can accept or reject content and therefore need to be governed by special laws to enforce freedom of expression and access to information?" Shavin wrote. "Ideally, it would be both."It has been asked on #docker-dev recently if it was possible to attach a volume to a container after it was started. At first, I thought it would be difficult, because of how the mnt namespace works. Then I thought better :-)
TL,DR
To attach a volume into a running container, we are going to:
use nsenter to mount the whole filesystem containing this volume on a temporary mountpoint;
create a bind mount from the specific directory that we want to use as the volume, to the right location of this volume;
umount the temporary mountpoint.
It’s that simple, really.
Preliminary warning
In the examples below, I deliberately included the $ sign to indicate the shell prompt and help to make the difference between what you’re supposed to type, and what the machine is supposed to answer. There are some multi-line commands, with > continuation characters. I am aware that it makes the examples really painful to copy-paste. If you want to copy-paste code, look at the sample script at the end of this post!
Step by step
In the following example, I assume that I started a simple container named charlie, with the following command:
$ docker run --name charlie -ti ubuntu bash
I also assume that I want to mount the host directory /home/jpetazzo/Work/DOCKER/docker to /src in my container.
Let’s do this!
nsenter
First, you will need nsenter, with the docker-enter helper script. Why? Because we are going to mount filesystems from within our container, and for security reasons, our container is not allowed to do that. Using nsenter, we will be able to run an arbitrary command within the context (technically: the namespaces) of our container, but without the associated security restrictions. Needless to say, this can be done only with root access on the Docker host.
The simplest way to install nsenter and its associated docker-enter script is to run:
$ docker run --rm -v /usr/local/bin:/target jpetazzo/nsenter
For more details, check the nsenter project page.
Find our filesystem
We want to mount the filesystem containing our host directory ( /home/jpetazzo/Work/DOCKER/docker ) in the container.
We have to find on which filesystem this directory is located.
First, we will canonicalize (or dereference) the file, just in case it is a symbolic link - or its path contains any symbolic link:
$ readlink --canonicalize /home/jpetazzo/Work/DOCKER/docker /home/jpetazzo/go/src/github.com/docker/docker
A-ha, it is indeed a symlink! Let’s put that in an environment variable to make our life easier:
$ HOSTPATH=/home/jpetazzo/Work/DOCKER/docker $ REALPATH=$(readlink --canonicalize $HOSTPATH)
Then, we need to find which filesystem contains that path. We will use an unexpected tool for that, df :
$ df $REALPATH Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /sda2 245115308 156692700 86157700 65% /home/jpetazzo
Let’s use the -P flag (to force POSIX format, just in case you have an exotic df, or someone runs that on Solaris or BSD when those systems will get Docker too) and put the result into a variable as well:
$ FILESYS=$(df -P $REALPATH | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
Find the device (and sub-root) of our filesystem
Now, in a world without bind mounts or BTRFS subvolumes, we would just have to look into /proc/mounts to find out the device corresponding to the /home/jpetazzo filesystem, and we would be golden. But on my system, /home/jpetazzo is a subvolume on a BTRFS pool. To get subvolume information (or bind mount information), we will check /proc/self/mountinfo.
If you had never heard about mountinfo, check proc.txt in the kernel docs, and be enlightened :-)
So, first, let’s retrieve the device of our filesystem:
$ while read DEV MOUNT JUNK > do [ $MOUNT = $FILESYS ] && break > done </proc/mounts $ echo $DEV /dev/sda2
Next, retrieve the sub-root (i.e. the path of the mounted filesystem, within the global filesystem living in this device):
$ while read A B C SUBROOT MOUNT JUNK > do [ $MOUNT = $FILESYS ] && break > done < /proc/self/mountinfo $ echo $SUBROOT /jpetazzo
Perfect. Now we know that we will need to mount /dev/sda2, and inside that filesystem, go to /jpetazzo, and from there, to the remaining path to our file (in our example, /go/src/github.com/docker/docker ).
Let’s compute this remaining path, by the way:
$ SUBPATH=$(echo $REALPATH | sed s,^$FILESYS,,)
Note: this works as long as there are no, in the path. If you have an idea to make that work regardless of the funky characters that might be in the path, let me know! (I shall invoke the Shell Triad to the rescue: jessie, soulshake, tianon?)
The last thing that we need to do before diving into the container, is to resolve the major and minor device numbers for this block device. stat will do it for us:
$ stat --format "%t %T" $DEV 8 2
Note that those numbers are in hexadecimal, and later, we will need them in decimal. Here is a hackish way to convert them easily:
$ DEVDEC=$(printf "%d %d" $(stat --format "0x%t 0x%T" $DEV))
Putting it all together
There is one last subtle hack. For reasons that are beyond my understanding, some filesystems (including BTRFS) will update the device field in /proc/mounts when you mount them multiple times. In other words, if we create a temporary block device named /tmpblkdev in our container, and use that to mount our filesystem, then now our filesystem (in the host!) will appear as /tmpblkdev instead of e.g. /dev/sda2. This sounds like a little detail, but in fact, it will screw up all future attempts to resolve the filesystem block device.
Long story short: we have to make sure that the block device node in the container is located at the same path than its counterpart on the host.
Let’s do this:
$ docker-enter charlie -- sh -c \ > "[ -b $DEV ] || mknod --mode 0600 $DEV b $DEVDEC"
Create a temporary mount point, and mount the filesystem:
$ docker-enter charlie -- mkdir /tmpmnt $ docker-enter charlie -- mount $DEV /tmpmnt
Make sure that the volume mount point exists, and bind mount the volume on it:
$ docker-enter charlie -- mkdir -p /src $ docker-enter charlie -- mount -o bind /tmpmnt/$SUBROOT/$SUBPATH /src
Cleanup after ourselves:
$ docker-enter charlie -- umount /tmpmnt $ docker-enter charlie -- rmdir /tmpmnt
(We don’t clean up the device node. We could be extra fancy and detect whether the device existed in the first place, but this is already pretty complex as it is right now!)
Voilà!
Automating the hell out of it
This little snippet is almost copy-paste ready.
#!/bin/sh set -e CONTAINER = charlie HOSTPATH = /home/jpetazzo/Work/DOCKER/docker CONTPATH = /src REALPATH = $( readlink --canonicalize $HOSTPATH ) FILESYS = $( df -P $REALPATH | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}' ) while read DEV MOUNT JUNK do [ $MOUNT = $FILESYS ] && break done </proc/mounts [ $MOUNT = $FILESYS ] # Sanity check! while read A B C SUBROOT MOUNT JUNK do [ $MOUNT = $FILESYS ] && break done < /proc/self/mountinfo [ $MOUNT = $FILESYS ] # Moar sanity check! SUBPATH = $( echo $REALPATH | sed s,^ $FILESYS,, ) DEVDEC = $( printf "%d %d" $( stat --format "0x%t 0x%T" $DEV )) docker-enter $CONTAINER -- sh -c \ "[ -b $DEV ] || mknod --mode 0600 $DEV b $DEVDEC " docker-enter $CONTAINER -- mkdir /tmpmnt docker-enter $CONTAINER -- mount $DEV /tmpmnt docker-enter $CONTAINER -- mkdir -p $CONTPATH docker-enter $CONTAINER -- mount -o bind /tmpmnt/ $SUBROOT / $SUBPATH $CONTPATH docker-enter $CONTAINER -- umount /tmpmnt docker-enter $CONTAINER -- rmdir /tmpmnt
Status and limitations
This will not work on filesystems which are not based on block devices.
It will only work if /proc/mounts correctly lists the block device node (which, as we saw above, is not necessarily true).
Also, I only tested this on my local environment; I didn’t even try on a cloud instance or anything like that, but I would love to know if it works there or not!Barack Obama just became the first US president to write a line of computer code (assuming George W. Bush never secretly indulged in PHP). At the White House yesterday, Obama sat down with students who were learning the fundamentals of JavaScript, the popular programming language used to create most web pages.
The line he wrote was:
moveForward(100);
“So I make the F in higher case?” Obama asked, correctly observing that JavaScript is case sensitive. ”Semicolon?” (That semicolon is optional, but Obama apparently has a knack for recognizing JavaScript best practices.)
Obama was playing with a Code.org tutorial based on the popular Disney movie Frozen. In his line of code, the President called a function— moveForward— pre-defined by Code.org for the exercise.
{{inline-ad}}
Calling a function in JavaScript is simple: write its name exactly as it has been defined, followed by parentheses that contain its “arguments.” In this case, a single argument tells the program how many pixels to move a Frozen character forward. Because it’s measured in pixels, the argument has to be a number. If Obama had written moveForward(“three steps”), the program would have failed, offering only a cryptic error message and exposing the president to the near-perpetual state of frustration most software developers live in.
“This is Elsa?” Obama asked, referring to the movie’s main character.
Obama was promoting Computer Science Education Week and Code.org’s Hour of Code campaign, which encourages kids to try programming for at least one hour. “It turns out the concepts are not that complicated,” Obama told the students at the White House, though his attempt to explain it suggested otherwise:
The basic concept behind coding is that you take zeros and ones, you take two numbers, yes or no, and those can be translated into electrical messages that then run through the computer…. So all it’s doing is it’s saying yes or no over and over again, and the computer’s powerful enough that it can read a really long set of instructions really quickly.
Something like that.The phrase "Twinkie defense" comes from Twinkies, a food product known to be high in sugar.
"Twinkie defense" is a derisive label for an improbable legal defense. It is not a recognized legal defense in jurisprudence, but a catchall term coined by reporters during their coverage of the trial of defendant Dan White for the murders of San Francisco city Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. White's defense was that he suffered diminished capacity as a result of his depression. His change in diet from healthful food to Twinkies and other sugary foods was said to be a symptom of depression. Contrary to common belief, White's attorneys did not argue that the Twinkies were the cause of White's actions, but that their consumption was symptomatic of his underlying depression. White was convicted of voluntary manslaughter.
Origin [ edit ]
The expression derives from the 1979 trial of Dan White, a former San Francisco police officer and firefighter, and until just before the crime, a city district supervisor. On November 27, 1978, White assassinated Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. At the trial, psychiatrist Martin Blinder testified that White had been depressed at the time of the crime, and pointed to several behavioral changes indicating White's depression: he had quit his job; he shunned his wife; and although normally clean-cut, he had become slovenly in appearance. Furthermore, White had previously been a fitness fanatic and health food advocate, but had begun consuming junk food and sugar-laden soft drinks like Coca-Cola. As an incidental note, Blinder mentioned theories that elements of diet could worsen existing mood swings.[1] Another psychiatrist, George Solomon, testified that White had "exploded" and was "sort of on automatic pilot" at the time of the killings.[2] The fact that White had killed Moscone and Milk was not challenged, but – in part because of the testimony from Blinder and other psychiatrists – the defense successfully convinced the jury that White's capacity for rational thought had been diminished; the jurors found White incapable of the premeditation required for a murder conviction, and instead convicted him of voluntary manslaughter. Public protests over the verdict led to the White Night Riots.
Diminished capacity [ edit ]
Twinkies were never mentioned in the courtroom during the White trial, nor did the defense claim that White was on a sugar rush and committed the murders as a result. However, one reporter's use of the term "Twinkie defense" became popular, leading to a persistent misunderstanding by the public. The misunderstanding was mentioned at the end of Milk, Gus Van Sant's 2008 biopic of Harvey Milk. In a bonus feature on the DVD version of The Times of Harvey Milk, a documentary on Milk's life and death, White's lawyers explain what they actually argued in court.
The American Broadcasting Company's 2017 docudrama, When We Rise, mentions the defense in the aftermath of Milk's murder.[3]
The actual legal defense that White's lawyers used was that his mental capacity had been diminished, and White's consumption of junk food was presented to the jury as one of many symptoms, not a cause, of White's depression.
In stories covering the trial, satirist Paul Krassner had played up the angle of the Twinkie,[1] and he would later claim credit for coining the term "Twinkie defense".[4] The day after the verdict, columnist Herb Caen wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle about the police support for White, himself a former policeman, and their "dislike of homosexuals" and mentioned "the Twinkie insanity defense" in passing.[1] News stories published after the trial, however, frequently reported the defense arguments inaccurately, claiming that the defense had presented junk food as the cause of White's depression and/or diminished capacity, instead of having been symptomatic of an existing depression.[5] Dan White committed suicide seven years later.
As a result of negative publicity from the White case and others, the term diminished capacity was abolished in 1982 by Proposition 8 and the California legislature and was replaced by the term diminished actuality, referring not to the capacity to have a specific intent, but to whether the defendant actually had the required intent to commit the crime with which he or she was charged.[6] Additionally, California's statutory definitions of premeditation and malice required for murder were eliminated by the state's legislature, with the return to common law definitions. By this time, the "Twinkie defense" had become such a common term that one lawmaker had waved a Twinkie in the air while making his point during a debate.[1]
Supreme Court [ edit ]
During oral Supreme Court arguments in United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez, 548 U.S. 140 (2006), Justice Antonin Scalia referred to the Twinkie defense with regard to the right to counsel of choice as perhaps more important than the right to effective assistance of counsel: "I don't want a competent lawyer. I want a lawyer who's going to get me off. I want a lawyer who will invent the Twinkie defense.... I would not consider the Twinkie defense an invention of a competent lawyer. But I want a lawyer who's going to win for me."[7]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]Paramount Pictures
Pretty much any movie buff worth his or her popcorn can point to a slew of directors rightly celebrated not only for their enduring films, but for the artistry and attention they lavish on specific, utterly indelible scenes. Kubrick comes to mind, as does Malick. Spielberg, of course. Kurosawa, Fellini, Scorsese. But no director in the history of the medium can lay claim to helming as many signature movie moments as Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock. In fact, devoted moviegoers can reel off a litany of immortal scenes from any one of Hitch’s greatest films — Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho and so many others — that live on, vividly, in the memory years after we first encountered them.
Here, as a new biopic based on Hitchcock comes to the screen — with Anthony Hopkins filling the rotund role — we’ve resisted the urge to salute, say, the 25 or 50 greatest scenes in his career and instead have selected the 10 most memorable moments from 10 of the Master of Suspense’s most admired films. Let the nail-biting begin.
Next The Crop Duster in North by NorthwestDespite having its delicious British fingers in many pies, it is never far from the truth to say that out of everything Codemasters does, driving games are by far their specialty. From the beginning with their retro success of Micro Machines, the critically acclaimed GRID, and their current cash-cow and BAFTA award-winning F1 2010, it is no surprise to see the formally Collin McRae Rally series -- now known as DiRT 3 -- leading the way for Codemasters.
With Collin McRae no longer with us, Ken Block has now taken over as the star of the DiRT series and a recent preview event at Battersea Power station was pretty damn spectacular. With the event sponsored by Monster Energy, caffeine-high bloggers and journos were treated to the sight of Ken Block performing gymkhana in his Ford Fiesta -- the self-proclaimed jewel in DiRT 3's impressive crown.
I got to have an in-depth talk from the developers as well as a chance to finally get hands-on with a game that is shaping up to be not only the most successful game to ever be produced by Codemasters, but potentially the best driving game of 2011.
DiRT 3 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
Developer: Codemasters
Publisher: Codemasters
Release date: 24th May 2011
The main driving experience from DiRT 3 is set within the world of rally driving, so forget your well-laid tracks and tarmac, the off-road experience is where it is at. And, it comes at no surprise to learn that Codemasters has once again managed to bring a fantastic handling experience to the players and claims to make the best console driving experience ever. The customisable difficulty levels allows new players and veterans of racing to access the game at their own level, while the vomit-inducing D-box that was available at the preview event certainly didn't disappoint either.
On top of this, Codemasters has taken a great deal of inspiration from classic rally driving with everything from the 1960's Mini Cooper to Ken Block's now famous Ford Fiesta available at your digital disposal as well as over one-hundred classic rally driving stages that include snow and ice, night racing, and extensive work into weather-based technology such as rain.
Yet, DiRT 3 brings more than just racing, with Gymkhana being one of those things. For those who are unaware, Gymkhana is basically someone in a fast car driving around/under/over/in-between objects with amazing skill and at amazing speeds. Ken Block's viral gymkhana videos have received millions of hits and brought a whole new level of skill to the table.
Gymkhana allows the player a great deal of freedom and creativity but continues to demand a whole lot of skill to pull it off; My first attempt at Gymkhana pretty much saw myself throwing my car into a nearby wall instead of circling the post I had been aiming for. However, after a few tries, the moves started to come together. Out of sheer excitement, I refused to move my fingers, as I know that the moment I try something else my car will once again end up back in the wall. For those who want to share their excitement, DiRT 3 has an built-in upload feature which allows players to upload a maximum 30-second clip from their Gymkhana performance directly to you YouTube with little to no fuss.
DiRT 3 also offers an extensive multiplayer experience, which allows up to eight players online or two-person split screen which Codemasters claims to "have done properly." While the majority of racing games provide a simple eight-person racing experience, DiRT 3 features Party mode, a mix of new and old ideas brought together to add that little something extra to the driving experience.
Invasion mode involves an army of killer robots -- actually, cardboard cutouts are invading -- and it's your job to run as many of them over as possible while avoiding civilians. Transporter, on the other hand, is a DiRT 3 take on the classic capture the flag.
Outbreak mode begins a countdown as all players have to avoid an unknown infected player who is able to spread the infection by crashing into them. Outbreak was shown to us through a live demonstration and went over well with the crowd. While the original infected player is able to see the location of the other seven drives on their mini-map, they can't see him. The other seven players found themselves driving frantically throughout the map in a fit of paranoia or taking the opportunity to play hide and seek the best they could within the environment. Once hit by the infected play, that person also becomes infected and then it becomes harder and harder for the remaining players to get away. The game is short, a mere two minutes long, but that's all it needs; short, sharp, and sweat-inducing.
DiRT 3 is set to offer a pretty deep experience to those already a fan of the series and to those who aren't. While the basic physics are set firmly within reality, some imaginative multiplayer ideas and the insane Gymkhana events open DiRT 3 up, but it remains true to its rally roots with a huge arsenal of cars and tracks. On top of this, the game looks fantastic visually and has another killer soundtrack. Yet, competition within the driving market is at an all-time high and Codemasters will still have to work hard to make sure that DiRT 3 gets its share of the pie.
You are logged out. Login | Sign upI did actually get the chance to see this game the other day. My brother in-law put it in and I was curious to see how bad it really was. I thought I could get a few ironic moments of pleasure from it. Well, It is that bad. I could only stand it for a few seconds. Watching my 8 year old trying to do math is more entertaining. I’d even go as far as to say the game, even now, is insulting. Every ill-placed pixel and uninspired, “bleep” and or “bloop” is essentially a middle finger to everyone who unwittingly wanders into its web. As we all know, time holds no sway of that gesture.
P.S. Some filmmakers plan to unearth the unwanted copies of the game that were buried in the New Mexico desert. You can see an article about it HERE.
E.T. Fuck You,
JavisThe latest general education requirements at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst include two classes that direct students to “create change toward social justice.”
According to The College Fix, the university claims it has used the phrase on its website for years, but one professor contends that it was not actually added until recently.
“There is still a distinction between teaching and indoctrination...We are supposed to teach our students how to think, not what to think.”
UMass was recently the scene of campus chaos conjured by Milo Yiannopoulos, Steven Crowder, and Christina Hoff Sommers in April when the UMass College Republicans Club invited them to the university to discuss free speech and inadvertently gave birth to the phenomenon known as “Trigglypuff.”
[RELATED: UMass Amherst students throw temper tantrum at free speech event]
Now, incoming freshman at UMass are required to take classes in diversity pertaining to the United States as well as globally as part of the two-course requirement, which, UMass Amherst professor Daphne Patai told Fox News, is just another effort to “control not only language, but attitudes and thoughts.”
According to the General Education guide on the University’s website, all students are required to complete a two-course “Social and Cultural Diversity” requirement, which explores social justice on both the domestic and international levels.
The “Diversity: United States” courses focuses on social groups or backgrounds “marginalized by US dominant social and cultural norms,” such as women, “people living outside gender or heterosexual norms,” people of color, and other “peoples who experience disadvantage based on their social/economic class, ability, religion
The “Diversity: Global” courses, on the other hand, focuses on issues such as “global imperialism and colonialism, diaspora and migration, religious identity and conflict, the role of patriarchy and gender/sexual identity and nonconformity, economic globalization and marginalization on a global basis, and challenges to global sustainability.”
Courses that satisfy the diversity requirements are expected to adhere to three “Guidelines” outlining learning objectives for the program.
The first Guideline seeks to engage students in the experiences of those who have unequal access to resources that stem from “race and ethnicity, national origins, language, socioeconomic class, gender and sexual orientation, religion, age, and ability,” while Guideline #2 focuses on the dynamics that produce inequality, particularly emphasizing the “life experiences of peoples marginalized by mainstream cultures and economies and/or the differing ethical or religious perspectives of people from a range of backgrounds.”
The third Guideline urges students to recognize the “inequalities and injustices they are likely to encounter as college graduates,” and encourages them to “engage with others to create change toward social justice.”
“There is still a distinction between teaching and indoctrination, between exploring a viewpoint and endorsing it without allowing divergent perspectives to be heard,” Patai observed despairingly. “We are supposed to teach our students how to think, not what to think.”
Accordingly, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has given UMass a “Yellow” speech code rating, meaning the University has at least one ambiguous policy that too easily encourages administrative abuse and arbitrary application.
First Amendment lawyers and experts say ambiguous policies, the chilling of free speech, and the rise of diversity and sensitivity classes like those at UMass are becoming a norm at universities.
"It is a widespread and deeply ingrained trend around the country… Exceptions are few and far between,” Harvey Silverglate, a lawyer who focuses on the First Amendment, told Fox News.
Follow this author on Twitter: @marl_boro26
Bonus Footage: The video that started it all:This Chinglish clip is amusing, the lost-in-translation between Chinese and English so ridiculous it’s almost not funny. But this is between international business collaborators, with veritable strangers. Can you imagine what it’s like to experience this in your home with your own family?
When I’m hanging out in LA’s Little Tokyo, sometimes an adorable pair of obasan (grandmas) would walk by and say something like “Oh, they’ve got a sale” or “My son just transferred to this company” in gorgeously lucid Southern Californian English. It ALWAYS weirds me out. Why? Because growing up in Asian American suburbs of mostly recent immigrant families, I grew up accustomed to the older generations (read parents, aunts/uncles, grandparents etc.) not being very fluent in English if they’re able to speak it at all. So I’m simply not used to older Asian heritage Americans who speak fluent English. I guess I can understand how a non-Asian heritage Americans who aren’t usually around APIA can get a little thrown off when they see Asians opening their “foreign-looking” mouths and speaking with, say, a Brooklyn accent. Or maybe a Southern one. See Korean American comedian Henry Cho below:
Of course, some of my friends of APIA heritage have parents who speak totally fluent English, and yes, again, it weirds me out when I see them speaking with their parents completely in English, but in a different way than those Little Tokyo obasan. It makes me want to ask them, “So what’s it like? You know, being able to communicate with your parents in your dominant language?”
Clearly, even if you speak the same language as your parents, there’s no guarantee of “communication”, but it is foreign to me, being able to communicate completely smoothly in my most dominant language of mastery with my own parents.
The thing is, I speak Taiwanese and Mandarin Chinese pretty decently. I even took classes in Mandarin all throughout college and went to study it in Taiwan. I spent a whole summer with my grandparents who only spoke Taiwanese and Japanese. I completed all the most advanced Chinese classes offered. I’m always getting complimented on how well I can speak the languages by native speakers, knowing of course they have lowered standards, but I do hear the difference between me and other ABCs (American Born Chinese).
Still, I think knowing the language pretty well helps me to understand all the more how much I don’t understand. All the historical references, idioms, cultural nuances. All the philosophy, religion, and spirituality. I’ve only got a fraction of it in my grasp.
Also, my fluency and academic training in Mandarin came later in my life. So I have a slew of childhood memories where I just had no idea what my parents were saying to me.
Dad: “Get the okebang.”
Me: Stares at him blankly
Dad: “Hand me the okebang.” Gestures to counter.
Me: Stares at various items on the counter blankly.
Dad: Frustrated, grabs the toothbrush himself.
Here’s another one.
Mom: “Fix your nyah.”
Me: Stares at her blankly.
Mom: “Your nyah is messy, fix it.”
Me: Looks down at myself, puzzled.
Mom: “Fix you nyah!” Grabs her shirt and shakes it emphatically.
Me: Pinches a random part of my shirt and shakes it, unsure.
Mom: Frustrated, grabs my collar and fixes it for me.
Overall, I feel I have a pretty great relationship with my parents. We have our ups and downs, but we’ve come to mutual understandings about who we are, trying to find a balance and common ground between what actually is versus what is everyone’s ideal.
But still, if I wanted to express my deepest and most eloquent ideas from the most complex corners of my mind to my parents, there’s a wall there. We get by pretty well, but I can’t say I know what it’s likely to be able to communicate with my parents in my most fluent language.
So I ask all of you out there who speak the same language as your parents, “So what’s it like? You know |
a as another Tier 1 supplier for the non-exclusive cooperation: "Three suppliers are sufficient for now, otherwise it will be too complex at some point. And we are assuming that the partnering with other car manufacturers has only just begun." Such a global network is important he says given that autonomous driving regulation will be in constant interplay with the progress of technical systems over the next 20 years. "At some point, all vehicles will use the same driverless technology. That's why we don’t think it makes sense to try to differentiate in the long term."
Nevertheless, Munich-based companies want to get ahead and shape standards as far as possible. According to Fröhlich, BMW will have made a high single-digit billion investment for the first generation of technology by 2021. "Not everyone will be able to afford that. Nor does everyone have in-house expertise. Therefore, car manufacturers will have to enter into a cooperation at some point," he predicts. Fröhlich speaks of a "deadline for development contributions" at the end of this year, given that the existing cooperation is already setting up test fleets: "We are jumping to Level 5 and will be equipping 40 BMW 7 Series this year," says Fröhlich. In his opinion, this fleet of very expensive test vehicles is not yet large enough; therefore the network will be expanded by additional strategic partners.
Fiat Chrysler to cooperate with BMW FiatChrysler is the first associated car manufacturer, but Fröhlich is sure that more will follow by the end of the year. "If we want to be ready by 2021, then 2018 will already be too late for new partnerships. In order to complete the system, all tasks need to be completely assigned." It is important to achieve geographic diversity, he explains: "We want to have a Chinese partner, an American partner and a European partner." All those that come knocking at the door from 2018 can use the finished system as an industrialization partner. "Every partner adds value. For example, FiatChrysler will operate fleets in the USA," explains Fröhlich, “even software development will be outsourced, which is also an area where FiatChrysler could get involved."
This division of labor and parallel development is essential to stick to the ambitious time plan. The goal is to provide autonomous driving technology in a modular kit from Level 3 to Level 5. This will allow the appropriate system to be delivered based on the legislation in the respective country. The broad technical scope along with the simultaneous basic research presents a massive undertaking. "It’s not like you can just go and get the finished parts from a drawer," explains Fröhlich. At the new development center in Unterschleißheim, Bavaria, 2000 BMW experts are responsible for motion control and system integration of robot cars. Together with Mobileye, they are also working on sensor fusion, in other words, environment models – "the heart of an autonomous vehicle."
Computer power: the crucial factor for level 5 For Fröhlich, the earliest date by which the technology will be capable of Level 5 automation is 2021. If only to introduce large computers with low energy consumption into cars. "Computing power is currently the main problem. Intel has yet to develop two generations of chips before we get to the point where several mainframe computers will fit into a car," says Klaus Fröhlich. The 40 BMW 7 Series are currently driving around with a trunk full of computers. At present, the test vehicles process data from 33 sensors. However, particularly in the case of LIDAR scanners, considerable development work is still necessary to reduce costs.The sentiment of traditionally nonaligned Swedes toward applying for NATO membership has undergone a notable shift within the past few years amid worries about a resurgent Russia's actions in Ukraine and the Nordic region.
A recent Sifo poll found that 41 percent of Swedes now favor joining the military alliance and 39 percent are against it. Four years ago only 23 percent of Swedes said they were for NATO membership, while 50 percent said they opposed it.
The public's changed sentiments toward the alliance have also been reflected politically. Two conservative-leaning parties, the Christian Democrats and the Center Party, have recently switched their stance and now favor joining NATO.
NATO bid unlikely
Despite NATO's rising favorability in Sweden, it is unlikely that the country will make a historic application for membership.
"If you look at the current situation, a change in Swedish policy in the next five to 10 years is very unlikely," said Anders Lindberg, editorial writer at Sweden's Aftonbladet newspaper.
"It is not realistic anytime soon," said Anna Wieslander, deputy director of the Swedish Institute for International Affairs.
NATO has reported a spike in Russian air incursions
Both parties of Sweden's coalition government, the Social Democrats and the Greens, continue to oppose NATO membership. What's more, while the public mood vis-a-vis the alliance has notably shifted, the decisive majority it would require to undertake such a historic step is still elusive. Finally, Sweden would be hard pressed to join NATO alone without neighboring Finland, which is currently having a similar debate.
"All three requirements - the Finnish political situation, the Social Democrats' internal political situation and the opinion polls - aren't there," Lindberg said.
Swedish referendum
And, even if those three conditions were met, Swedes would probably have to give the green light for such a momentous move in a national referendum.
So, though joining NATO appears a very remote possibility at this point, things can change quickly, said Robert Egnell, a scholar at Sweden's National Defense College.
"It has to be said that positions on this issue are shifting very fast," Egnell said, "and so it seems like I have to revise my predictions on this every few months."
Russia is both the unknown factor and the only reason why Sweden is mulling NATO membership at all. Though Russia's aggressive behavior in Ukraine has obviously not gone unnoticed, the peception that the countriy is aggressively meddling in the Baltic and Nordic region is what hits home for Swedes.
Worried Swedes
Swedes take Russia's confrontational stance toward the Baltic countries, with their close historical ties to Sweden, very seriously, Aftonbladet's Lindberg said: "When you start doing what you are doing from Russia's side to the Baltic states or also towards Finland, Sweden reacts immediately."
Swedes worry over Russia's increasing military presence in the region
But Swedes are also worried - and puzzled - by a reported spike in territorial incursions by Russian military planes, last year's massive hunt for an alleged Russian submarine in Swedish waters and Moscow's recent warning of retaliation should the country seek to join NATO.
"What is interesting is that almost everything in Russia's behavior is pushing us toward NATO, which doesn't make any sense if that is not really what they want," Egnell said. "To me it doesn't make any sense what Russia is doing."
Despite all the recent friction and the subsequent uptick in support for NATO membership, Swedes are still not convinced they should make the historic decision to join the alliance - yet.
"The ball is in Russia's court," Lindberg said. "I would say it is more in Russia's hands than in any Swedish actors' hands. If Russia continues with its aggression towards the Baltic states, of course the Swedish debate will change."In an effort to better understand its product — or, you know, to launch a viral-friendly ad campaign — Netflix is now studying “Netflix adultery,” a term coined right here on the Cut. In a study of 2000 American adults, 12 percent confessed to watching ahead on TV shows they were supposed to save to watch with their partners. Ten percent admitted to being the victim of Netflix adultery, which means either 2 percent are blissfully unaware of their partners’ indiscretions, or the cheaters are hitting multiple victims.
Of those who cheated, 66 percent did so “at home by themselves on the main TV.” A shocking 21 percent confessed to watching in bed while their significant other slept. (This is my modus operandi, and it is shameful.) Forty-one percent of cheaters refrained from revealing spoilers; 12 percent would rewatch and “fake it” in their reactions; 14 percent felt so guilty they confessed to cheating.
Seventy-seven percent of men ages 18 to 34 said they would cheat, whereas only 57 percent of women that age said they would. As for people actually in relationships (not all of the men and women were), 51 percent of committed adults said they had or would commit Netflix adultery, if the moment was right and Netflix was looking particularly foxy that night.
Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Officer at Netflix, accepts no blame: “Netflix continues to revolutionize entertainment by letting our members watch great content whenever and wherever they want, which seems to be leading to a cultural phenomenon of ‘stream cheating.’ With that said, Netflix can’t be held responsible for any trust issues, lovers’ spats, or marital troubles that arise from watching ahead of your partner. We also will not cover any therapy sessions. As always, we advise to Watch Responsibly.”For the last week, there has been outrage about reports citing the deaths of approximately 500 Indian construction workers in Qatar over the past two years. The Gulf nation has seen a spurt of building projects ahead of the 2022 football World Cup that it is hosting.
But even as they expressed alarm at the conditions of Indian workers in Qatar, labour experts noted that the world’s highest number of construction deaths is actually recorded in India and that attempts to provide a social safety net for workers in the building sector have failed to take off.
Though the Indian government does not keep centralised records on construction workers, death and injury from accidents in the Indian building sector is widespread, noted a paper by academician Sarbeswara Sahoo prepared for a national workshop on safety, health and welfare measures for construction workers organised two years ago at the Mahatma Gandhi Labour Institute in Ahmedabad. “India has the world’s highest accident rate among construction workers,” he said, quoting a survey by the International Labour Organisation that stated that 165 out of every 1,000 construction workers suffers an injury while at work.
“Workers in this industry face a lot of health issues,” Sahoo said. “They have spinal cord problems because of the weight they carry, back issues, respiratory problems because of the amount of dust around them. Their living quarters are not hygienic and they are packed together in small spaces.”
His paper also pointed out long-term health hazards. “There is a very serious risk of cancer from the handling of asbestos," Sahoo said. "Equally alarming is the number of workers who succumb to dust-related illnesses, asbestosis, silicosis, mostly in the process of raw materials for construction.”
However, India’s estimated 45 million construction workers lack a social security net.
“Construction workers have been demanding social security for years,” said Sahoo. “But as they are not contractual employees, they have never been eligible for social security schemes.”
This might change with a proposal being discussed very seriously at the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation. The ESIC, which was established in 1952 to provide for factory and company employees, is India's largest social security provider. It provides medical and social benefits to employees of all establishments, private or otherwise, that employ a minimum of ten people.
“Over the past 15-20 years, ESIC’s scope has grown to the extent that we can seriously think of giving [construction] workers social security,” said BK Sahu, Insurance Commissioner (Revenue) at the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation, who is pitching for the proposal.
At present, construction worker welfare is taken care of by state-governed Construction Workers Welfare Boards across the country. These boards are supposed to disburse old age pensions, medical benefits, housing loans and insurance premiums to all workers registered with them.
However, while boards across India had accumulated over Rs 11,127 crore as of September 2013, they had spent only about Rs 1,448 crore on the workers for whom these funds were intended.
This, it seems, is the fault of contractors.
“Contractors are supposed to provide labourers with compensation and medical help if they ever have an accident, but this can be enforced only if they are registered,” said Pradeep Shinde, an assistant professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. “Not only do contractors make sure labourers are not registered, they also avoid those who have been.”
Labourers who know about government schemes are thus caught between the long-term benefits of registration and the short-term reality of being refused work.
In order to bring them under the ESIC’s umbrella, Sahu hopes to get administrative offices of construction agencies to register them. While he acknowledges this will be immensely difficult, he hopes contractors will be less hesitant in urging their employees to register with the ESIC than with local state boards. “It’s a win-win situation. They register the construction workers, but we pay them benefits,” he said.
Sahu’s proposal only requires the sanction of the corporation to be implemented, which means this could very well become a reality.
The scheme will give workers basic social security, especially during the monsoon when most building activities cease.
Construction work is migratory by nature. Sahu believes that the ESIC will be able to provide better security than state boards, if only because it functions across the country. “If someone from Lucknow is working from Delhi, as long as he is registered with us, he will continue to get social security benefits at his home town,” said Sahu. “It will no longer matter where he is working.”
However, Sahu's proposal will not improve working conditions on site, which remains one of the most serious problems faced by labourers today. Labourers themselves do not realise that they have even basic rights to safety on their sites, let alone social and economic benefits they can avail of off-site.
“When contractors are organising work, the most important factor becomes cost,” said Bino Paul, assistant professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. “And when you’re trying to be competitive, the first thing you cut down on is living conditions.”
Whatever the flaws of his proposal, Sahu says it will be a massive step for the ESIC towards expanding social security coverage to all citizens. “Social security is slowly but surely going to become universal,” he said. “It is inevitable. You already have a national health insurance scheme that works across the country. We have to be dynamic and visionary. We can’t run the government based on a situation relevant 20 years ago.”Fort William, United Kingdom - The tiny isle of Eigg, off Scotland's north-west coast, can feel like a land outside time. Buzzards, ravens, and even golden eagles swoop over heather-filled fields. The occasional car moves ponderously along the island's few kilometres of road. A sporadic ferry service provides the only connection with the outside world.
The 31-square-kilometre island's hundred or so inhabitants call this languid pace of life "Eigg Time". But the island, part of the Hebrides archipelago, is proving that a relaxed approach is no barrier to making big changes.
Eigg is firmly on course to become the first island entirely self-sufficient in renewable power. Dotted around the picturesque island are solar panels, wind turbines and hydroelectric schemes that provide almost all of the residents' energy needs.
"It varies from year to year depending on weather conditions, but we are getting between 85 and 90 percent of our energy from renewables," explains Maggie Fyffe over coffee in her pleasingly chaotic bungalow that doubles as the financial office for "Eigg Electric". Outside her window the sun shines on the Atlantic Ocean, bathing the hills of nearby Rum island in light.
"There are miles and miles of underground cable connecting every house to the grid."
More electricity
The electricity scheme, which cost around £1.6m ($2.64m) and was funded by the European Union and national bodies, was switched on in 2008. Before then, most islanders relied on noisy, polluting generators that ran on diesel that had to be shipped from the mainland at great cost.
"It's hard to imagine what it is like to live with no electricity or limited electricity," says Fyffe, who moved to the island in the 1970s. "If you had a generator you would only have it on for a few hours a day, so that meant you only had electricity for certain hours of the day. Now life is so much easier. I've got a washing machine - which I never had before."
Eigg Electric is independent of the UK's national grid, which means that the island is unable to sign lucrative renewables contracts with big energy companies as other rural communities in Scotland have done. Instead, electricity prices on Eigg are set slightly higher than the cost on the mainland. But at 21 pence (35 cents) per kilowatt-hour, few on the island are complaining.
"It was a condition of our funding that the price was higher," says Fyffe. "We might have to put up the price next year by another penny. We just have to keep an eye on how the books are balancing and decide. But it is still a lot less than we were paying before."
To ensure there is enough energy for everyone, islanders cannot use more than 5 kilowatts at a time - equivalent to running a washing machine and a kettle simultaneously. For businesses, the limit is 10 kilowatts. Islanders are used to rationing their power: So far, no one has been disconnected.
Extreme weather
Perched on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, Eigg gets more than its fair share of extreme weather - good news for renewable energy.
"It gives you a completely different attitude to rain," says Eddie Scott, part of Eigg Electric's maintenance team, as he shows off the state-of-the-art energy storage facility in the middle of the island. Rainfall helps power hydroelectric generators set up along streams or rivers.
"That arrow there shows you that there is more power coming in than the island is consuming," Scott explains, pointing to a bank of batteries and flashing lights.
On days that are really sunny - or, more likely, really wet or windy - Eigg Electric has a useful way for dealing with excess energy. "We have heaters in all the public spaces on the island, the two churches, the community centre, [the shop and café] down at the pier. So we put free heating into these buildings to keep the island's costs down and to keep the infrastructure of the buildings dry," says Scott.
Eigg has improved enormously over the last 15 years. A lot of employment has been created. We have a lot of young people coming back to live here. - Maggie Fyffe, Eigg resident
Scott is not an energy specialist or a technician by profession - his background is in horticulture - but, like the rest of the six-man, part-time maintenance team, he learned how the system works by shadowing the construction company as they built the Eigg Electric scheme. "Part of their contract was that they had to teach people about installation and how it worked," he says. "Now we can solve a lot of the problems ourselves. We have learned a lot as the years have gone by."
One of the reasons the electricity scheme has worked so well, says Scott, is Eigg's unique ownership structure, which gave everyone on the island a say in the decision to install the wind turbines, solar panels and hydroelectric generators.
This was not always the case. For centuries, Eigg was owned by a succession of landlords, many of whom had little or nothing to do with the island. As recently as the 1990s most residents had no legal tenure on their land, making development on the island almost impossible.
Owning the island
In 1997, after a campaign that made international headlines, the residents of Eigg raised £1.5m ($2.48m) to buy the island from its erstwhile owner, an eccentric German fire artist who went by the name of Maruma. And so Eigg became the first island in Scottish history to be bought by its inhabitants.
"Owning the island has empowered the people of Eigg," says Fyffe, who spearheaded the community buyout of the island. "Eigg has improved enormously over the last 15 years. A lot of employment has been created. We have a lot of young people coming back to live here."
An impressive broadband scheme has helped, as has the island's vibrant cultural scheme - musician Johnny Lynch - better known as the Pictish Trail - is among the island's residents.
Anyone who lives on Eigg for more than six months of the year automatically becomes a member of the residents' committee. It was at this monthly committee that the idea for a renewable energy scheme first emerged.
"Electricity was brought up at every meeting. Where folk would want to see wind turbines, how much they would pay for a unit of electricity, we talked about all of that," says Fyffe.
'A great luxury'
Now the biggest problem for Eigg Electric is not renewables, but ensuring a supply of clean fuel for the diesel generators that still account for around 15 percent of the island's energy consumption. Last year, contaminated diesel entered the supply chain, causing £12,000 ($19,800) worth of damage - a significant outlay for a small community.
For its inhabitants, continuous electricity has changed island life forever. "Electric light is a great luxury. Now I have a television, a sound system, a refrigerator, all the stuff that people take for granted," says local postman John Cormack.
Cormack built his own hydroelectric scheme, near his wooden house overlooking a sandy beach at the Bay of Laig more than 15 years ago, but he has come to rely on Eigg Electric when bad weather knocks out his private generator.
"Before I'd have to try to stagger out there in the dark," he says. "Now I have the luxury of flicking over to Eigg Electric and sorting it out when the weather is nicer and it is daylight. It's great."
Follow Peter Geoghegan on Twitter: @PeterKGeogheganIran, France And China To Develop $6 Billion Gas Field In The Persian Gulf
Enlarge this image toggle caption Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images
A preliminary deal between Iran and France's Total SA to develop an offshore Persian Gulf gas field represents the first investment by a Western energy company since international sanctions were relaxed earlier this year.
The $6 billion deal between Total and Iran's state-owned Petropars includes the participation of China National Petroleum Corp. in a consortium to develop what's known as the South Pars field estimated to contain 14,000 billion cubic meters of gas, or about 8 percent of the known global reserves.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the deal is still in draft stage with the final agreement expected in the next six months. It adds:
"The agreement with the French oil giant could be a harbinger for the return of more Western companies to Iran's vast energy industry and represents a step forward for the Islamic Republic's goals of ramping up production of oil and gas over the next several years."
Total is no stranger to Iran or its vast gas and oil reserves. The French company has had its eye on the South Pars field, which Iran shares with Qatar, dating back to 2004. It and China's CNPC had signed development deals with Iran to begin work there before international sanctions forced them to pull out in 2009.
The deal calls for Total to control 50.1 percent of the consortium. CNPC will take 30 percent and Iran's Petropars has 19.9 percent.
Iran has one of the world's largest natural gas reserves, but it needs foreign expertise to develop and export it. American companies are still prohibited under U.S. law from investing there.On Thursday’s Breitbart News Daily, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton said he was “delighted” to hear National Security Adviser Mike Flynn’s statement that Iran has been “put on notice” for its ballistic missile launches and other provocations.
“I think it’s the first time in eight years that anybody has really said to Iran what needs to be said,” Bolton told SiriusXM host Alex Marlow.
“I think it demonstrates a couple of things: Number one, that the Obama administration’s nuclear deal, agreed to in the summer of 2015, is in deep trouble. I think that’s what being put officially ‘on notice’ means. Because this latest ballistic missile launch by the Iranians was a violation of the agreement, although the wording is weak and ambiguous, thanks to John Kerry, there’s no doubt this is unacceptable behavior by Iran,” he said.
“It also sends the political signal to America’s allies, as well, that any notion that we will simply continue to accept this deal as written is something they need to dismiss,” he continued. “I think it’s the kind of straight-shooting that helps clarify the situation with friends and adversaries alike.”
“This deal was a strategic mistake when it was made. It’s not gotten any better with age,” Bolton said. “It’s better to be unambiguous when a mistake like this is made. Even though Iran has benefited from the deal – the release of sanctions, unfreezing of $150 billion of their assets – it’s just an example of how bad the deal was for the United States. Iran gets the goodies up front, and its obligations only came down the road.”
“But nonetheless, because I think they’re already in violation of the deal, and I think there’s evidence to show that, we need to get on with the business of looking and talking to Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel when he arrives in a couple of weeks and our friends in the Arab world who see the Iranian nuclear threat as a direct threat to them, not just a threat to us,” he advised.
Marlow turned to President Trump’s executive order to temporarily suspend immigration from seven high-risk nations and asked if Bolton thought the rollout of this order has been “sub-optimal.”
“Well, sub-optimal is a very diplomatic way to put it,” Bolton told Marlow. “You have a future at the State Department if you want one at some point.”
“Thank you, sir,” Marlow said.
“That’s not a compliment, actually,” Bolton said with a laugh.
On a more serious note, he said things were left out of the executive order that he thinks should have been included, “for example, making it clear that green card holders were not subject to it.”
“Other exceptions were put in. This one was not,” he noted. “We all know the Trump administration wants to give refugee status to, like Iraqis, former interpreters who helped us out during the Iraq conflict. I think that added to the confusion and the publicity.”
“But honestly, this is going to be controversial even if those steps had been corrected. What I don’t understand is why the White House wasn’t more prepared for the fury of opposition that met it. It’s not like this wasn’t an issue during the campaign. It’s not like it wasn’t highlighted,” he said.
“Look, it’s a bump in the road. I’ve been through transitions coming in and going out through the government. The first couple of months at the White House always have rocky periods. The real consequence here is that they learn from it, and I’m comfortable that they will,” said Bolton.
He agreed with Marlow’s suggestion that despite all the hysteria around the supposedly draconian executive order, it did not go far enough in certain ways.
“It’s very limited, and I think, in fact, if people read the executive order, they’ll see that with respect to these seven nations that are affected by it, that the same seven nations that, as you said a moment ago, were tagged by the Obama administration to effectively be eliminated from the visa waiver program. So that was a step in the direction Trump took. Trump just went further,” he observed.
“But the key point was that these seven governments, for a variety of reasons, cannot supply the United States with adequate information about people claiming to be citizens of those countries who want visas to come into the United States. Let’s take a couple of examples: Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Syria. These are places where the government has just collapsed. It’s just collapsed. There is no effective government. We have no confidence that the information we’re getting is correct. Other governments like Iran, I wouldn’t trust as far as I could throw them anyway, even though they’re functioning in their territory,” Bolton said.
“The point is to give the secretary of Homeland Security time to figure out whether these problems will be corrected or whether other steps need to be taken. People complain we should have put Saudi Arabia on the list. Actually, we get a lot of information from Saudi Arabia about visa applicants that we can corroborate and check into. Is it perfect? Of course not, but the opponents of the executive order, I think to be fair, cannot have it both ways. It’s too broad, which is what most of them claim and simultaneously claim it’s not broad enough, which really is hypocritical,” he said.
On the subject of Iran, Bolton described the threat it poses as “enormous,” amply justifying the Trump administration’s putting them “on notice.”
“This cruise missile story is definitely very troubling because of its implications,” he said, referring to Iran’s recent missile test. “It was reported that the test had failed, but here’s the significant fact: it failed at the reentry stage – that is to say, as the warhead part of the missile, the nose cone and what’s under it, was coming back into the atmosphere.”
“What is significant about that? When you launch weather and communications satellites, you don’t care what happens on re-entry, as long as the satellite is in orbit. What happens to the rest of the missile, it burns up in the atmosphere. You don’t care,” he explained. “The only reason you care about re-entry vehicles is when you’re delivering nuclear weapons because obviously, you can put the weapon into space, but if you can’t bring it down over the target, you’ve wasted a lot of effort. So the fact that Iran is at the point where it can launch ballistic missiles – and we know they’ve got medium-range ballistic missiles now.”
“That they’re testing ICBM kinds of missiles, capable of hitting the United States at a certain point, and they’re testing the re-entry capability, tells you exactly what this missile program is all about. So the argument that ballistic missiles aren’t intended for nuclear weapons is just another Iranian lie. That’s the only purpose of this program,” Bolton said.
John Bolton is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and heads up his own political action committee, BoltonPAC.
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
LISTEN:Hundreds of United States scientists in Antarctica are facing evacuation, many of them to Christchurch, as funding dries up in Washington's continuing government shutdown.
A decision is expected by the end of the week and if scientists are forced out science media say it will be a disaster.
The US has three major bases including McMurdo Station, next to New Zealand's Scott Base, as well as Amundsen-Scott at the South Pole and Palmer on the Antarctic Peninsula.
Any shutdown by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) will have severe implications for the Christchurch-based Antarctica New Zealand which shares facilities and the vast logistics associated with the summer programme.
An Antarctic NZ official said that so far the US government shutdown had not affected the New Zealand programme in Antarctica.
"We are, however, following the situation in the US and keeping in close contact with our partners at the NSF and their McMurdo Station," a spokeswoman said.
Nature magazine says the NSF will decide within a week on what to do.
Nature said the NSF had kept the stations open during the first days of the shutdown, which began on October 1, under rules designed to protect lives and US government property.
But Lockheed Martin, the contractor that runs the NSF's Antarctic operations, has told researchers that it will run out of money by mid-October.
Nature said the company would be forced to evacuate all but a skeleton staff at the bases.
That would spell the end to this year's research season, which normally runs from October to February.
"We are in a major planning mode to begin an orderly transition to caretaker mode at the stations," a Lockheed official wrote in an October 4 email to researchers.
"A decision will be made early next week."
Nature said researchers were devastated.
The prospect of losing an entire Antarctic field season is "just hell", said Diana Wall, an ecologist at Colorado State University in Fort Collins.
Since 1989, she has tracked fluctuations in the populations of nematodes, mites and other soil dwellers in Antarctica's Dry Valleys.
"If we are not there to capture the demographics this year, our whole data set could be unintelligible," she said.
US National Public Radio said scientists feared the year's entire research season would effectively be cancelled - that scientists and logistical support workers would be called back home, and only skeleton crews left.
"Just a week ago, even though we knew about the government shutdown and everything, we weren't really thinking it would impact us and our field season," Peter Doran, a professor of earth sciences from the University of Illinois in Chicago told NPR.
"What a difference a week makes. Now it all seems very uncertain."
Doran notedthe US had the largest and most impressive Antarctic program in the world.
"I mean, we can do things that other countries can't do because of the great logistic support that we've had for years," he said.
The thought of all the science that wouldn't get done if there is a pullback is depressing to Doran.
"And the waste of money is just heartbreaking," he adds.
"All the equipment that's been shipped down already for this field season, all the people having to reverse all that - for nothing? It really kind of makes me ill."
John Priscu, a Montana State University biologist who has been to Antarctica about 30 times, told NPR that if the programme was put on to a caretaker status it would be hard to reverse the situation quickly.
"In Antarctica the planning is so intense," Priscu said.
"I mean, we're scheduling Department of Defence aircraft and icebreakers.
"The planning goes on years ahead. I don't think you can just throw a switch and say, 'OK, we're better now'."
So far the US Antarctic Program has only said that there were a small number of "excepted" employees who would will remain on the job expressly to ensure the safety of personnel and property.
"At no time will we compromise our ability to access our personnel for safety and continue operations as appropriate," it said.
"We will continue to house, feed, and provide care for our personnel currently in Antarctica without exception."
One major project to be hit will be Operation IceBridge that is measuring Antarctica's ice shelf
Also affected would be the study of Antarctica's sub-glacial lakes, pristine environments that have been isolated for millions of years.
Ross Powell, a geologist at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, had planned to continue his study of Lake Whillans, a body of water trapped 800 metres under a glacier. Earlier this year, a drilling expedition reached the lake, and researchers found communities of bacteria.
Powell is now trying to understand how isolated the lake is - whether it connects to nearby sub-glacial streams, and how that network of water affects the glacier's flow into the Ross SeaJulian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, doesn’t know who leaked the thousands of Afghanistan war documents that his site posted this week. That’s not unusual—it’s how WikiLeaks works. To get a scoop to WikiLeaks, a would-be whistle-blower clicks the Submit Documents button on the site’s home page, then uploads a file through a form that encrypts every interaction between the source and the site. WikiLeaks keeps no logs of the submission, and the site says that it is legally bound, under Sweden’s press secrecy laws, never to cooperate with any investigation into the identity of the source. The site takes several additional measures to scrub submitted documents of any information that could compromise the leaker, removing any ID trails left by word processing software, for instance. The site also constantly feeds fake submissions through its network in order to fool potential attackers. “We have never lost a source,”Assange declares in his pitch to whistle-blowers around the world. “None of our sources has been exposed or come to harm.” Bradley Manning, who is being investigated for the Afghanistan leak, was charged in June with leaking a different set of classified documents to WikiLeaks. Manning seems to have exposed himself in online chats with Adrian Lamo, a former hacker who then turned Manning in”>
At the same time, WikiLeaks says its founding mission is radical transparency. Assange argues that “increased scrutiny“—of governments, corporations, and institutions like the Church of Scientology—can be a powerful force for good, reducing corruption and oppression. “Principled leaking has changed the course of history for the better; it can alter the course of history in the present; it can lead us to a better future,” WikiLeaks says.
This is the paradox of WikiLeaks’ methods. Is radical transparency compatible with total anonymity? If we don’t know who the leaker is, why he’s leaking, and how he came upon his information, can we really know the full story the document tells? More importantly, how can we know that the information is authentic? Look deeply into WikiLeaks’ efforts at radical transparency and you find complete opacity; WikiLeaks wants to shine a light on the world, but only by keeping itself shrouded in secrecy.
Consider the Afghanistan war logs. WikiLeaks says that its source has given the site more than 91,000 classified military reports. So far, WikiLeaks has posted all but 15,000, which have been delayed “as part of a harm minimization process demanded by our source.” What does this mean? You can imagine many different scenarios: Perhaps the source is affiliated with the U.S. military and is afraid that immediate publication of the unpublished reports might harm American troops. On the other hand, what if the “harm” that the source wants to minimize isn’t physical, but political? For instance, perhaps the information is so incendiary that it would affect the war funding bill being debated in Congress or significantly impact the midterm elections. Or maybe the danger is entirely more intimate for the source. If the source is Bradley Manning, the Army intelligence analyst previously charged with sending documents to WikiLeaks, perhaps the demand to keep 15,000 documents in the dark is an effort to minimize further legal jeopardy.
Any one of these theories could be true, or none of them. That’s the problem; the fact that the leaker wants to minimize harm suggests that he, like most whistle-blowers, has some sort of agenda. That agenda is a part of the story, and it could provide valuable context for all of this data. If the source wants the United States to end the war in Afghanistan, we would look at the documents in one way; if he simply wants the U.S. to prosecute the war differently—perhaps, for instance, by sending more troops—we would see the documents in an entirely new context. Because we know nothing |
centers is irreversible and unstoppable.
"It's as much to do with the lack of opportunity in rural areas as opposed to this great magnet of cities," said Graeme Harrison, an economist who tracks the growth of megacities at Oxford Economics. "Because everything else—such as unemployment and high cost—would normally act against people migrating to cities."
A hundred years ago just 2 out of 10 people on Earth lived in cities. Today more than half the world's population lives in cities, generating some 80 percent of global economic output. By the middle of this century, 7 out of 10 people will be urban dwellers, according to Hot Spots 2025, a report prepared by the Economist Intelligence Unit for Citibank.
To be sure, any forecast 25 years into the future is nothing more than a rough guess. Population trends will shift based on a city's ability to cope with the last wave of migration—or the political backlash aimed at curbing it. Continued economic growth depends on wider forces at work in a given country or the industries that cluster in an urban area.
A major challenge these cities will pose for society will be the strain on resources. Globally, cities today represent 2 percent of the Earth's surface but use 75 percent of its resources, according to Euramet. As the urbanization trend accelerates, so, too, will issues of sustainability and infrastructure to support city dwellers.
(Read more: America's cities on the edge)from Cassiopedia Website
Density
In the Cassiopaea and Ra materials, density denotes a qualitatively distinct level of being. Each density has its own structure of life forms, perception and typical lessons for the consciousnesses residing in it.
Densities are defined roughly as follows:
1 st density - Inanimate matter If we can speak of learning here, the lesson is maybe for matter to learn to combine in ways forming primitive biological organisms.
2 nd density - vegetal and animal kingdom Lessons have to do with biological life, survival, adaptation, competition, group organization as seen with animals and the like. The soul structure is generally a species soul pool, but as species become more advanced, individual members of the species may differentiate themselves by more varied individual learning.
3 rd density - human Lessons of 2 nd density continue in more complex forms, as in battles for social domination, more survival etc. Individually acquired personality and individual learning play a greater role than in 2 nd density. Humans are divided into preadamics, who share a species-like soul pool and Adamics, who have an individuated soul.
The specific lesson of third density is however making a choice of orientation of service, towards service to others in its greatest possible manifestation or service to self in its greatest possible manifestation. Making such a conscious choice requires having an individuated soul and presumably a large number of lifetimes in third density for the soul to acquire its polarity.
4 th density This is described as a partly physical state where graduates of third density may deepen and perfect their chosen polarity. STS and STO groups are distinct in fourth density and do not automatically come in contact, unless in the context of interacting with 3 rd density.
Most of the UFO phenomenon involves 4 th density service to self beings. Pure service to self may not occur past the 4 th level of density, presumably because this is the last at least partly material density.
4 th density beings enjoy more conscious control over physicality and generally form groups telepathically sharing a common pool of experience while retaining a certain individuality.
5 th density Souls of 1 st thru 4 th density find themselves in 5 th density between incarnations. This is a contemplation zone where these souls may observe their past/future lives from a purely ethereal state of being. However, for progress to be realized, the souls must incarnate in the density which best corresponds to their level of progress.
6 th density This corresponds to the level of 'names of God' or 'unified thought forms.' Service to others entities who no longer need to reincarnate occupy this level. This corresponds to angels or Dhyanic beings in other terminologies.
7th density This is the level where all is one and one is all, in a practical, real and meaningful sense. There is no longer any difference between thought and reality. This corresponds to a notion of all encompassing god or universe or the Sun Absolute of the 4th Way.
The concept is complex and words of 3rd density are not fully appropriate for most aspects of the matter.
The Ra material offers a somewhat systematic overview of the question. The Cassiopaea material builds further on that basis. There are slight differences of emphasis and definition between the two but from our standpoint the essential message is that a passage from 3rd to 4th density is in some cases possible and requires first mastering the lessons of 3rd density, specifically survival, karma and formation of a truly individuated being capable of consistent work in one's chosen polarity.
The mastery of self spoken of by the 4th Way is a subtask of these.
The different cosmoses of the 4th Way cosmology can be seen to correspond with densities. Direct comparison is difficult because most of this material lies outside human experience.
1st Density
In the scale of densities, the 1st density corresponds to inanimate matter and energy.
Since the scale of density is principally concerned with how awareness interacts with its environment, we could say that the 1st density is the raw material on which awareness acts in order to create.
The Cassiopaea material proposes that absolutely everything, thus including inanimate matter, learns after its own fashion and that there is nothing that would not somehow derive from consciousness. In this sense, the first density could be said to be sleeping consciousness, not structured into organisms or species of living things.
As the density gets higher, the entities of said density become more diverse and more alive, holding more 'aliveness', information or intelligence per entity.
We cannot attribute human or animal like consciousness to inanimate matter. Sheldrake's claims on morphic resonance between crystals could be something akin to learning at the level of the first density. If one particular solution is once made to crystallize, it will crystallize more readily in experiments carried out in separate locations.
Claims concerning the memory of water would be another example of learning in the first density. The imprinting of patterns on a solvent through successive dilutions as practiced in preparing homeopathic remedies might be another example.
The ultimate learning result of the 1st density is for matter to learn to form self-replicating organisms, thereby creating life. In the Cassiopaea/Ra cosmology, this is not entirely independent of pre-existing consciousness, rather we could say that the consciousness from the future creates its material beginnings in the past.
This may take place through various processes, for example manipulating quantum effects at the molecular level in order to promote formation of the building blocks and initial genome for primitive organisms.
In the Gurdjieffian scale of hydrogens, the first density would correspond to H3072, which is the category of metals and minerals and generally of substances which do not have a biological origin.
2nd Density
In the Cassiopaea/Ra scale of densities, the second density corresponds to everything that grows biologically, up to the point where the emphasis in evolution shifts from the biological evolution of a species to the mental and spiritual evolution of an individual seen as distinct from the species.
The second density begins with the advent of self-replicating organisms subject to a biological evolution.
The line between second and third density is hard to draw with exactitude but would generally correspond to the separation of modern type humans from primates.
Learning takes place in all densities and in the second density it primarily takes place at the level of a species adapting to an ecological situation or niche. Still. Second density cannot be seen in Darwinian terms only. It is noteworthy that the dividing lines between species are well defined, displaying distinct jumps and sudden species formation rather than smooth transition.
Esoteric culture speaks of the existence of species oversouls, which would be the non-physical counterpart of an animal species.
The physical representation of this oversoul would be the DNA defining the species and its learning would physically be represented as the biological evolution of this DNA. At the non-physical level, the species oversoul, the effective unit of evolution, undergoes learning through the collective sum of all its incarnations in all the individuals of the species.
As the learning capacity of individual members of the species increases, as with higher animals, the emphasis of learning may shift from the genetically transmitted learning of the whole species to what is learned by an individual member of the species and stored in its brain or'soul imprint.' Thus the'soul imprint' may become no longer soluble or assimilable into the anonymous soul pool of the species.
Thus individual fragments of the species oversoul may become self-conscious and harvestable to third density.
The notion of the organic portal further complicates the transition between second and third densities. Also, the emergence of individuated soul cannot be seen in terms of reflexive self-awareness, cognitive or behavioral learning alone. See the Ra quote below.
From Ra:
QUESTIONER: Let's take the point at which an individualized entity of second density is ready for transition to third. Is this second-density being what we would call animal? RA: I am Ra. There are three types of second-density entities which become, shall we say, enspirited. The first is the animal. This is the most predominant. The second is the vegetable, most especially that which you call, sound vibration complex, "tree." These entities are capable of giving and receiving enough love to become individualized. The third is mineral. Occasionally a certain location/place, as you may call it, becomes energized to individuality through the love it receives and gives in relationship to a third-density entity which is in relationship to it. This is the least common transition. QUESTIONER: When this transition from second to third density takes place, how does the entity, whether it be animal, [vegetable] tree, or mineral, become enspirited?
RA: I am Ra. Entities do not become enspirited. They become aware of the intelligent energy within each portion, cell, or atom, as you may call it, of its beingness. This awareness is that which is awareness of that already given. From the infinite come all densities. The self-awareness comes from within given the catalyst of certain experiences understanding, as we may call this particular energy, the upward spiraling of the cell or atom or consciousness. You may then see that there is an inevitable pull toward the, what you may call, eventual realization of self.
From the Cassiopaea material:
A: beware: 3rd density STS orientation includes the thought of "dominion" over 2nd density, and this is merely a continuation of the energy buildups of the approach of the wave... Some of the lessons are interesting indeed. When you assume that capture and imprisonment of those of lesser capacity than you is for "the good," why should not you expect those of greater capacity than you to assume the same regarding you?!?
A: What if: one on 2nd density perceives objects due to their similarity. One on 3rd density perceives objects due to their difference, and one on 4th density perceives objects in terms of their own union with all of them?
Q: (L) Is there some way to communicate with whales or dolphins and can one find a way to translate the differences and have a reasonable, intelligent exchange with a whale or a dolphin or even an elephant? A: You don't need conversation "with" when a higher telepathic level. Q: (L) Dolphins and whales communicate telepathically? A: Yes. So do dogs and cats and snakes etc. etc. only humans have learned the "superior" art of verbal communication.
In the Gurdjieffian terminology, 'one and two brained being' constitute second density.
The 'brains' in question are also known as moving center and emotional center. All living things have a moving center adapted to the species which regulates its physical processes, whatever these may be. Higher animals further have an emotional center. Both these centers have intelligence In their specific domains but still do not form capacity for abstract thought.
This is the hallmark of 'three brained beings,' which in Gurdjieff's system of terminology are third density and higher beings.
3rd Density
In the scale of densities this corresponds to living beings that have a degree of individual consciousness and corresponding free will, at least in potential.
This implies that a proper being of 3rd density is a moral entity with attendant responsibilities. While the animal does primarily according to the typical behavior of the species, the 3rd density entity is supposed to have reflexive self-awareness and free will and to be thus accountable in terms of karma and soul evolution.
While the lessons of the 2nd density have to do with developing a being that has the beginnings of individual character and individual intelligence as opposed to behavior dictated by species, the lessons of the third density take these further and make the development of a permanent individuated soul possible. To provide catalyst for this direction of development, the human form is physically weaker and less specifically adapted than late 2nd density forms.
Also, verbal communication and the need to learn a language are first found in third density.
Animals are typically more in tune with their environment and have clearer, if also more specialized intra-species communication. According to the C's, higher animals live in a sort of telepathically functioning species consciousness.
If such exists between humans, it is weaker and less reliable, thus isolating individuals from each other. On the other hand, the relative physical vulnerability of the human form makes cooperation more necessary than with animals in general. This creates an evolutionary setting for developing individual intelligence.
The development of individual thinking and distinct personality while functioning in a human society then works as catalyst for developing an individuated soul. This essentially involves a free will choice between serving the self and serving others, which is the quintessential soul evolution choice.
This is however the province of esoteric work and is not an automatic effect of the mere fact of being a third density being.
Gurdjieff refers to man is a 'three-brained being' as opposed to a 'two brained being,' with which term he designates higher animals. The term refers to man having three centers, i.e. moving, feeling and thinking, while the higher animals have only moving and feeling centers.
Thus for Gurdjieff the differentiating factor is in the development of thinking faculties.
Steiner looks at the question slightly differently. For Steiner, animals have a physical, etheric and astral body and man has in addition to these an 'I'. While higher animals appear to have much the same basic emotions as humans, the human form is differentiated by more developed self-awareness or self-reflection.
The I is however more than the psychological mechanism of self-observation or meta-cognition. For Steiner this is a reincarnating entity. The 4th Way on the other hand sees such an I only as a possibility to be realized via esoteric work. Self-awareness in the psychological sense is useful but does not in itself make a permanent I.
The issue of the third density is further complicated by the concept of the 'Adamic' and'Preadamic' man, also known as the Organic Portal. According to Mouravieff and Cassiopaea, man always has the three lower centers of moving, feeling and thinking but may or may not have the potential for the seating of an individuated soul into the 'higher centers.'
The Preadamic man is, as it were, the animal equipped with human body and intellect. As such, the Preadamic man is a chain in the ladder of soul evolution from the species soul pools of the second density into the individuation of the third. We could say that the place of soul in the Preadamic man is occupied by a species or ethnic collective soul.
We could also say that the Preadamic man mimics the soul functions of individually souled man by sort of absorbing and reflecting higher center energies received from such.
The difference is not however obvious since psychologically both kinds of man are much the same, the difference being only in the experience of the spiritual or transcendent. The difference is not necessarily in psychic sensitivity since such senses exist also in the second density and can be stronger and more reliable than in the third.
As a general rule, the emotional makeup of one becomes more conscious along the journey through the 3rd density.
The basic patterns of pain, pleasure, instinctive like and dislike, territoriality, stress reactions, bonding to mate or pack, sense of hierarchy, primitive grief and such, carried over from late second density continue to exist. These are largely automatic and get their basic pattern from imprinting.
These may however be less hard wired and more amenable to shaping by the person self than in the animal form. The presence of emotions should not be confused with soul development.
On the other hand, as Mouravieff teaches, the more refined or 'intelligent' emotions, such as altruistic love, respect of free will, sense of holiness or mystery, drive for seeking the spiritual, sense of personal integrity and the like may bridge between the lower and the higher. We could say that these can be attributes of the individuated soul being formed.
On the other hand, it seems that an individuated soul may also be formed on the basis of a pervasive need to control, which would correspond to the STS polarization. In either case, the entity chooses which emotions to develop and which not to express.
The notion of the two types of man simply offers a more detailed schematic for the learning of the lessons of individuation. Only towards the latter part of these lessons does the choice in individual free will between the polarities of STO and STS become relevant.
This choice, when carried through to sufficient purity and consistency prepares man for the next density.
Just as we see that basic emotions and social organization are developed along the range of higher animal life forms, we could say that the basics of a spiritually conscious, unconditioned free will are developed during the later part of the third density.
4th Density
This is the Cassiopaean/Ra concept for a mode of existence between physical and ethereal.
The concept is important for the present work since such a state may very well be the result of the Great Work of the alchemist, Ascension, Graduation with the Wave etc., however the concept is named. Furthermore, such a level appears to be the level at which the higher echelons of the'matrix' function, thus one cannot ignore the possible existence of such a level of reality when studying the deeper nature of the world.
Usually in esoteric literature nothing corresponding to an intermediate level between human-type life and a purely disincarnate existence is described. The Gurdjieffian cosmology comes close to the idea of different density beings with the diagram of everything living.
The category of angels/planetary beings could well correspond to 4th density and the category of archangels/solar beings to 6th. The names are highly allegoric, though.
We do not have a mathematical description of whatever laws might govern time and space at such a level.
We do not even know with certainty whether such a level is real. People may have experienced states and perceptions which are typical of such a level but these experiences are inherently ambiguous in the way of mystical experiences. We recognize that we are grasping at a concept of which we cannot make any complete or contradiction-free description.
The existence of such a level is indirectly supported by the high strangeness related to the UFO phenomenon. Also stories of myth speak of creatures somewhere between matter and spirit. The strangeness involves anomalies of time, passing through solid objects, places larger on the inside than outside etc.
In the Cassiopaea/Ra view of evolution of consciousness, individuals graduate from 3rd density, which corresponds to the human-like existence as we know it, to 4th density when they have completed the evolution possible in 3rd density. The chief criterion is having achieved a consistent self which is stably dedicated to either service to others or service to self.
This naturally involves a certain level of knowledge and intelligence, since the two polarities cannot be discerned without.
This glossary generally only summarizes channeled material when referring to such. We will make an exception here since there is very little else to go on concerning this theme.
From Ra:
QUESTIONER: Thank you. Is it possible for you to give a short description of the conditions in the fourth density?
RA: I am Ra. We ask you to consider as we speak that there are not words for positively describing fourth density. We can only explain what is not and approximate what is. Beyond fourth density our ability grows more limited until we become without words.
That which fourth density is not: it is not of words, unless chosen. It is not of heavy chemical vehicles for body complex activities. It is not of disharmony within self. It is not of disharmony within peoples. It is not within limits of possibility to cause disharmony in any way. Approximations of positive statements: it is a plane of type of bipedal vehicle which is much denser and more full of life; it is a plane wherein one is aware of the thought of other-selves; it is a plane wherein one is aware of vibrations of other-selves; it is a plane of compassion and understanding of the sorrows of third density; it is a plane striving towards wisdom or light; it is a plane wherein individual differences are pronounced although automatically harmonized by group consensus.
From the Cassiopaeans:
A: Not that simple... Picture driving to reach New Mexico by car and "skipping" over and arriving in San Diego instead, or... driving to the grocery store in Santa Fe, and winding up in Moscow, instead.
[...]
A: [...]. Now, pay attention! What if: one on 2nd density perceives objects due to their similarity. One on 3rd density perceives objects due to their difference, and one on 4th density perceives objects in terms of their own union with all of them?
[...]
Q: (A) I have another question. In a session from April, you made the following comment: 'four dimensional, fourth density, see?' So you related four dimensions to fourth density. I don't know a mathematical representation of density. I know how to represent four dimensions. This was the first time that you related dimension to density. Is there really a relation?
A: Yes, because 4th density is experienced in 4th dimensional reality.
Q: (A) Speaking now about 4 dimensional reality, is it four dimensional reality of the Kaluza-Klein type?
A: Visual spectrum.
Q: (A) Does that mean that the fourth dimension is NOT related to the fifth dimension of the Kaluza-Klein theory?
A: Yes.
Q: (A) Yes it is related?
A: No, yes it is not. There is a flaw in these theories, relating to prism. What does this tell you?
Q: (A) To prism?! Visual spectrum? I don't know what it tells me. I never came across any relation to prism. But, what is this 4th dimension? Is it an extra dimension beyond the three space dimensions, or is it a time dimension?
A: Not "time," re: Einstein. It is an added spatial reference. The term "dimension" is used simply to access the popular reference, relating to three dimensions. The added "dimension" allows one to visualize outwardly and inwardly simultaneously.
Q: (A) When you talk about this 4th dimension, what is the closest thing in currently understood physics that corresponds to this term? I cannot find anything that corresponds. It is not in relativity theory, it is not in Einstein, it is not in Kaluza-Klein...
A: Exactly, because it has not been hypothesized.
[...]
The reader is encouraged to study the Cassiopaea and Ra materials for more clues.
Both discuss densities throughout the text. Within the scope of this article we can only say that we are dealing with a fundamentally different world. Alice through the looking glass, said the Cassiopaeans.
It seems that 3rd density beings may visit 4th density conditions in the context of UFO abduction, for example. This does not however make one a 4th density being.
The density to which one is native depends on development of consciousness.
( Additional Note : the Astral worlds, also known as the Astral planes, Astral realms or Astral spheres, sometimes also known as “the beyond”, “the afterlife” or the “fourth dimension”, to which people will transition soon after leaving the physical world.)
4th Density STS Beings
This term is used in this work to refer to beings existing at a level superior to the human level and manipulating humanity and other similar life-forms for their own ends.
These are the architects and ultimate controllers of the 'Matrix,' the 'Moon' of Gurdjieff, the Archons of darkness of the Gnostics. Most of the UFO phenomenon originates with these forces.
We are not talking about strictly ethereal entities. They can appear as solid physical bodies, as exemplified by many UFO reports. These are however not native to physicality as experienced by humans. They occupy a realm with variable physicality and can project themselves into physicality as experienced by humans through use of technology or psychic power.
The idea of these beings as a human-like life-form from some other planet is misleading. The various strange anomalies such as variations in the rate of passage of time, spaces being larger on the inside than outside and such effects suggest that these beings experience different laws of physics from what we are used to.
Accounts retrieved from people having interacted with such entities suggest that people can be transported into this different level of reality and temporarily exist there in physical form. Thus that level does not appear as a fluid idea world and has a certain solidity. Also based on these observations there are living entities as well as inanimate pieces of technology in evidence.
We cannot construct an exact representation of this level based on human sensory experience. Accounts of high strangeness in conjunction of the UFO phenomenon and psychic experiences of humans however suggest that such a mode of being and perceiving is real. Otherwise we are limited to descriptions contained in various channeled material.
Different biological types of beings have been reported in this context. Most reports concern the so-called Gray alien, a somewhat humanoid 4 foot tall creature with large black eyes and a bulb shaped head.
Another form is an 8 foot tall upright alligator, sometimes called a lizzie. Yet another is a Nordic looking human form.
Still other forms such as insects are sometimes reported. To what degree these are physical forms and to what degree these are interpretations of the observers from something else is unclear. There appears to be consistency between reports describing these as solid beings. On the other hand, similar beings are seen walking through walls and materializing from thin air also.
This suggests an inherent mastery of physicality, whether through technology or as an intrinsic feature of these beings.
5th Density
This term is used by the Cassiopaeans to denote a non-physical state of being where entities that incarnate in 1st thru 4th densities exist between incarnations. This is also called a recycling zone.
Ra describes this as the first non-physical density or the density of wisdom, the first where thought can create reality without being bounded by material restrictions.
In reading Cassiopaea transcripts, it seems that we need to distinguish between occupying 5th density as a between lives stage from being a 5th density soul. The latter would mean one which had graduated from 4th density and no longer would incarnate there.
The subject is beyond our means of direct knowing. We can however make some general inferences on the nature of this and compare this with other material on reincarnation and afterlife.
Incarnation into a density which corresponds to a soul's general level of development is a necessary means for progress. Only incarnation may teach certain indispensable lessons. We find this idea largely across the board, from Cassiopaea to Steiner.
Ra explains experience as consisting of equal parts of space/time and time/space.
Space/time corresponds to incarnate life, with motion in space and no control on the flow of time.
Time/space corresponds to between lives contemplation, with free motion in time but no means of affecting space, so at least for 3rd density souls.
Steiner explains the between lives state or astral world as being based on thought in the same manner as the physical world is based on matter.
Time for the incarnate beings flows forward, time for the beings between lives flows in the opposite direction. Generally, Steiner sees spirit as guiding the present from the future, whereas matter reaches for the future from the past. Each moment of consciousness is thus a meeting of these two streams.
Steiner describes in detail how a sort of mirroring of the past life occurs in the astral world, where one gets to see the self from the outside, through the eyes of all one has interacted with.
The Cassiopaeans describe 5th density as timeless, thus each between incarnations state is concurrent with every other such state. The contemplation may be instantaneous or eternal, depending on viewpoint. Fifth density may be a sort of showroom of all which may be possible, but realizing these possibilities for one's edification needs to be done from the density that is appropriate to the lesson.
Distance between beings, or experiences of beings, would be a question of pure thought, where similarity measures distance.
Thus, a being that is very fragmented or contradictory, i.e. is dissimilar with itself, may not even be recognizable as the same entity. So we could speak of a timeline of incarnations, simply measuring the similarity between each between-incarnations state, so that successive ones are closer together than ones separated by much change of the soul.
We have some relatively independent accounts of near-death experiences, many of which involve cessation of brain functioning, which we may compare with descriptions of a between lives state. What seems to be a common feature is that near-death experiences correspond to the near-deceased person's system of beliefs. There are for example many accounts of meeting Jesus. There are some common features such as going to a light or passing through a tunnel.
It may be that the mind structures the experience around familiar concepts.
It may also be that this state is as Steiner describes it, such that knowing of something brings one closer to that which is known, i.e. the metric of distance is informational similarity. Thus one ends up in the company of those one lived with, which is often reported in near-death experiences and would explain the often proposed idea that people repeatedly incarnate as teams.
One's degree of spiritual cohesiveness 'after' each incarnation would influence how much work or learning or planning can take place between lives.
Thus in cases we may have an entirely mechanical law of karma, in other cases more or less intentional life plans.
6th Density
This term is used by the Cassiopaea and Ra channeled sources to denote their 'native' state of being.
Also the inspiration for the Bringers of The Dawn book is according to these same sources from 6th density. Most crop circles are, according to the Cassiopaeans, produced by entities of 6th density. Many so called wanderers are souls whose home density is the sixth but who have taken incarnation in human form for a specific mission.
We cannot say much that is concrete or verifiable about this subject.
Still, since the subject of sixth density relates to much of the inspiration of the present work, we must attempt to place this in some context.
The archangels or solar world of the Gurdjieffian cosmology may refer to sixth density.
The dhyanic beings or solar beings of Steiner's cosmology may refer to sixth density.
The Absolute II of Mouravieff, i.e. the world of all stars and the Christ may be in some relation to sixth density.
The comparisons are tentative and we can hardly produce contradiction free or definite descriptions of this level.
The sixth density or 6D is a level of non-material existence where souls have outgrown the need to incarnate in any density. Souls of 1st through 4th densities go through incarnations, with a contemplation period as non-material forms in fifth density in between. 6D is the last stage before union with the One, or seventh density.
Seventh density would correspond to the one source of all creation,
God the Father of Mouravieff
or the Sun Absolute of Gurdjieff
As with 4D, there is still a concept of individual entities forming social memory complexes, i.e. communities where entities all share the same database of experience and understandings.
The esoteric level of human development where understandings are unified through practice of objectivity and where integrity does not allow mismatch of action and understanding would be a precursor of the social memory complex of 4-6D.
Entities of this level are of a service to others orientation as a result of natural factors. This is complex and an exact understanding of this may not be possible at our level. The point is that the idea of service to self is represented in 6D as a concept but not as whole entities.
There is still a difference between concept and actuality from the 6D viewpoint. The thought and reality become only non-differentiated in 7D but this is even farther past our capacity of description. Pure service to self (STS) does not occur as functioning entities past 4D apparently because the inherent bias for materiality and subjectivity prevents it.
A very far advanced STS entity acquires a sort of spiritual mass that causes it to fold up on itself, a bit like a black hole in the material world. If the entity let go of its defining preoccupation with control, it could become objective but then it would no longer be an STS entity.
A 6D entity lives in a world of pure thought or light and is a light form without a fixed body. The Cassiopaeans once said that if two entities could access absolutely all there is, these would in fact be one, indistinguishable from each other. In this sense we could say that all is one from the 6D viewpoint, yet there still is the idea of entity.
We see that the idea of objectivity is inherently linked to such a notion of living in unity of omnipresence. An entity that would only see what it wants to see would sort of collapse on itself in such a state and in fact share nothing, except its illusion with itself, which may be the reason why there is no operative STS at that level. To be one with all, one cannot be prejudiced.
Again, not being prejudiced does not mean that one cannot assign values to things or choose what one participates in, quite the contrary. We could even say that objectivity and lack of prejudice are prerequisites of metaphysical free will. One cannot choose unless one knows. One cannot know in this sense if one thinks wishfully.
We can say very little about perception of time or space of 6D.
We could infer that events of the physical densities appear as from a bird's eye perspective, with different possible pasts and futures alongside each other, as a sort of tangle of threads of different probabilities. In the terms of Gurdjieffian cosmology, we could say that the 6D entity sees at least the dimensions of linear time and eternity, seeing the plane containing all possible timelines as from a height in a third dimension.
The word eternity in the 4th Way sense refers to a dimension perpendicular to linear time, as in the set of all possible timelines. In a sense we could say that the experience of 6th density involves six dimensions. Again, these are approximate visualizations. Generally, the 6D sources speak as if the past of 3D were an open book and the future a branching tangle of probabilities.
In this sense it is sometimes said that time does not exist in the higher densities. This should not be taken too literally. Rather this seems to mean that time does not appear as a one-way street with most things hidden behind a corner, as it mostly does to us.
The Cassiopaeans repeatedly use the term 'you in the future' when speaking of themselves.
This can be understood as referring to at least one possible future where Laura Knight-Jadczyk, the channel, and maybe some fellow travelers have become the C's. However, there can be futures where this is not the case as well as possible pasts where no such channeling took place to begin with.
The process of contact then is a link pulling certain lines of past towards certain lines of futures. The 6D experience may be akin to guiding this from a bird's eye view. Still, in a sense, the Cassiopaeans are creating themselves by guiding their 'past' selves.
Yet all such metaphors are incomplete because their very language assumes linear causality which most likely does not apply in the 6D perspective.
To complete this summary, we will quote Ra:
Ra: 'In relationship to the densities, the sun body may physically, as you would say, be seen to be a large body of gaseous elements undergoing the processes of fusion and radiating heat and light. Metaphysically, the sun achieves a meaning to fourth through seventh density according to the growing abilities of entities in these densities to grasp the living creation and co-entity, or other-self, nature of this sun body. Thus by the sixth density the sun may be visited and inhabited by those dwelling in time/space and may even be partially created from moment to moment by the processes of sixth density entities in their evolution. [...] In this density some entities whose means of reproduction is fusion may choose to perform this portion of experience as part of the beingness of the sun body. Thus you may think of portions of the light that you receive as offspring of the generative expression of sixth-density love.'
Angels
The term "angel" is used in a wide variety of meanings in different contexts.
Generally the term means a spiritual, non-physical being that belongs to some spiritual hierarchy or performs some specific function for a higher spiritual authority such as God. An angel is generally understood as being benevolent.
Theosophy, anthroposophy and various Gnostic teachings have detailed descriptions of various categories of angels, entire 'heavenly organization charts.'
Gurdjieff makes some mention of angels and archangels in the diagram of everything living. These seem to correspond to 'planetary' and'solar' beings, or 4th and 6th density in the Cassiopaean/Ra system.
The New Age movement has made angels a sort of fashion.
There are books and guided meditation tapes and such for contacting one's guardian angels, communicating with angels and so forth. Much of this seems to simply stimulate people's imagination towards further wishfulness. The problem is not that genuine communication with higher beings would never take place, rather the problem is the indiscriminating approach and the assumption that one would be prepared for such by attending a week-end seminar.
The Cassiopaea material defines an angel as being a 6th density STO being. An actual direct encounter with one is, |
installation, try our Solar Calculator that offers upfront cost and long-term savings estimates based on your location and roof type. For those looking to get quotes from local contractors today, check out our quote comparison platform.Editor's note: This story has a whopper of an update! The story describes corkage fees as disallowed in a good number of Chicago restaurants. This determination had been made from several city of Chicago websites and its online Restaurant Guide, a manual to business owners. The update is that, more than a week after publishing this story, the city announced that it had posted incorrect information about its policy for many years. The actual policy had been changed in 2007 or 2008, but not updated publicly until late May of 2016. As it stands now, corkage fees are legal in the city, and business owners can apply them at-will, regardless of whether the restaurant has its own liquor license or not.
Ian Adams is a big fan of BYOB restaurants. Like many Chicagoans, he started factoring in whether or not he could bring his own booze to a restaurant in his early twenties, when every little bit helped stay within his dining budget. But over time he realized there was something different about “Bring Your Own Bottle” restaurants — something beyond the lower price tag.
“They tend to be friendly, family-owned or single-proprietor restaurants who are generally really receptive to folks from the neighborhood,” he says. “Just great spots to go and eat and enjoy others’ company.”
But it wasn’t until he moved from Chicago to Washington, D.C., for a few years that he really came to appreciate BYOBs. He found just one such restaurant there and, after a while, it got a liquor license and stopped allowing the practice. When he travels he notices the same thing, too: Most cities don’t have many BYOB restaurants.
Now that Ian’s back in Chicago he wants to know:
Why does Chicago have so many BYOBs compared to other cities?
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Ian’s question seems simple enough, but the basis of it — that Chicago compares favorably to other cities — requires firming up before we get to the heart of the matter: What’s made BYOB such a Chicago phenomenon?
What do we mean by BYOB?
Let’s define some terms, because — in Chicago and beyond — BYOB can mean many things.
One type involves a restaurant that actually has the ability to serve alcohol; it’s just that it chooses to also allow patrons to bring their own. In Chicago, say, a fine-dining restaurant with an extensive wine list may be BYOB, but it usually charges patrons for that privilege. These “corkage fees” sometimes hit as much as $75 per bottle. Many of these restaurants also check your label against their list to make sure it’s not a wine they stock. If they sell it, you have to buy it from them and take your BYO bottle back home.
Ian, though, is talking about the other type of BYOB experience, one where the restaurant doesn’t sell alcohol but allows patrons to bring and consume their own. The key term here is “allow,” because BYOB policies up to the owner and goals can change from day to day.
As for corkage fees at these places? The city’s Restaurant License and Zoning Reference Guide makes BYOB guidelines plain as day: “Fee: no direct or indirect fee may be charged for the allowance of alcohol consumption without a City of Chicago liquor license; this includes corkage fees.” (Of course, complaints about illegal corkage fees abound!)
How many Ian-style BYOB places are there in Chicago? Data on licensed restaurants that have no liquor license suggest the city could have as many as 5,905 BYOB restaurants, but that’s assuming every one of those spots would allow it. If we remove places unlikely to allow BYOB (think fast-food or coffee-shop chains such as McDonald’s, Burger King, Dunkin Donuts, etc.) we still have 4,797 contenders spread across the city. And not a single one is legally allowed to charge a corkage fee!
Above: These are the nearly 4,800 Chicago restaurants that have BYOB potential, meaning they do not have a liquor license and — if BYOB is allowed by the owner — are precluded from charging corkage fees. Most national chains (e.g., McDonald's and Dunkin Donuts) have been excluded, as have university-based food services.
How does Chicago stack up?
We can go ahead and knock Washington, D.C., San Francisco, New York City and Los Angeles off our list of cities that might rival Chicago’s number of BYOBs. That’s because in those cities, Ian-style “bringing your own” isn’t legal unless the restaurant has a liquor license. That doesn’t mean it never happens, but it’s only a matter of time before they’re shut down.
We have, however, found two major cities where BYOB regulations are on par with Chicago’s: Houston and Philadelphia.
Houston is the nation’s fourth-largest city and, like most cities in Texas, it allows BYOBs with no liquor license. But searching for BYOBs in Houston brings back scant results. That’s likely because in Texas liquor licenses are easy to come by. In some cases, applications can be started online, and there are 70 different types available to accommodate different business types and sizes. The bottom line: If a Houston restaurant is interested in allowing booze at all, it’s easy to get a license and take advantage of that revenue stream.
Philadelphia, the fifth-largest U.S. city, also allows BYOBs. In foodie circles it often comes up alongside Chicago when discussing BYOBs.
Philly treats liquor licenses like taxi medallions or casino licenses; there’s a set number based on the county’s population. A license's current going rate is $140,000. For many new restaurant owners in Philly, there’s either no liquor license available or they can’t afford one. In either case, BYOB is their only way to go.
Why is BYOB so prominent in Chicago?
The takeaway from Philly is that tough regulations can provide fertile ground for BYOB joints. It turns out that Chicago also exerts tough regulatory pressure, but it differs in the details; Chicago doesn’t limit the number of liquor licenses, but City Hall still makes them hard to come by.
According to Chicago Tribune restaurant critic Phil Vettel, Chicago’s strict about its liquor licenses because of the city’s experience during Prohibition.
“Organized crime got into liquor distribution and liquor sales during that era in a big way,” he says, adding that when Prohibition ended in 1933, the city was “determined not to let that happen again — or at least control it.”
A Chicago liquor license might have a lower price tag than one in Philadelphia, but it involves jumping through quite a few hoops.
“Not only do you have to be inspected on this [health department] level, but a lot of other departments have to sign off before you can get close,” says Vettel. “The bureaucracy is considerable."
Don’t worry, though; the city made a simple 93 minute video walking you through the application process.
And if that doesn’t clear things up, there’s a cottage industry of liquor license expediters eager to help.
Manny Hernandez, co-founder of The Tamale Spaceship, hired one of these for his storefront location on Damen Avenue in Wicker Park.
“We hired that person, we followed instructions, we went through the whole thing,” says Hernandez. “The disappointing part of it is just the last inspection we weren’t able to do it.”
In that final step, an inspector noticed the building next door was functioning as a church, even though it looked like a regular apartment building. Since the church’s entrance was less than 100 feet from The Tamale Spaceship’s, Hernandez wasn’t granted a liquor license.
Restrictions are not limited to land use. For a restaurant to secure a liquor license, any investor with more than a five percent stake must get fingerprinted. Same goes for their spouses. And felons are banned for life from holding a Chicago liquor license.
Beyond that, owners must submit floor plans, property surveys, menus and documentation of the restaurant’s business structure.
And if you’re deemed “a person who is not of good character and reputation in the community” the City of Chicago can say, “no.”
Again, when you add up these requirements, you wouldn’t be surprised to learn that restaurant owners do what they can to avoid a liquor license.
Consider the example of Bite Cafe, which is located adjacent to the The Empty Bottle music venue on Western Avenue. The two businesses have the same owner; Bite Cafe has no liquor license, while the Empty Bottle does. Rather than apply for a stand-alone liquor license for Bite Cafe, the owner has a hallway between the two, which allows Bite's diners to bring over unopened beer and even bottles of wine from the Empty Bottle.Silvio Berlusconi's government is to buy 100,000 of the country's beloved Parmigiano Reggiano cheeses from its hard-pressed producers at a cost to the state of 50 million euros (£45 million).
The hard, pungent cheese made around the northern city of Parma has until now been a staple product found in most Italian households - and as confirmation of the country's obsession with food is Italy's most shoplifted product.
But high production prices due to the soaring cost of animal feed and milk have driven up the cost of making one of the iconic 35kg cheeses so that manufacturers are losing money on each parmigiano they produce, while demand for the product from an increasingly cash-strapped public has slumped.
"It's a tragic situation," said Marco Iemmi, who has made parmesan for 30 years in the town of Salsomaggionre Terme. "I'll have to close up shop unless things improve."
The government's initiative might at least buy his business some breathing space. Luca Zaia, the agriculture minister, said that the cheese bought will not only help prop up a cornerstone of Italian industry but will be distributed to charitable causes in order to help feed needy families.
Leo Bertozzi, president of the Parmigiano Reggiano Consortium, said: "Parmesan is undoubtedly the most famous Italian food product in the world and although it is worth a billion euros a year it is being hit by the economic crisis.
"Minister Zaia's announcement is without doubt a positive step forward to deal with what is a very difficult situation."
Giorgio Apostoli, who represents dairy farmers for the Coldiretti agriculture lobby, said: "It's a help. It doesn't resolve the problem, but it is a help."
But the parmesan bail out has not met with universal approval. Producers of Italy's other celebrated cheese - buffalo mozzarella - are looking on enviously after suffering an 18 per cent drop in sales in the last year. "We've asked for help too," said Vincenzo Oliviero, the head of Italy's mozzarella producers association, which has yet to receive an injection of state aid.“We are going to do great things for the American people with Mick Mulvaney leading the Office of Management and Budget,” Trump said in a statement.
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“Right now we are nearly $20 trillion in debt, but Mick is a very high-energy leader with deep convictions for how to responsibly manage our nation’s finances and save our country from drowning in red ink.”
Mulvaney called the nomination a “great honor” and pledged to restore “restore budgetary and fiscal sanity.”
“Each day, families across our nation make disciplined choices about how to spend their hard earned money, and the federal government should exercise the same discretion that hardworking Americans do every day,” he added.
Reports emerged Friday evening that Trump was going to pick Mulvaney, a co-founder of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.
Mulvaney, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, said in october that he “would love to be director of OMB” when asked what position in Trump’s administration he would want.
"That is where I think real improvements can be made in how the government is run.”
The OMB chief is responsible for administering the federal budget and measuring the performance of federal agencies.
The budget director is also tasked with for procurement, or setting and enforcing federal practices and policies regarding the purchase of goods and services.
Mulvaney visited Trump Tower last week, according to pool reports.
- Mark Hensch contributed.
- Updated at 10:41 a.m.Forty-four years after joining the European Economic Community, the forerunner of the modern day EU, Britain has triggered Article 50 to begin formal divorce talks with the bloc.
Appearing at the House of Commons despatch box for the regular weekly session of Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs), Prime Minister Theresa May made a statement to MPs confirming the start of the two-year extraction process.
At the same time, British ambassador to Brussels Tim Barrow delivered a letter signed by the PM to the European Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels. Once it was accepted, Article 50 was officially triggered.
Read Theresa May's six-page letter to Donald Tusk triggering Article 50 here
After nine months the UK has delivered. #Brexit — Donald Tusk (@eucopresident) March 29, 2017
Speaking to MPs, May said: “The article 50 process is now underway … the UK is leaving the EU.
“This is an historic moment from which there can be no turning back. Britain is leaving the EU. We are going to make our own decisions, our own laws.”
“Our best days lie ahead. I am confident we have the vision and the plan to build a better Britain.”
Historic and exciting day! Will be speaking to counterparts around world today to reinforce we want a deep and special partnership with EU — Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) March 29, 2017
May says the UK will not try to “cherry pick” in Brexit talks, and wants “smooth” and “orderly” negotiations.
She confirms the rights of the 3 million EU nationals in Britain will be an early priority in negotiations.
May has conceded there will be “consequences” to leaving, but it is in the interests of both the UK and the EU that there is as little disruption as possible.
“I want the UK to emerge from this period of change stronger, fairer, more united and outward looking than ever before.”
"Now's the time to be united" @theresa_may says on #BrexitDay after triggering Article 50 and kicking off the #Brexit process. — RT UK (@RTUKnews) March 29, 2017
"What kind of country do we want to believe? I want United Kingdom to be stronger, fairer and more united" @theresa_may#BrexitDay — RT UK (@RTUKnews) March 29, 2017
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has condemned the “reckless and damaging” direction of Brexit, responding to May’s statement in the House of Commons.
He has vowed that Labour will not give the government a “free hand” - to jeers from MPs, because he demanded they vote for Article 50.
Today we "take back control" and "get our country back" by driving our economy off a cliff for nothing. #Article50#BrexitDay — David Lammy (@DavidLammy) March 29, 2017
This paragraph, from PM's letter to Donald Tusk, arguably sets out why more than 75% of my constituents voted to remain in the EU #Brexitpic.twitter.com/aEAHZVGkBF — Helen Hayes (@helenhayes_) March 29, 2017
Corbyn went on to say Britain must not become a "tax dodgers’ paradise” or a “low wage tax haven.”
He says Labour will use “every parliamentary opportunity to ensure this government is held to account at every stage.”
PM tells EU we're having our'self determination' but tells Scotland, you're not entitled to yours #doublestandardspic.twitter.com/VHrR2wbPrF — Hannah Bardell MP (@HannahB4LiviMP) March 29, 2017
Tusk spoke to the media following the triggering of Article 50.
“There is no reason to pretend that this is a happy day - neither in Brussels nor in London. Afterall, most Europeans including almost half the British voters wish that we would stay together, not drift apart. For me, I will not pretend that I am happy today,” he said.
“But paradoxically there is also something positive in Brexit. Brexit has made us, the community of 27, more determined and more united than before. I am fully confident at this.”
Tusk: Will share draft EU27 #Brexit guidelines with Member States on Friday for adoption by #EUCO on 29 April. — Preben Aamann (@PrebenEUspox) March 29, 2017
He has stressed that “for now, nothing has changed. Until the UK leaves the EU, EU law will continue to apply to and within the UK.” This was possibly in reply to earlier attempts by London - now abandoned - to stop EU citizens from moving to the UK in the two years before Brexit.
He added it is now about damage control. “Our goal is clear - to minimize cost for EU citizens, businesses and member states. We will do everything in our power, and have all the tools to achieve this goal.”
Our #Brexit team is ready. We will work for #EU27 member states, EU institutions & citizens; together with all Commission services. pic.twitter.com/PIOyOQurst — Michel Barnier (@MichelBarnier) March 29, 2017
Tusk says negotiations will begin for an “orderly withdrawal.” He says on Friday he will share a proposal of guidelines to the 27 member states to be adopted by the EU council on April 29.
He ended his press conference by telling Britain: “We already miss you. Thank you and goodbye.”
Today the Government will trigger Article 50. Find out more about the Government’s Plan for Britain: https://t.co/viSp7q4ld7pic.twitter.com/YtG1AUgBHT — UK Prime Minister (@Number10gov) March 29, 2017
After Article 50 is triggered, there are two years to complete negotiations.
WATCH MORE:This script below is similar to the Cargo Container Inventory script. The difference is that this one will scroll the inventory list upwards if there are too many items to show on the LCD Panel.
Also I formatted the numbers (with comma separators on thousands; i.e. 123,456,789.00).
If you use a larger, or smaller, font (I’m using 0.8), you probably will have to adjust the PANEL_LINES constant at the beginning of the script to the number of lines that fit on the panel with your font.
To make it scroll, just set up a Timer Block that runs the Programmable Block and then restarts the Timer Block. I use a delay of 1 second, but you can use whatever you want.
Enjoy!
const string PANEL_NAME = "LCD Panel 2"; const string CONTAINER_NAME = "Large Cargo Container 2"; const int PANEL_LINES = 22; int lineOffset = 0; void Main() { List<IMyTerminalBlock> work = new List<IMyTerminalBlock>(); GridTerminalSystem.SearchBlocksOfName(PANEL_NAME, work); IMyTextPanel panel = (IMyTextPanel)work[0]; GridTerminalSystem.SearchBlocksOfName(CONTAINER_NAME, work); IMyCargoContainer container = (IMyCargoContainer)work[0]; var containerItems = ((IMyInventoryOwner)container).GetInventory(0).GetItems(); List<String> list = new List<String>(); for(int j = containerItems.Count - 1; j >= 0; j--) { String txt = decodeItemName(containerItems[j].Content.SubtypeName, containerItems[j].Content.TypeId.ToString()) + " - "; String amt = amountFormatter((float)containerItems[j].Amount,containerItems[j].Content.TypeId.ToString()); txt += amt; list.Add(txt); } list.Sort(); list.Insert(0,"------------------------------------------------------"); list.Insert(0,container.CustomName + " Inventory"); for (int o=0; o < lineOffset; o++) { String shiftedItem = list[0]; list.RemoveAt(0); list.Add(shiftedItem); } panel.WritePublicText(String.Join("
",list.ToArray()), false); panel.ShowTextureOnScreen(); panel.ShowPublicTextOnScreen(); if (list.Count > PANEL_LINES) { lineOffset++; if (list.Count - lineOffset < PANEL_LINES) { lineOffset = 0; } } } String amountFormatter(float amt, String typeId) { if (typeId.EndsWith("_Ore") || typeId.EndsWith("_Ingot")) { if (amt > 1000.0f) { return "" + Math.Round((float)amt/1000,2).ToString("###,###,##0.00") + "K"; } else { return "" + Math.Round((float)amt,2).ToString("###,###,##0.00"); } } return "" + Math.Round((float)amt,0).ToString("###,###,##0"); } String decodeItemName(String name, String typeId) { if (name.Equals("Construction")) { return "Construction Component"; } if (name.Equals("MetalGrid")) { return "Metal Grid"; } if (name.Equals("InteriorPlate")) { return "Interior Plate"; } if (name.Equals("SteelPlate")) { return "Steel Plate"; } if (name.Equals("SmallTube")) { return "Small Steel Tube"; } if (name.Equals("LargeTube")) { return "Large Steel Tube"; } if (name.Equals("BulletproofGlass")) { return "Bulletproof Glass"; } if (name.Equals("Reactor")) { return "Reactor Component"; } if (name.Equals("Thrust")) { return "Thruster Component"; } if (name.Equals("GravityGenerator")) { return "GravGen Component"; } if (name.Equals("Medical")) { return "Medical Component"; } if (name.Equals("RadioCommunication")) { return "Radio Component"; } if (name.Equals("Detector")) { return "Detector Component"; } if (name.Equals("SolarCell")) { return "Solar Cell"; } if (name.Equals("PowerCell")) { return "Power Cell"; } if (name.Equals("AutomaticRifleItem")) { return "Rifle"; } if (name.Equals("AutomaticRocketLauncher")) { return "Rocket Launcher"; } if (name.Equals("WelderItem")) { return "Welder"; } if (name.Equals("AngleGrinderItem")) { return "Grinder"; } if (name.Equals("HandDrillItem")) { return "Hand Drill"; } if (typeId.EndsWith("_Ore")) { if (name.Equals("Stone")) { return name; } return name + " Ore"; } if (typeId.EndsWith("_Ingot")) { if (name.Equals("Stone")) { return "Gravel"; } if (name.Equals("Magnesium")) { return name + " Powder"; } if (name.Equals("Silicon")) { return name + " Wafer"; } return name + " Ingot"; } return name; }The US poverty rate has risen 19% since 2000. Gary Younge talks to voters in Fort Collins about the struggle to stay afloat – and whether Obama or Romney offers any kind of solution
The first visit to the food bank is always the hardest. Michelle Venus, 52, cried. "Not while I was there," she said. "But before and after." Four years earlier, she'd been a homeowner in a $75,000 a year job. She'd donated to the food bank's fundraising drives. Now she was there to pick up food she couldn't afford to buy. "It was not what I'd expected for myself or from myself. It was just a really hard day."
Mark Weaver, 54, the former chairman of nearby Loveland chamber of commerce, tried to avoid the gaze of acquaintances he'd met when he attended the food bank's galas. "It was very humiliating," he says. "I used to take clients to their events, and all of a sudden I'm living below the poverty line." He used to earn a six-figure salary plus commission plus benefits, and also chaired the Northern Colorado Legislative Alliance, which lobbied local politicians on behalf of the business community. He made up his mind to go after a friend, a well-paid software engineer who'd also fallen on hard times, told him to: "Get over being proud."
The queue at the Larimer County food bank in Fort Collins, a town of 147,000 in northern Colorado, snakes out of the door and is mostly silent. In line there are slightly more people than trolleys. The number of families visiting here has increased more than 50% over the last five years. On average they also visit more often and need more food.
In the parking lot there are only two bumper stickers – one for Mitt Romney and one for the US navy. Inside it is set up like a grocery store. People take what they need, although there are limits for some items such as bread. From the outside, if you didn't know it was a food bank, you might think they were going to the cinema.
People often think they know what poverty looks like until they end up here, and then they realise it looks like them and many other people that they know. Weaver lives in a nice area. The first he knew that his next-door neighbour was struggling with his mortgage payments was when his house was foreclosed on and he was moving out.
The official poverty rate in the US has risen 19% since 2000 with just under one in seven Americans now poor and one in five reporting they did not have enough money to buy food last year.
But since the beginning of the financial crisis it is the 'precarity rate' that has really taken off – the number of people who feel economically precarious. Those who fear poverty, look it straight in the eye at the end of every month, face a constant battle to avoid it or slip in and out of it while struggling to retain every semblance of middle-class stability. People who may have high school diplomas, college degrees, pensions, good credit and mortgages, juggling aspiration and reality, who find themselves one lay-off or illness away from a steep and dizzying descent into hardship.
More than the half the people who use the Larimer County Food Bank are working. One in 10 have at least a college degree, almost a third have no health insurance and more than half have unpaid medical bills.
"There's been a real difference, not only in the number of people that we serve in recent years," explains Amy Pezzani, the food bank's executive director. "But also in the kind of people we serve. People think that if they're not living in poverty then they're middle class. But the official poverty level is such an unrealistic indicator of economic status. Most of the people who use the food bank are working people. These used to be referred to as 'emergency food pantries', but now it's like people are having an emergency every day. It's really just a way to exist."
'There are more people struggling that the official numbers show'
Last year the census bureau released a new measurement of poverty, which takes regional cost of living, medical payments and other expenses into account and found a third of Americans are either in poverty or desperately close to it. Half are married, almost half are suburban. "These numbers are higher than we anticipated," Trudi Renwick, the bureau's head poverty statistician, told the New York Times. "There are more people struggling than the official numbers show."
This is the fragile economic terrain on which the election is being fought: the needs and aspirations of the ever-expanding numbers of America's working poor and the far larger ranks of those anxious about joining them.
These are the people most likely to be offended by Mitt Romney's suggestion that 47% of the country see themselves as victims, who most needed the kind of change Obama promised four years ago, and have been least impressed by the apparent lack of it. These are the people at whom the ads attacking Romney's record of outsourcing and asset-stripping at Bain Capital were aimed.
They are also the ones the Tea Party sought to galvanise through their populist message against the bailout and in defence of small business. A New York Times poll in 2010 revealed that more than half of those who identified as Tea Party supporters were concerned that someone in their household would be out of a job in the next year, while more than two-thirds said the recession had been difficult or caused hardship and major life changes.
A slim majority of Americans now define getting ahead as "not falling behind". That describes life for many here in Larimer County, where between 2006 and 2010 median family income (adjusted for inflation) shrank by 9% leaving around a third of homeowners paying 30% or more of their income for housing.
The number of people using food stamps, and applying for heating assistance over the last six years has rocketed. Over the past 10 years the number of children getting free and reduced lunch doubled, while in-state tuition fees at Colorado State University, which has a huge campus in town, increased 138%.
The Fort Collins Homelessness Prevention Initiative, which provides one-time grants for emergency rent assistance, has seen a 50% increase in the number of people they are helping every year. "We mainly serve two kinds of people," explains executive director Sue Beck-Ferkiss. "One are the pay-check surfers who are used to skating by on very little. But we also see more people who are falling out of the middle class. It could be a couple who both worked on contract. The work dries up. But the world doesn't stop just because your income stops. They wipe out their savings and maybe they end up here."
'I don't think the Republican party cares about people like me'
Larimer County is a swing county in a swing state. It voted for Bush twice, but went for Obama in 2008. Now Colorado is on the fence and Mark Weaver is right there with it.
Mark is one of those rare species this election. An undecided voter with genuinely eclectic views. He's an evangelical Christian who is for gun control and a more humane immigration policy, who wants to rein in the deficit, thinks unions are dinosaurs and is against abortion although he'd rather peoples' hearts changed than legislation. He voted for John McCain last time because he didn't think Obama had the experience, and was a registered Republican until July 4 when, appropriately enough, he registered as an independent.
Both campaigns are spending millions to reach him with microtargetting on the issues they think will swing his vote their way. They're also bombarding him with ads. But all they are earning so far is his contempt. "If you took all the money they spent on the political system and elections you could feed the world," Weaver says.
He's not particularly impressed by either candidate. "Somebody's got to fix the economy, but I don't know that either of them has the guts to do it," he says. "I'm looking to vote for someone I like and trust; I've never been more distrustful of the whole thing. I wish we could vote for none of the above. I want a do-over."
Mark's fortunes began to change in the summer of 2009 when was a human resources manager in a company with 1,500 employees. He was let go and replaced by a colleague 20 years his junior on half his salary. He could have found other work elsewhere in the country, but that would have involved uprooting his three children, and he didn't think that was fair. He got another job in a start-up that involved a long commute and eventually collapsed owing him money. With his mortgage paid off and no debts, the biggest expense for a family of five was healthcare. Since everyone in the family was healthy they contemplated doing without it.
Then his youngest daughter got bitten by a rattlesnake. "That would have been a six-figure healthcare bill," he says. "If we'd gotten rid of healthcare at that point we would have been sunk." It was around that time he started going to the food bank. He stopped after he got a job at a major bookstore as a night-time accountant and head cashier paying just $9 an hour but with good health benefits, and is now getting a human resources consultancy practice off the ground.
When Pezzani heard the tape of Romney referring disparagingly to the 47% of the country who don't pay taxes she was unimpressed. "It's very difficult to see the folks that we're serving maligned in that way," she says. Beck-Ferkiss at the HPI has similar reservations. "It's hard for me to believe that Romney is focused on the population that I serve," she says.
Mark, however, says it just confirmed everything he already thought. "It doesn't surprise me about Romney because he's always struck me as a stuffed shirt. He's arrogant, and it's hard for me to get past that. It didn't change my mind about him because I always thought that about him. It was exactly the same as Obama saying "You didn't build that". Those were exactly the words I would expect to come out of his mouth."
Michelle, on the other hand, was devastated. "I was heartbroken," she says. "I was highly offended. I thought he's just disrespected me personally. I just don't think the Republican party cares about people like me." Michelle describes herself as a lifelong Democrat. She had not long moved to the Fort Collins area when her husband was diagnosed with brain cancer. They had health insurance, but with only one salary coming in they ate through their savings just to keep afloat. "We raided our personal accounts to survive."
She got a job in marketing paying $75,000 a year and remained relatively comfortable in the 2,400 sq ft house she was buying. Then she lost that job and went into consulting. "I just kept going," she says. "I lived through recessions before, and assumed I'd come out the other side." But work was drying up and when her boyfriend of six years killed himself last March she struggled to keep up. "After that I'd get up to feed my dogs but that was about it." When a client complained that she wasn't meeting deadlines she texted back: "I'm just not trying to kill myself."
Struggling to pay the mortgage on the house, which had been sold on from her bank to a loan company, she tried to renegotiate. In a conference call with an adviser and the lender, she was told that it made more sense to foreclose on her than change the terms of the loan. "I stopped paying the mortgage and got the house ready to sell," she says. She managed to sell it for a small profit and move into a place less than half the size with her son. It was around this time she found herself crying as she prepared to go to the food bank. "I just couldn't make ends meet," she says. "I don't go every week. Just when I really need something. When I first went I was worried that I would see people I knew. "
Now she's starting a new career as a journalist and has scaled down considerably and muddles through. "I have an understanding mechanic," she says. "If something happens to my car and I can't pay him everything he let's me pay what I can."
She thinks things are getting better, although she wishes they would improve faster. She blames the slow pace on the Republican congress rather than Obama. "He tried to incorporate some of what they want but ever since he got in all they've wanted to do is get him out."
The ramifications of the inability of the nation's political culture to engage with this increasingly pervasive sense of fragility goes beyond the immediate election. Since the financial crisis began five years ago, the significant shift in Americans' economic wellbeing has posed a considerable challenge to both national mythology and the political rhetoric on which it is built.
Among other things, the American dream rests on the notion of meritocracy and progress – that those who work hard will get on, that each year will better than the last and each generation better off than their parents'. Since 1977, when Gallup first asked if people thought they would be personally better off the following year, an overwhelming majority say yes every year, even though there have been four recessions. It's not a guarantee of success – indeed, quite the opposite. Inequality of wealth, and the poverty that comes with it, is tolerable on the understanding that there will be equality of opportunity. While only 2% described themselves as "rich", 31% thought it very likely or somewhat likely they would "ever be rich".
"Because differences in income in the US are believed to be related to skill and effort, and because social mobility is assumed to be high," argued Isabel Sawhill, co-director of the Centre on Children and Families at the Brookings Institution in September, "inequality seems to be more acceptable than in Europe".
But the recent downturn has delivered a severe dent to that self-image. A report earlier this year showed that between 2007 and 2010 the median American family lost a generation of wealth. Most Americans believe it unlikely that young people will have a better life than their parents – the highest on record.
'I still feel the American dream is available to me'
Meanwhile, as the National Journal's Ron Brownstein made clear recently, the sclerotic effects of class entrenchment are becoming ever more deeply embedded. In a study called 'Pathways to the middle class', Sawhill and two colleagues pointed out that nearly two-thirds of children born to parents in the bottom fifth of income stay in that category as adults, while more than three-fifths of children born into families in the top fifth remain in theirs.
But despite that it seems the belief in the American dream remains steadfast. Eighty-five percent of Americans still believe theirs is the land of opportunity, while other polls over the last four years reveal a sizeable majority of Americans still believe "the American dream is still possible and achievable for … people like you".
When Mark reflects on the last few years he falls back on his faith. "This experience has definitely made me more humble. I think God's made me more authentically who I am."
Having moved into a smaller home with her teenage son, Michelle now wonders why she surrounded herself with so many things she didn't need.
"When I was working, if I saw something I wanted I would buy it. Now I wonder if I really need it. When I see people in Target getting all these things for Halloween I think: what are you going to do with all that stuff? Where are you going to put it? I still feel the American dream is available to me. I'm not prepared to let that go yet," she says. "But I no longer think it's about being |
Chris Kelly, who was acquired at the trade deadline by the Bruins a few years back, will speak with Jamie Erdahl on NESN around 4 p.m. Kelly also has ties to Andrej Meszaros, who reportedly was acquired by the B’s before the deadline. The two were teammates in Ottawa.
3 p.m.: The NHL trade deadline has passed. There’s still a chance we’ll learn of more deals, though. As long as the trades were submitted before the 3 p.m. deadline, they’re good to go.
2:55 p.m.: Five minutes to go, with both Matt Moulson and Thomas Vanek yet to be moved. We’ll see.
2:46 p.m.: The Bruins reportedly have acquired a defenseman, which was presumably their No. 1 objective heading into the trade deadline.
Sportsnet’s Dan Murphy reports the B’s have acquired Andrej Meszaros from the Philadelphia Flyers. The Bruins will send a third-round pick to the Flyers.
2:45 p.m.: Goalie Dan Ellis reportedly is going back to Florida in the Tim Thomas deal, according to multiple reports.
2:38 p.m.: With the deadline just minutes away, the Columbus Blue Jackets might not be done. They’re getting a lot of interest in defenseman Jack Johnson, according to Renaud Lavoie of TVA Sports.
Lots of interests for D Jack Johnson. It will be interesting to see if Columbus will trade him by 3pm. #tvasports —
Renaud Lavoie (@LavoieRenaud) March 05, 2014
2:25 p.m.: The defense market continues to thin.
Edmonton is sending defenseman Nick Schultz to the Columbus Blue Jackets for a third-round pick, according to multiple reports.
2:20 p.m.: Tim Thomas won’t team up with Roberto Luongo. TSN’s Bob McKenzie reports the Florida Panthers have shipped the goaltender to the Dallas Stars.
1:53 p.m.: Tuomo Ruutu is now reportedly on the move.
TSN’s Darren Dreger just reported that the Carolina Hurricanes are sending Ruutu to the New Jersey Devils. The Hurricanes are looking to cut some salary, so while it’s unclear what the return will be, it’s unlikely the Canes will be taking on a lot of money.
1:45 p.m.: The Pittsburgh Penguins have been pretty quiet all day, but they’re on the board now.
According to multiple reports, the Pens have acquired unrestricted-free-agent-to-be Marcel Goc from the Florida Panthers for a pair of draft picks. Goc has 12 goals and 11 assists this season for the lowly Panthers.
1:30 p.m.: The price for acquiring Marian Gaborik? Apparently not much. The Kings reportedly are sending Matt Frattin, a second-round pick and a conditional third-round pick to the Blue Jackets in exchange for Gaborik.
Gaborik deal has Matt Frattin, 2nd round pick and a conditional third round pick going the other way. #TradeCentre —
NHL on TSN (@NHLonTSN) March 05, 2014
1:18 p.m.: The TSN guys are at it again. Pierre LeBrun and Bob McKenzie are reporting that Marian Gaborik is indeed heading to the Los Angeles Kings. What the Kings are giving up to get Gaborik, however, is still unknown.
12:56 p.m.: Perhaps the Ryan Kesler market is starting to heat up. Renaud Lavoie of TVA Sports reports that the Red Wings, Kings and Wild are all interested in acquiring the forward from the Vancouver Canucks.
Kings-Red Wings and Wild are trying to get Ryan Kesler. #tvasports —
Renaud Lavoie (@LavoieRenaud) March 05, 2014
12:48 p.m.: TSN’s Pierre LeBrun just reported on the network’s trade deadline show that the Montreal Canadiens have acquired Devan Dubnyk from the Nashville Predators for future considerations.
This is an interesting move given that Carey Price is out with an injury. This is probably just an insurance move, though.
12:32 p.m.: It sounds like we might not get to see the dream pairing of Tim Thomas and Roberto Luongo. The Panthers are discussing Thomas with teams including Dallas, according to Sportsnet’s Nick Kypreos.
Doesn't sound like Tim Thomas will be united with Lou.. #Panthers talking to a few teams including #Stars —
Nick Kypreos (@RealKyper) March 05, 2014
12:30 p.m.: Things are very quiet on the Bruins’ front, but it sounds like they’re still working hard to add some depth. B’s president Cam Neely just spoke with the club’s website, and he had this to say about the market.
“I know there are still some players out there that are going to be unrestricted at the end of the year that I know teams are certainly looking at acquiring and teams are looking at moving,” he said. “I think this may shake things up a little bit, but from what I gather, the prices that teams have been asking may be high, and they’re starting to come down a little bit because there hasn’t really been a lot of movement.”
12:20 p.m.: The rumor going around right now is that Ales Hemsky is on his way to Ottawa. The Oilers reportedly have dealt the veteran winger to the Senators in exchange for picks.
Bob McKenzie is hearing that Ales Hemsky is going to the Ottawa Senators for picks. Nothing confirmed yet. #TradeCentre —
NHL on TSN (@NHLonTSN) March 05, 2014
12:10 p.m.: The Bruins’ defense options are getting slimmer and slimmer. The Ottawa Sun’s Bruce Garrioch is reporting that Chris Phillips has signed a two-year contract extension with the Ottawa Senators.
12 p.m.: We’re about three hours away from the 3 p.m. deadline. At 2:30, be sure to tune in to NESN for a two-hour trade deadline special.
11:53 a.m.: Now that the big Marty St. Louis deal is done, it’s time to start turning the attention elsewhere. One name that continues to pop up is Ales Hemsky. The Edmonton forward scored two goals last night and now has nine goals and 17 assists this season. Two of the teams reportedly interested are Pittsburgh and Ottawa, according to TSN’s Darren Dreger.
Continuing to hear Ottawa and Pittsburgh in the mix for Hemsky. #Tradecentre —
Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) March 05, 2014
11:23 a.m.: The aforementioned trade that would send Martin St. Louis to New York and Ryan Callahan to Tampa Bay is all but done. According to ESPN’s Pierre LeBrun, the deal is finished and is just pending a trade call.
As per @TSNBobMcKenzie, pending a trade call, Martin St. Louis to NYR is a done deal —
Pierre LeBrun (@Real_ESPNLeBrun) March 05, 2014
11:05 a.m.: We’re really close to a blockbuster trade, according to TSN’s Bob McKenzie. Here’s what the NHL insider just said on the network’s trade deadline:
“Very close. I believe if it is done that it would be Ryan Callahan going to the Tampa Bay Lightning and there would be a couple of draft picks, significant draft picks.”
11 a.m.: The Bruins don’t figure to be entirely busy today, at least according to Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli. This is what he told the team’s website.
“You try not to be emotional about it. You know, we’re trying to add, so the emotions get involved when you’re trading away players, so I don’t really want to trade away players. I don’t think we will today,” he said from his office. “It’s just about being on top of the market, being in touch with the other GMs, and finding where all of the players slot in and finding some players for the Bruins.
“We’re looking for one, maybe two depth defensemen. When I mean depth, it doesn’t mean they can’t play up the lineup. It just bolsters our depth, and they’re serviceable guys, so it’s a good day, it’s an exciting day, it’s a culmination of a lot of days.”
“Yesterday [Tuesday] might have even been more busy for us than today; we were in on a couple of deals, and they didn’t happen, so we’ll see.”
10:45 a.m.: We might be on the verge of our first big trade of the day. Michael Russo of the Star Tribune is reporting that he hears Marian Gaborik is being sent to the Los Angeles Kings. At the moment, it’s unclear what the Columbus Blue Jackets would get in return.
I'm hearing now Gaborik to #lakings is a done deal. Don't know for what —
Michael Russo (@Russostrib) March 05, 2014
10:30 a.m.: The Dallas Stars are still very much alive in the Western Conference playoff picture, but they still haven’t ruled out moving some pieces, apparently.
The Ottawa Sun’s Bruce Garrioch says Dallas is at least taking calls on veteran forward Ray Whitney. The 41-year-old has 7-18-25 totals this season and will be a free agent this offseason.
The Stars are taking calls on veteran F Ray Whitney. #NHLTradedeadline —
Bruce Garrioch (@SunGarrioch) March 05, 2014
10:19 a.m.: Interesting timing here, but it appears Steven Stamkos is ready to return. The Tampa Bay Lightning forward just tweeted that he’ll be ready to go Thursday, as his recovery from a broken leg is complete. That’s even more noteworthy now, as the Lightning are in the midst of the Marty St. Louis saga.
Just left the doctors office. Got the green light. See you tomorrow Bolts fans. Excited to be back!! —
Steven Stamkos (@RealStamkos91) March 05, 2014
9:35 a.m.: Again, it’s not a surprise, but the Bruins are still reportedly looking for a defenseman. Once again, Pierre LeBrun has all the latest.
He just tweeted that the B’s have interest in acquiring a blueliner, and he lists some options.
B's still looking for a D-man, maybe get 1 or 2 depending on price... Options include likes of N. Schultz, Meszaros, Tallinder, among others —
Pierre LeBrun (@Real_ESPNLeBrun) March 05, 2014
9:30 a.m.: The Boston Bruins almost certainly are going to try to acquire a defenseman today. One D-man who could be available and might be interesting to the B’s would be Ottawa’s Chris Phillips.
Phillips, an unrestricted free agent after this season, would like to stay in Ottawa, though, and the Sens are trying to work that out before the deadline. The Senators have offered Phillips a two-year deal, according to ESPN’s Pierre LeBrun.
Senators have offered Chris Phillips a two-year deal... still no deal at this point, discussions will continue..... —
Pierre LeBrun (@Real_ESPNLeBrun) March 05, 2014
9:15 a.m.: New Jersey Devils goalie Martin Brodeur really might get moved before the deadline.
Sportsnet’s Nick Kypreos reports Brodeur wants out of New Jersey, and the Devils are going to do what they can to accommodate the future Hall of Famer.
#Devils will try and move Brodeur. He told his GM last nite he wants out. Lou told him not great market but he'd try his best to do it. —
Nick Kypreos (@RealKyper) March 05, 2014
9 a.m. ET: One of the most exciting days on the NHL calendar is underway.
The NHL trade deadline is today, and it’s just six hours away. Between now and 3 p.m., some big moves could be made. The action got started early, with a flurry of activity all day yesterday. The same could happen today, with plenty of players who still could be on the move before the deadline.
One of those players is Tampa Bay Lightning captain Martin St. Louis. The 38-year-old reportedly is unhappy in Tampa Bay, and according to reports, the New York Rangers are making a strong push for St. Louis.
Dialogue between NYR and TB on Marty St. Louis trade is continuing. No guarantee it gets done but still a possibility. #TSN #Tradecentre —
Bob McKenzie (@TSNBobMcKenzie) March 05, 2014
It sounds like St. Louis also is making the push for that to happen.
Also hearing St Louis is expected to encourage the trade to NYR today. Not sure if that impacts Yzerman's decision. —
Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) March 05, 2014
The Rangers have other issues to deal with, too. They’re still reportedly in contract talks with their own captain, Ryan Callahan. The two sides are still working on a long-term extension. If they can’t come together on something, Callahan is presumably one of the players who could be on the move.
Catch up with what’s already happened by taking a look at yesterday’s action.SEATTLE (AP) — Federal law gives the president broad authority over immigration. Jimmy Carter used it to deny some Iranians entry to the U.S. during the hostage crisis, Ronald Reagan to bar Cubans who didn’t already have relatives here and President Obama to keep out North Korean officials.
So why does President Donald Trump keep running into legal trouble with his efforts to freeze immigration by refugees and citizens of some predominantly Muslim nations?
When federal courts in Hawaii and Maryland blocked Trump’s revised travel ban from taking effect, the judges spelled out their major concern: the unusual record of statements by the president and his advisers suggesting the executive order’s real purpose was to discriminate against Muslims, in violation of the Constitution’s ban on officially favoring or disfavoring any religion.
As the legal fight moves into the appeals courts, two key issues will be the extent of the president’s broad immigration powers — and whether Trump’s own record stymies his plans.
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THE RULINGS
Neither U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland nor Judge Derrick Watson bought the administration’s reasoning that the travel ban is about national security.
“The history of public statements continues to provide a convincing case that the purpose of the second executive order remains the realization of the long-envisioned Muslim ban,” Chuang wrote.
Watson criticized what he called the “illogic” of the government’s arguments and cited “significant and unrebutted evidence of religious animus” behind the travel ban. He also noted that while courts should not examine the “veiled psyche” and “secret motives” of government decision-makers, “the remarkable facts at issue here require no such impermissible inquiry.”
“For instance, there is nothing ‘veiled’ about this press release: ‘Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,’” he wrote, referring to a statement Trump issued as a candidate.
But the scope of the rulings differed. In a challenge brought by Hawaii, Watson blocked the federal government from enforcing its ban on travel from six mostly Muslim countries and its suspension of the nation’s refugee program. Chuang only blocked the six-nation travel ban, saying it wasn’t clear that the suspension of the refugee program was similarly motivated by religious bias.
A federal judge in Seattle on Thursday ruled that his order blocking Trump’s original travel ban does not apply to the revised executive order because there are enough differences between the two.
Judge James Robart noted that Washington and several other states have also asked him to block the revised ban. He said he would rule on that request at a later date.
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APPEALS COMING
Speaking Wednesday evening at a rally in Nashville, Tennessee, Trump called the ruling in Hawaii an example of “unprecedented judicial overreach” and said his administration would appeal it to the U.S. Supreme Court. He also called his new travel ban a watered-down version of the first one, which he said he wished he could implement.
“We’re going to win. We’re going to keep our citizens safe,” the president said. “The danger is clear. The law is clear. The need for my executive order is clear.”
White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Thursday that the Justice Department was exploring its options, but that it expected to file an appeal of the Maryland ruling with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and to seek clarification of the Hawaii order before appealing to the 9th Circuit. That circuit is where a three-judge panel unanimously declined to reinstate Trump’s original travel ban when it was put on hold by a Seattle Judge last month.
Despite the legal victories for critics of the ban, it’s far from clear that they will continue to win. A different panel of judges in the 9th Circuit will probably hear the appeal of Hawaii’s case. And on Wednesday, five judges signed a dissent criticizing the court’s decision not to reconsider and throw out the panel’s ruling on the original travel ban.
“Whatever we, as individuals, may feel about the president or the executive order, the president’s decision was well within the powers of the presidency,” Judge Jay Bybee wrote for the five.
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THE PRESIDENT’S AUTHORITY
In 1952, with the nation fearful of communist infiltration, Congress gave the president the authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act to take action:
“Whenever the president finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may... suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate,” the law says.
That power has been invoked dozens of times. But legal experts say those examples were more limited than what Trump has sought.
Citing a report that reviewed White House administrations going back to Reagan, Chuang noted in his ruling that no president has issued a ban on the entry “of all citizens from more than one country at the same time, much less six nations all at once.”
Chuang found that the travel ban likely violated another aspect of federal immigration law, barring discrimination on the basis of nationality in the issuance of immigrant visas. That law was passed in 1965 as part of an effort to end longstanding immigration quotas that had been criticized as racist.
Ultimately, the cases will come down to the ways in which that law and the Constitution constrain the president’s authority.
“That’s the tug of war that is going to play out and, I suspect, go before the Supreme Court,” said Ted Ruthizer, a former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “I think it will be a very seminal decision as to what are the limitations on the executive’s powers.”
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Thanawala reported from San Francisco. Associated Press writers Ben Nuckols in Greenbelt, Maryland; Sarah Brumfield and Jill Colvin in Washington, D.C.; and Jennifer Sinco Kelleher in Honolulu contributed to this report.In a book I recently read, Complexity and the Art of Public Policy by David Colander and Roland Kupers, I was surprised to find a chapter entitled “I Pencil Revisited.” Yes, they meant Leonard Read’s famous essay showing how market prices and competition work to coordinate production in a way that no single person, however powerful or intelligent, possibly could.
The authors aren’t exactly hostile to Read’s message but say that it leaves out something important — the role of government.
They write,
For me to be produced, someone had to protect the property rights upon which the market is based, someone had to guarantee that the contracts between individuals would be enforced, and someone had to be on the lookout for lead, for the safety of machines, and similar problems, which if not addressed might well lead to a society to undermine the institutional structure that produced me.
And, again writing through the voice of a pencil, Colander and Kupers say,
The reason I, Pencil downplayed government’s role is that he was afraid its inclusion would lead some people to expand the role of government to solve the inevitable problems that come about in coordinating production.
I believe that they are mistaken on that. The reason why Leonard Read focused exclusively on the remarkable story of voluntary market cooperation and did not expand the piece to discuss the proper role of government was that he figured most people already had some understanding of the need to protect property, enforce contracts, and settle disputes.
What very few people had any comprehension of was the way individuals all across the globe are brought into cooperation by the market for pencils.
Going into the role of government in the essay would have been like Mozart adding a few extra movements to his Jupiter Symphony.
Here is why the authors make this argument. They don’t like what they call the “market fundamentalism” of Leonard Read, former FEE president Don Boudreaux, and others (like me) who argue that the people of any society will be the most productive, happiest, and best able to deal with the problems they see if the government is kept only to the functions of protecting the rights of life, liberty, and property.
Instead of laissez-faire, Colander and Kupers favor what they call “laissez-faire activism.”
In short, they want us to believe that there is an ideal middle ground between unsophisticated “market fundamentalism” and top-down government planning and control of the economy. The latter, they understand, is bad because such authority will squelch innovation and competition, but the former supposedly doesn’t do enough to allow people to realize their “collective goals.” Here is a crucial passage:
What simplistic or fundamentalist free market advocates sometimes miss is that a complex system works only if individuals self-regulate, by which we mean that they do not push their freedom too far, and that they make reasonable compromises about benefiting themselves and benefiting society.
Of course, the common law framework that thinkers in the Adam Smith, Frederic Bastiat, Leonard Read line advocated does put limits on individual action. Rights and the sphere of legitimate action are clearly established, and to the extent that people have collective goals, they are free to pursue them voluntarily. But Colander and Kupers think government can and should do just a bit more.
One of their ideas is that government should adopt policies that will “nudge” people to do what they “really want to do,” but can’t sufficiently discipline themselves to do. They extol the book Nudge by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler, which purports to show how government can “encourage” people to act in preferable ways, without dictating behavior to them.
But why can’t we rely entirely on voluntary efforts by concerned individuals and organizations to do that encouraging? Churches, for example, have been encouraging people to behave better for millennia; Alcoholics Anonymous has been helping people recover from alcohol abuse since 1935; parents have been “nudging” children to make wiser decisions since time immemorial. Why look to government policy?
Sometimes, the reason why people seem to need “nudging” is that current government policy encourages undesirable behavior. Few Americans save much these days, for instance. But instead of trying to “nudge” them to save more, why not change the tax laws that discourage thrift? Going back towards “laissez-faire fundamentalism” would solve or ameliorate many of our problems.
Moreover, Colander and Kupers ignore the great and, I maintain, insuperable problem of keeping government interference within bounds. If the state has the authority to “nudge” people, what keeps politicians from ratcheting up the power if it doesn’t work? Nudging turns into pushing, then shoving. Interest groups will importune politicians with arguments for policies they favor, crafting them as merely helping “the people” to realize the social goals they “really” favor.
The way democratic politics tends to be captured by interest groups is the big message of Public Choice theory, but Colander and Kupers never think to explain how they’d prevent their “laissez-faire activism” from turning into plain old activism.
After reading Complexity and the Art of Public Policy, I fail to see how government can improve upon capitalism combined with the host of voluntary organizations that spring up in a free society. I, Pencil does not need to be revisited.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.) said Thursday it might require a subpoena to get more information about a deadly ambush in Niger.
"It may require a subpoena," McCain said when he was asked what might need to be done to get more information about the attack that left four U.S. soldiers dead, according to CNN.
U.S. Africa Command has launched a formal investigation into the Oct. 4 incident in Niger that left four Army Green Berets dead and two injured, according to reports Thursday.
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The command sent a team to Niger to conduct a "review of the facts," defense officials told NBC News.
Experts are reportedly trying to establish an hour-by-hour timeline of what happened, and the investigation will include all U.S. military branches and agencies involved in the deadly mission.
McCain said it's not necessary to wait for the Defense Department to finish its investigation.
"That's not how the system works. We're coequal branches of government," McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said. "We should be informed at all times."
McCain told The Hill on Thursday that the committee was going to meet to decide how to move forward, noting that its members didn't find out about what happened in Niger "until it came out in the paper."
"I hope not. We're just doing our job, which is to look carefully at what took place. We have to authorize these operations and support them, and we have to know what's going on," Reed told The Hill on Thursday.
On Tuesday, McCain said he didn't think the Trump administration had provided enough information on the attack in Niger.
Asked by The Hill whether the administration has been forthcoming on information on Niger, McCain said "no."
“I had a better working relationship, as far as information back and forth, with Ash Carter than I do with an old friend of 20 years,” McCain added, referring to former President Obama's last Defense secretary.
President Trump did not personally comment on the attack until Monday, when he said he would call the families of the fallen soldiers "at some point" and spurred controversy over his claim that Obama didn't call the families of slain soldiers.Video (05:58) : The $17M deal with Minnesota Venture settles a dispute that might have kept Vikings fans off the Downtown East plaza for the rest of the football season.
The Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority has agreed to pay $17.1 million for a key piece of land near the proposed $975 million Vikings Stadium — a deal that averts a protracted legal battle over the coveted property in downtown Minneapolis.
The site is home to the Downtown East light-rail station, as well as an underground parking garage with 455 spaces, but it’s not part of the stadium’s actual footprint. Still, authority officials say proximity to mass transit and parking is key to the stadium’s success, and Thursday’s agreement eliminates a final hurdle in the land-acquisition process before construction begins next month.
“It’s a fair price,” said authority Chairwoman Michele Kelm-Helgen. “This is an important piece of land … it’s important that it be held by a public body.”
Earlier this year, the authority offered the plaza’s landowner, Minneapolis Venture LLC, $13 million for the site. But the landowners wrote in an April 10 letter to the authority that $24 million to $26 million was a more appropriate price.
Then, in August, Minneapolis Venture filed suit against the authority claiming negotiations over the land purchase had grown “perplexing and unproductive.”
Video (05:58): Animation: Metrodome demolition, new construction Video (05:58): Animation: Metrodome demolition, new construction
Maximum budget due
The agreement on the plaza property comes just days before Mortenson Construction, the general contractor, is expected to deliver a guaranteed maximum price for building the stadium.
That figure, based on the development agreement signed by the authority and team earlier this month, was tentatively listed at $737 million.
Kelm-Helgen told legislators at the Capitol Thursday at a meeting of the Legislative Commission on Minnesota Sports Facilities that “right now, we are on budget and on schedule and that’s where we plan to stay.”
Her comments came as an industry publication, Sports Business Daily, reported that the project’s hard costs, which include materials and labor, had soared by $45 million and that the Vikings were “alarmed” to the point of talking with a “separate contractor” to explore pricing options and estimates.
The publication, citing “industry sources,” reported that Mortenson was “struggling to meet” the $737 million goal and approached the Vikings several days after the development agreement was approved to tell them that the project costs had increased.
Kelm-Helgen said later Thursday that some preliminary bids on the project “are definitely coming back higher than anticipated.”
But she said the team, the authority and Mortenson are still working on the budget and evaluating all costs to decide what can or can’t be included in the final design.
She also said that there was no outside review. “There is no plan at this point to do that. I don’t see a need for it,” she said. “I’m confident we’re going to hit that budget.”
Other options on table?
Vikings spokesman Lester Bagley, meanwhile, declined to comment on whether the team had discussed pricing with another contractor.
He simply said, “the budget is evolving,” adding that “it’s absolutely crucial this project be delivered on budget.”
For now, it appears as though the authority will not be negotiating to buy land north of the stadium owned by entities associated with the Wilf family, the Vikings’ owner.
Early land-acquisition plans called for the now-vacant property to be used for a parking ramp, but now that doesn’t appear to be in the mix. “Hopefully there will be enough cost savings that we could add it back in,” Bagley said.
Second property sought
The second property sought by the authority is a single block owned by the Star Tribune that will be used for a parking ramp.
The owner of the Downtown East parcel outside the Metrodome has reached a deal with the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority for the purchase of the property.
That block is part of a parking contract awarded by the authority in July to Minneapolis developer Ryan Cos., which is planning a $400 million mixed-use development west of the stadium.
The ramp, which would be used by local residents, office workers and stadium users, would be owned by the authority in a deal that is expected to close by year’s end.
The authority’s agreement Thursday also means that gameday festivities on the Downtown East plaza will continue for the remaining four Vikings home games and any playoff games. The 2003 agreement that permitted such activities was set to expire on Oct. 31.
‘All parties are pleased’
Authority spokeswoman Jennifer Hathaway said the two sides were in mediation Wednesday and came to an agreement over the value of the plaza land, which is bordered by Park Avenue S. and Kirby Puckett Place between 4th and 5th Streets.
She said a purchase agreement should be consummated in “about a week.”
Jon Austin, spokesman for Minneapolis Venture, said, “All parties are pleased with the agreement.” The Hennepin County lawsuit has been put on hold until a final agreement is reached.
Minneapolis Venture, which includes developers Robert Lux and Phillip Jaffe and financier Irv Kessler, bought the plaza from the city of Minneapolis in 2007, part of a $65 million package that included five parking ramps.news
Republican presidential candidate and Ohio Gov. John Kasich made an appearance at the Miller Center Monday for a taping of American Forum.
The Miller Center is a nonpartisan organization with a focus on the presidency and the Executive Branch. Each week, the center hosts a different guest to appear on American Forum, a television program aired on PBS stations around the country
Kasich is the second 2016 presidential candidate to appear on the program. Democratic candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) appeared on American Forum in September.
Doug Blackmon, executive producer of American Forum, said all of the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates have been invited to appear on the show.
The program provides a space for constructive and civil discussion, Blackmon said.
"The Miller Center was started almost 50 years ago expressly to encourage open civil discourse," Blackmon said. "We completely endorse civil non-partisan discourse, but we never endorse any people or parties."
Blackmon said the program is unique because unlike television shows like “Meet the Press” or “Face the Nation,” American Forum has a studio audience.
“When we do an event like this now, it’s a very high production value television taping, but we want to bring the public into it,” Blackmon said.
Kasich's visit to the Miller Center began with a press conference where he addressed controversy about a comment he made earlier in the day in which he referred to “many women who left their kitchens to go out and to go door-to-door and to put yard signs up for me” while speaking at a campaign event in Fairfax County.
Kasich said many of his first campaign events in Ohio were in homes.
"When I was a new candidate I did what I do now, which is to have a lot of town hall meetings but they weren’t in town halls,” Kasich said. “They were in kitchens and they were in living rooms and a big chunk of the people that helped me in my early days and throughout my career even up to now have been women.”
Kasich said he is not a “scripted candidate.”
"Everybody’s just got to relax,” Kasich said. “I don’t use teleprompters, I don’t run around with all these notes like lots of people do. I’m real and maybe sometimes I might say something that isn’t as artfully said as it should be.”
After the press conference Kasich addressed the crowd of students and community members before moving inside the center for the taping with Blackmon.
Kasich spoke about the minimal media coverage he has received until recently.
"For the first time in this campaign I think I'm finally being heard," Kasich said. "For a very long time, no one heard me, no one knew my name, I think they thought my name was ‘Governor of Ohio’ because it was easier.”
Kasich, who won second place in the New Hampshire primary Feb. 10, said people are going to hear him talk about substantive issues.
“I’ve been able now to get to a point where people are going to hear a message of economic growth but also a message that we don’t want to leave anybody behind,” Kasich said.
With the new attention he is getting, the Kasich campaign hopes he will do well in upcoming primaries, Kasich's Communication Director Chris Schrimpf said.
"Most people didn’t know who he was until New Hampshire, so what we’ve seen is his support growing rapidly," Schrimpf said. "As people are getting to know him his support is continuing to grow.”
Schrimpf said there is also hope that with Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL) out of the running following the suspension of his campaign, some of his supporters will come out for Kasich.
"When we started this race … we kind of viewed it as there were a couple different brackets in this race. There’s the senators, and the outsiders, and the governors,” Schrimpf said. “We’ve won the governors’ bracket now, so a lot of those people will naturally come to us."
Schrimpf said Kasich’s executive experience will help him in the race.
"The senators... haven’t done anything,” Schrimpf said. “They haven’t accomplished anything in Washington, they certainly haven’t run a state let alone the federal government. So there’s a lot of people who are looking for that."
Kasich’s appearance on American Forum will air nationally March 2.window._taboola = window._taboola || []; _taboola.push({ mode: 'thumbnails-c', container: 'taboola-interstitial-gallery-thumbnails-3', placement: 'Interstitial Gallery Thumbnails 3', target_type:'mix' });
Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Image 2 of 4 Image 3 of 4 Image 4 of 4 UH to begin constructing $25 million basketball practice facility 1 / 4 Back to Gallery
The University of Houston will begin construction on a $25 million basketball practice facility this week, the school announced Tuesday.
The 53,000-square foot, multi-level basketball development facility – to officially be named the Houston Basketball Development Facility – will serve as the headquarters for the men’s and women’s programs. The estimated completion date is August 2015.
The facility will be built adjacent to Hofheinz Pavilion, where the Cougars currently practice and play games.
New UH men’s coach Kelvin Sampson said the facility is a must to remain competitive with other teams nationally and in the American Athletic Conference. Connecticut, Memphis, Cincinnati, SMU and South Florida are among the conference schools that have a dedicated basketball practice facility.
“We don’t have a choice,” Sampson said. “If we want to compete in this league, then we cannot be at a competitive disadvantage. If you are the coach at the University of Houston, you want to be in a fair fight. You want to be able to have equal footing with other teams in the league. I applaud UH president Renu Khator and (vice president for intercollegiate athletics) Mack Rhoades for stepping up and getting this done.”
The school released three renderings of the project Tuesday, which show a modern exterior that will keep the look of the facility in line with other nearby projects, including TDECU Stadium. A large glass entrance greets visitors on the Cullen Boulevard side.
The first level will include separate basketball courts for the men’s and women’s basketball teams – with the same specifications of those in games at Hofheinz – as well as sports performance and sports medicine areas that will be shared by both programs.
The second level will feature modern locker rooms, academic/film theaters and player lounge.
The offices for coaching and support staff will be on the third level.
Student-athletes will have round-the-clock access to the facility, Sampson said.
The building of the facility, Sampson added, will send a message to Houston area players who might not be considering staying at home.
“This gives them a reason to want to stay in Houston, because they know they can come here and have facilities as good as anybody in the country,” he said.
Ronald Hughey, in his first season as UH women’s coach, said construction of the practice facility “put us in the game” with recruits.
Just last week, UH hosted unofficial visits for 25 recruits on campus. Several noticed the fencing that had been |
it would be 26th all-time). Overall, this guesstimate would put Herschel Walker at about 5,314 in his first three years. That would make him 9th all-time in the first three years of a career. As it stands, the first three years of his actual NFL career, from ages 24 to 26, place him 12th.
If you give him credit for that amount, he would place 5th among running backs for a career, between LaDainian Tomlinson and Barry Sanders. In fact, you have to go down to Tiki Barber and Edgerrin James to find running backs not in the Hall of Fame. You would have to credit Walker with fewer than 2,500 yards for his first three seasons (basically, Knowshon Moreno or Tim Hightower) as a starter to have him fall below that line.
While the Pro Football Hall of Fame is almost always synonymous with the NFL, that is because the best players in the sport have almost exclusively played there. Walker is an exception, just as the Browns in the AAFC were an exception, and just as early AFL stars were. Walker was a star, and everyone knew it, when he signed to play in the USFL after his junior year at Georgia. The NFL prohibited juniors from entering at that time, a rule that was later changed in 1990 (after an exception was crafted for Barry Sanders in 1989). He went pro because he was good enough, and went to a rival league because of a rule that the NFL no longer has. Any attempt to put his USFL years in context, in good faith, should lead to the conclusion that, like Ichiro, he gets some credit for what he did outside the main professional league in the United States.
[photo via Sports Illustrated archives]Ryan Murphy doesn’t want to go the Beverly Hills 90210 route by following all the Glee kids to a local college in Ohio where they all miraculously join the show choir together and Sue Sylvester and that teacher with 1999 Justin Timberlake hair miraculously get the same job at the same school. Nope. Ryan Murphy wants Glee to be like real life!
You know, because in real high school life we all broke out into a Bruno Mars song in the middle of the hallway, the cafeteria served Slurpees, all the dudes were buff as shit and there was a teacher like Sue Sylvester who could be a cunt to a kid’s face without being dragged to jail for acts of child meanery. Also, in real high school life, some of us graduated and that’s exactly what Chris Colfer, Lea Michele and Cory Monteith are going to do at the end of season 3. Ryan put it like this to The Hollywood Reporter:
“You can keep them on the show for six years and people will criticize you for not being realistic, or you can be really true to life and say when they started the show they were very clearly sophomores and they should graduate at the end of their senior year. We’ve never done anything by the book. We made that decision and I involved Chris and Lea and they thought that was a good idea. They both trust the writing and trust me and felt that it would be great to have an open and closed experience for them to go out while they were on top.”
So if you want to see a slow motion face seizure like the one Lea Michele makes when she hollers out, you’ll have to find one elsewhere. (Tip: If you stick a mound of white Play-Doh in the microwave and watch it melt through the window, it’s the same thing.) They’ll all be fine. Cory will eventually become a gay erotica star on LOGO soap operas, Chris will become the boldest prostitot pimp at Disney, and Lea will end up in the slammer after she purposely trips her Broadway co-star into the orchestra pit during curtain call on their opening night, because she’ll sense that all the claps were going to them!
And while that’s happening, can Ryan Murphy PLEASE give every second of screen time to this sessy Oompa Loompa with Vitiligo from The Glee Project:
If Chippendales had actual chipmunks….Amanda Bynes appeared in court Friday, a day after she was arrested on a pot charge and accused of throwing her bong out the window, according to police. (Published Friday, May 24, 2013)
Actress Amanda Bynes was arrested by police in her midtown apartment Thursday night after officers said her room reeked of marijuana and caught her throwing drug paraphernalia out the window, law enforcement sources said.
The doorman at Bynes' building on West 47th Street called police to report she was smoking marijuana in the lobby, sources said. When officers arrived, Bynes had returned to her apartment on the 36th floor.
Officers observed a bong inside Bynes' apartment as she opened the door, the sources said. That's when she allegedly grabbed it and tossed it out of the window.
Officers also noted a "heavy" smell of marijuana and smoke inside the apartment, according to the sources.
Bynes, 27, was arrested on charges of reckless endangerment, tampering with evidence and criminal possession of marijuana.
She was taken to Roosevelt Hospital to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, then to a Midtown police station to be processed, according to the sources. She was held overnight at a police precinct, then pulled up to court in a squad car Friday morning, appearing disheveled in a long wig and sweatpants.
"I'm asking you I don't want any pictures," she said to one of the photographers in the crush of media.
"I don't want any photos. No press are allowed in here," she announced to the public courtroom.
Bynes' attorney for the arraignment, Andrew Friedman, insisted she had never been in any trouble before in New York.
Friedman also said Bynes "completely denies illegally throwing anything out of her window."
The judge asked Bynes if she lived in Manhattan, and she said, "I do, sir."
When he asked if she was planning to stay in Manhattan, she said "um, yes."
He then went through the conditions of her release, including that if she gets arrested again or fails to show up for her next court date in July, he would set "significant bail."
Bynes, whose increasingly bizarre behavior has been the subject of tabloid scrutiny in recent months, is already under probation for driving with a suspended license. The plea deal secured in Burbank, Calif. earlier this month placed Bynes under three years probation.
The former Nickelodeon star also has a DUI case pending in Beverly Hills. And last December, she settled another misdemeanor hit-and-run case in California.
Prosecutors had asked for $1,000 bail. Prosecutors said no bong was recovered from the street below — a sign, her attorney said, that Bynes was telling the truth.
"There was nothing recovered from the sidewalk, clearly a search was made for the bag," said Friedman. He said she was followed illegally into her apartment and has made a complaint about police wrongfully entering.
As the judge dispensed with her case, she said, "Thank you sir, have a nice day."
The star then got into a waiting yellow cab ringed with photographers and TV cameras and left.
-- Additional reporting from APThe Turkish defense minister said that the Syrian city of al-Bab has been surrounded by Turkish-led forces.
Currently, the Turkish-led forces continue the operation to liberate the city, Defense Minister Fikri Isik told journalists in Brussels.
He said that Kurdish-held Manbij and Daesh's de facto capital of Raqqa will be the next targets of the Turkish operation in Syria.
"Al-Bab is completely surrounded; the operation is underway in the city. Manbij and Raqqa will be the next goals after al-Bab. Tomorrow the Chief of the US General Staff [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford] will arrive in Ankara," the Turkish minister said.
© AFP 2018 / GEORGE OURFALIAN Syrian Army Supported by Russian Warplanes Destroy Daesh Stronghold Near Al-Bab
The Turkish military operation in Syria's al-Bab has entered the final stage. Turkey's units entered central al-Bab, the operation is being conducted in coordination with Russia to prevent clashes with Syrian government forces.
Moreover, Russian and Turkish military jets have repeatedly jointly bombed Daesh targets near al-Bab in Syria.
Al-Bab is one of Daesh’s last remaining strongholds near the Turkish border. Capturing the city is of strategic importance to Turkey in order to prevent the Syrian Kurds taking it and unifying their own territories.
On Tuesday, the Turkish Prime Minister said that most of al-Bab is under contol.There are many noteworthy attributes about the 2013-14 edition of the Boston Bruins, a team which finished first overall in the NHL with 117 regular season points. Despite their reputation, however, this year’s Bruins squad did not get to the top of the standings by out-hitting or out-brawling all comers. Looking at its roster, we see a club anchored by a well-balanced offensive core featuring five 20-goal scorers, a skilled and battle-hardened defensive unit and one of the best goalies in the world in Tuukka Rask. What we have here, then, is simply a very good hockey team with few weaknesses.
Fortunately for the Habs, they head into Round Two well rested and with the confidence associated with beating the Bruins three times in four tries this year. Here are the four difference-makers in what is sure to be a hard-fought series.
Cantankerous Canadiens
Did you know that, during the regular season, the Canadiens averaged 13.0 penalty minutes per game while Boston only averaged 10.8? All in all, Montreal finished the season as the fifth-most penalised team in the league, eleven spots ahead of Boston. The Bruins did finish the 82-game season with more fighting majors, but its 46-43 edge in that aspect is not as significant as the average observer would have suspected.
In terms of going shoulder-to-shoulder, the Bruins were ranked 12th in the NHL during the regular season, logging 2008 hits in 82 games. For their part, the Habs were 20th with 1722. That’s only about 3.5 fewer hits per game. If “an eye for an eye” becomes the name of the game at any point in the series, then Habs fans shouldn’t be too worried about their team keeping pace.
Playoff tough
When it comes to the postseason, an effective way to measure how tenacious and “difficult to play” a team is, is how well their star players can take a licking and keep on ticking. Like with an NFL running back, the greatness of an offensive-minded player is best measured with his ability to shake off a body blow while making a big play.
Through four playoff games against the Lightning, the Habs’ top five-on-five unit (Max Pacioretty, David Desharnais, Thomas Vanek, P.K. Subban and Josh Gorges) have 27 hits between them while being hit a combined 45 times. It may seem bad at first glance, but it’s worth noting that a player can only be hit when he has the puck; those players controlled the puck nearly 60% of the time during the first round victory over Tampa Bay. Especially noteworthy is the composure of Josh Gorges, who was targeted a team-high 16 times by Lightning forecheckers.
It’s a similar story for the Boston Bruins. Their best-performing five-man unit against Detroit (Loui Eriksson, Patrice Bergeron, Reilly Smith, Torey Krug and Zdeno Chara) was out-hit 29-46 in five games by the Wings.
Force on force
As the NHL’s number-three ranked powerplay team in the regular season, Claude Julien’s Bruins have been well-served by staying disciplined and provoking the other team into visiting the sin bin. A key part of Boston’s success on the man advantage is Zdeno Chara and Milan Lucic’s ability to create chaos in front of the net, allowing Torey Krug and David Krejci to direct traffic from the point and opening up Jarome Iginla for his one-timer from the left sideboard. Quantitatively, this setup produced a prolific 56.9 shots per 60 minutes (fifth highest five-on-four shooting rate in the NHL) in the 82-game regular season and a league-best 78.4 shots/60 minutes in the first round against the Red Wings.
Meanwhile, the Habs have experienced success on their penalty kill in 2013-14 by also managing shot counts. The league’s fourth-stingiest PK team has only allowed 47.9 shots per hour while playing four-on-five in the regular season (eighth-lowest rate in the NHL) and limited the Tampa Bay Lightning to one goal on 5 shots at four-on-five in the first round.
Two-headed monsters
With the Canadiens playing some of their best five-on-five hockey of the season and the Bruins rolling along as well, a couple of timely goals could prove to be the difference between a pass to the Conference Finals and a trip to the golf course. As the last line of defense for the Habs, Carey Price has put up a fine 0.934 save percentage in five-on-five play this year (third among NHL starters). Meanwhile, Tuukka Rask has done even better for the Bruins, saving 94.2% of all shots faced at even strength to lead the league.
In conclusion…
If the Habs can stay out of the box, skate through the punishment and outshoot the Bruins by four every game (which will serve to bridge the gap between Price and Rask’s save percentages), then good things are about to happen.
Jack Han is a writer for canadiens.com.Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2010 November 5
Comet Hartley 2 Flyby
Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, UMD, EPOXI Mission
Explanation: Follow these 5 frames clockwise starting from the top left to track the view from the EPOXI mission spacecraft as it approached, passed under, and then looked back at the nucleus of comet Hartley 2 on November 4. Its closest approach distance was about 700 kilometers. In fact, this encounter was the fifth time a spacecraft from planet Earth has imaged a comet close-up. But Hartley 2's nucleus is definitely the smallest one so far, its long axis spanning only about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles). Though Hartley 2 is small, these stunning images showing jets of dust and gas indicate an impressively active surface. The jets are seen originating from the rough surface areas, with sunlight illuminating the nucleus from the right. Remarkably, rough areas at both ends of the elongated nucleus are joined by a narrower, smooth waist. The EPOXI mission reuses the Deep Impact spacecraft that launched a probe impacting the nucleus of comet Tempel 1 in 2005.EARTH CITY, Mo. -- The Rams career of rookie wide receiver Bud Sasser is over before it ever got started.
The Rams released Sasser on Thursday afternoon because of a pre-existing medical condition. The team didn't disclose the nature of the problem, but league sources told ESPN.com that Sasser has a heart condition. After multiple tests, he was not physically cleared to play. Sasser was waived with a non-football-related illness designation.
The Rams signed Sasser to his rookie contract Tuesday, and he will receive his signing bonus of $113,737.
Bud Sasser had 77 catches for 1,003 yards and 12 touchdowns for Missouri in 2014. Ed Zurga/Getty Images
Rams coach Jeff Fisher confirmed that Sasser won't be playing for the Rams after the team's organized team activity on Thursday.
"We did some extensive studies after the draft, very extensive as you can imagine, and it was determined and concluded by numerous physicians that he had a pre-existing condition that we don't feel will allow him to play," Fisher said.
Sasser took the team's required physicals before last month's rookie orientation but wasn't cleared at that time. Sasser has since sought multiple opinions, but no doctor cleared him to play.
"Not in our opinion, no," Fisher said. "Not in a medical opinion and based on the medical experts and everything else. He was a non-combine guy, and that happens sometimes. Our team physicians and outside physicians recommended he not play."
Because Sasser was not invited to the combine, the Rams and the rest of the NFL were not able to put him through the rigorous physical testing that combine participants undergo. The team then circled back to the University of Missouri but did not get the information that way, either.
"We didn't have the information," Fisher said. "Typically, what you do is contact the university, and this was just one of those things that slipped through the cracks."
The Rams used a sixth-round pick on Sasser in this year's NFL draft, but he never had the opportunity to participate in a single practice. He sat out the team's rookie orientation and was not present for the start of the team's organized activities that began Tuesday.
Sasser played at Missouri, where he had 77 catches for 1,003 yards and 12 touchdowns in 2014. Despite that production, he was not invited to participate in the NFL scouting combine or any of the postseason all-star games.It is politically restorative to look with a fresh eye at The Manifesto of the Communist Party (to use its original title), written before Marxism was overlaid by reformist, postmodernist, spiritual, and psychological commentaries. From an examination of this work on its own terms, what emerges is that it is not a "text" intended to be served up for academic deconstruction and convoluted exegesis but rather the manifesto of a party that challenged the existence of capitalist social relations and their underlying class base.
The Manifesto directly faced the exploitative social order of its time and intended to move a class—the proletariat—to revolutionary action against it.Bringing theory to the service of building a movement, as Marx and Engels did—indeed, they perceptively interwove basic analytical ideas with programmatic and organizational issues—is becoming alien in the present era, which is sharply dichotomizing the two. To be sure, the existence of "Marxology" as a university discipline today, with its own professoriat and journals, as distinguished from a living practice, is not an entirely unprecedented phenomenon. Kautsky, among others, already began to make this dichotomy as editor of Die Neue Zeit in the 1890s.
But Die Neue Zeit, at least, was the theoretical organ of a mass movement that mobilized hundreds of thousands of people on the German political scene. It was not until recent decades that strictly scholarly Marxian journals appeared that exhibited few or no political intentions and hence provided no basis for a practice engaged in transforming society. The divorce between theory and practice—and the failure of avowed leftists to build a revolutionary public sphere in the past few decades—has led to the debilitation of theory itself, as witness the current acceptance of postmodernist nihilism, Situationist aestheticism, and quite recently, even Eastern spiritualism among a number of self-professed Marxists.
By contrast, the most refreshing feature of The Manifesto as a theoretical document is that it candidly and unabashedly addresses lived social relations, not simply their cultural offshoots. Its stylistic magnetism, which made it the inimitable model for so many later programmatic statements by revolutionary movements, lies precisely in its bold candor about the material factors that guide human behavior. Far more than Nietzsche, Marx (who seems to have penned most of The Manifesto) wrote with a hammer about the realities of the capitalist system that were emerging in his time. The famous opening line—"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles"—is arrestingly declarative, allowing for no equivocation. (1)
Published in a limited German edition of 800 on the eve of the 1848 February Revolution in France, The Manifesto synthesized generations of reflection on the root causes of social injustice and conflict. As Marx himself freely acknowledged, the importance that it attaches to class struggles was not new to revolutionary thought. It can be traced back to the Levellers of the English Revolution and even to Lollards such as John Ball in the English Peasant War of the 14th century. Having no direct impact upon the events that made up the stormy year of 1848, The Manifesto nonetheless left a lasting imprint upon subsequent working-class movements, providing a definitive standard by which their revolutionary intentions were to be judged. And it placed upon every subsequent revolutionary movement the obligation to make the oppressed conscious of their status—that is to say, to inculcate among the exploited a deep sense of class consciousness and to urge them to abolish class society as such.
Pounded out as it was, the opening line of The Manifesto—unadorned and unequivocal—immediately fixed the Communist League (for which it was written) as an overtly revolutionary movement. Thereafter, socialist organizations and movements that professed to seek justice for the oppressed had to validate their standing with the emerging working class in its conflict with the bourgeoisie. After the publication of The Manifesto, class struggle was taken for granted among such movements, even if they sought to achieve socialism in peaceful and piecemeal ways by making compromises between workers and capitalists.
Moreover, Marx's opening line announced that The Manifesto would not obfuscate the real social relations that make up capitalism. Capitalism, The Manifesto went on to emphasize, is an unrelentingly exploitative economy that is driven by its competitive relations to colonize the entire world and to bring social life as such face to face with the question of its very ability to survive in the absence of a communist society. Today, when reformism permeates most of the political thinking that goes under the name of leftism, we would do well to recall that Marx and Engels warned, a century and a half ago, that "the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society, and to impose its conditions of existence upon society as an over-riding law," indeed, that "its existence is no longer compatible with society" (pp. 495, 497). (*)
Parts I ("Bourgeois and Proletarians") and II ("Proletarians and Communists") of The Manifesto lay out the main argument of volume one of Capital, in vivid, clear prose that is as excitingly programmatic as it is brilliantly theoretical. The pithy formulations are impossible to summarize without doing them injustice, while the brilliance with which Marx and Engels demonstrated that capitalism creates the conditions for its inevitable destruction is impossible to capture. The culminating passage of part I contains ideas that are provocative and prescient even for the coming century:
The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. … Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind. The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere.... Modern bourgeois society with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. (pp. 487, 489)
These lines were written a century and a half ago, when capitalism was hardly the prevalent social order on the European continent, although it had made great inroads into Britain and its ultimate ascendance in France and Germany was foreseeable. Industrial capitalism on the European continent was still embedded in a mixed economy—partly bourgeois, partly feudal, and largely peasant. Nearly all cities were still compact entities, crowded with winding medieval streets and surrounded by walls, and everyday commodities were still fashioned by the hands of skilled artisans. The winter of 1847-48 was still the inception of the bourgeois epoch, not its high point, let alone its end, and the words globalization and multinationalism were unheard of, even as The Manifesto described similar phenomena. The predictions in this passage might have been dismissed as fanciful visions, had they not been placed in the context of The Manifesto, which gave them an historical as well as an educative meaning that previous accounts of capitalism (a word that was still new) had lacked.
These lines demonstrate the power of theory to project itself beyond given conditions into the future—and the theoretical projections of Marx and Engels here became glaring realities many generations later, although remaining unfulfilled even into the new millennium. Paramount is the salient reality that capitalism is the uncontrollable work of historical "sorcery"—a system of production for its own sake—that, while it exists, must eat away at the natural world and drastically remake the planet, probably to the detriment of all life-forms, including human beings. Without a revolutionary change, its drive as a transformative system—a society that runs on its own, beyond even the control of the bourgeoisie itself—may be modified but cannot be arrested.
No "discourse" on the theoretical or programmatic issues of The Manifesto can be meaningful unless it addresses the need for the formation a "revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things" (p. 519). "The theory of the Communists," as The Manifesto declares, "may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property" (p. 498)—or equivalently, abolition of capitalism, without any reservations. For a communist movement to fall short of this goal, as Marx and Engels understood, would be, not to "approximate" it or to "realistically" modify it, but to abandon it altogether. As the authors of The Manifesto were to write in their address to the Communist League after the events of 1848-49, reforms could validly be demanded, but only as a means to ratchet up greater demands that would be impossible for the existing social order to satisfy and that thus would lead to an armed confrontation with the bourgeoisie over the very structure of society.
Nor were the readers of The Manifesto in those years—and not even for a generation later—members of the industrial proletariat, to whom the document was addressed. By far the great majority of workers who could understand its message were artisans who aspired to the right to "associate" (in craftlike mutualistic brotherhoods or industrial trade unions) and, among the most advanced workers, to the right to "organize work" cooperatively. This artisanal or associative socialism, as historians have called it, was more cooperative than communistic, rewarding the members of associations according to their work rather than according to their needs.
By contrast, The Manifesto of the Communist Party made a dramatic leap, unequalled by any contemporary socialistic document. It showed that communism was not merely an ethical desideratum for social justice but a compelling historical necessity, flowing out of the very development of capitalism itself. This leap was reined in by its ten-point minimum program, largely the work of Engels. With its moderate demands, it seems to have been designed for the German workers' movement, which was still allied with the middle classes against the aristocracy. Hence even the most socialistic of the ten demands, the seventh, prudently called for the "extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state" rather than the collectivization of the economy (p. 505). In a long-range perspective, part II of The Manifesto projected the concentration of all productive facilities, including the land, in the "hands of a vast association of the whole nation" (p. 505). Actually, this last phrase, "a vast association of the whole nation," was specific to the English translation; the original German spoke of "associated individuals," a somewhat Proudhonist formulation that would have made the document more acceptable in Germany at the time.
After classes disappear and property has become socialized, The Manifesto says, the "public power will lose its political character," that is, its statist form:
Political power [the state], properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat in its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away the old conditions of production by force, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of class generally and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class. In place of the old bourgeois society with its class and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. (pp. 505-6)
The Communists who try to achieve these aims, says the document, have no interests "apart from those of the proletariat as a whole" (p. 496). They constitute the most resolute party in the struggle for promoting the welfare of the proletariat, but always viewing the contours of the struggle as a whole, they "everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things." Indeed, they always bring to the front "as the leading question in each [struggle], the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time" (p. 519).
Given its analysis of capitalism as a doomed social order within which reforms must always be placed in the service of revolution; its resolute commitment to (generally violent) revolution; its view of communism as an associative rather than a state system "in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all," it is only fair to ask what Marx and Engels meant by "political power" in 1847-48. The answer—idiosyncratic in the light of what the two men were to write in later years—is surprisingly libertarian.
In The Manifesto, the proletarian "state" that will replace the bourgeois "political power" and initially make the most "despotic inroads on the right of property" will consist of the proletariat raised to "the position of ruling class." More specifically:
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class, and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible. (emphasis added, p. 504)
This can hardly be called a state in either the usual Marxian or the social anarchist sense of the word. In fact, the implications of this extraordinary formulation have vexed even the ablest of socialist theorists, anarchist as well as Marxist—and they dogged Marx and Engels themselves as a problem up to the last years of their lives. How could an entire class, the proletariat organized as a "movement" that would eventually speak for society as a whole, institutionalize itself into a "political" (or state) power? By what concrete institutional forms would this class, whose revolution in contrast to all previous ones would represent "the interest of the immense majority" (p. 495), exercise its economic and political sovereignty?
Until the Paris Commune of 1871, Marx and Engels probably intended for the "political power" that the proletariat would establish to be nothing more than a republic, that is, a representative form of government, albeit one rooted in political rights such as recall. Anarchist critics of Marx pointed out with considerable effect that any system of representation would become a statist interest in its own right, one that at best would work against the interests of the working classes (including the peasantry), and that at worst would be a dictatorial power as vicious as the worst bourgeois state machines. Indeed, with political power reinforced by economic power in the form of a nationalized economy, a "workers' republic" might well prove to be a despotism (to use one of Bakunin's more favorite terms) of unparalleled oppression.
Marx and Engels had no effective response to make to this criticism, as we can tell from their correspondence with their German supporters. Nothing in their writings shows that they gave any serious regard to the "assemblyist" tradition established by the Parisian sections during the Great French Revolution, in which the sans culottes, including the poorest and most dispossessed in the French capital, actually exercised collective power in their neighborhood assemblies during the stormy period between the August journée of 1792, which eliminated the monarchy, and the June journée of 1793, which nearly replaced the Convention with a communalist system of administration under sectional control. This tradition, which lingered in France through most of the 19th century, found no echo in the Marxist literature.
But the Paris Commune of 1871 came as a breath of fresh air to Marx and Engels, who, a generation after The Manifesto was published, embraced the Commune as the institutional structure that the proletariat would produce between a capitalist and a communist society, or as Marx put it in his Critique of the Gotha Program, "the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat." (2) Marx praised the Commune for introducing the right to recall deputies to the Communal Council (the equivalent of the city council of Paris), the adoption of a skilled worker's wage as reimbursement for participating in the Council, the arming of the people, and very significantly, a "working, not a parliamentary, body, executive and legislative at the same time." (3)
The economic achievements of the Commune were very limited; not only did it fail to socialize the economy, it brought much-needed reforms to the working class only because the more radical Internationalists, who formed a minority of the Communal Council, had to overcome the obstruction of the neo-Jacobins, who supported bourgeois legalities. In its political institutions the Commune was much more of a municipalist entity, with strong affinities to anarchist notions of a confederation of communes. It essentially challenged the existence of the French nation-state, calling upon the thousands of communes that dotted France to unite in a Proudhonist contractual network of autonomous communes rather than subject themselves to a centralized state.
Marx embraced this municipalist Commune, and in substance its call for a confederation of communes (without using the compromising word confederation, which his anarchist opponents employed), as a political structure in which "the old centralised government in the provinces" would, following Paris as a model, "have to give way to the self-government of the producers"—presumably a proletarian dictatorship. Each delegate from the various communes would be bound "by the mandat impératif (formal instructions) of his constituents," a strictly anarchist concept that reduced a delegate from a parliamentary representative or deputy to a mere agent of the people, in whose voice he was expected to speak and vote. (4)
Marx s assertion that the central government would retain "few but important functions" was brave but hardly credible—and even James Guillaume, one of Bakunin's closest associates, regarded Marx's favorable appraisal of the Commune's libertarian features as the basis for a reconciliation between Marxists and anarchists in the First International. Engels, in an 1875 letter to August Bebel criticizing the Gotha Program (which had just been adopted by the German Social Democrats), even urged that instead of "People's State," the program use a "good old German word," Gemeinwesen, "which can very well do service for the French 'Commune,'" although he said little about its substance. (5)
In time, and not without vacillation, Marx went back on his favorable account of the Commune. (6) There is little doubt that he returned to the support for republican institutions that had marked his political views in the aftermath of the revolutions of 1848. In the last years of his life, without saying much on the subject of the Commune, he clearly still favored incorporating into the republic many of the features—the pay scale for deputies, the right to recall, the need to arm the working class, and the mandat impératif—that he had praised in The Civil War in France. But the extent to which he thought a worker's state should be centralized and how much authority he thought it should enjoy remained unanswered questions upon his death.
Republican institutions, however much they are intended to express the interests of the workers, necessarily place policy-making in the hands of deputies and categorically do not constitute a "proletariat organised as a ruling class." If public policy, as distinguished from administrative activities, is not made by the people mobilized into assemblies and confederally coordinated by agents on a local, regional, and national basis, then a democracy in the precise sense of the term does not exist. The powers that people enjoy under such circumstances can be usurped without difficulty. Some anarchists will always find fault with any form of institutional social organization, but if the people are to acquire real power over their lives and society, they must establish—and in the past they have, for brief periods of time established—well-ordered institutions in which they themselves directly formulate the policies of their communities and, in the case of their regions, elect confederal functionaries, revocable and strictly controllable, who will execute them. Only in this sense can a class, especially one committed to the abolition of classes, be mobilized as a class to manage society.
Apart from their writings in erstwhile support of the Paris Commune, neither Marx nor Engels ever resolved the problem of the political institutions for proletarian rule that they set for themselves in The Manifesto: the problem of how a class, still less the mass of the people in bourgeois society, will take over the reins of power as a class or a people. In 1905 the Russian workers came up with their own solution to the question of a political institution for class power: the Petrograd Soviet. This citywide soviet, which emerged in the Russian capital in the 1905 Revolution, was an approximation of the assemblies that had appeared in the Great French Revolution. Had it remained merely a municipal council, it would have differed little from the Paris Commune, although it was much more working class in character.
But the Petrograd Soviet also sank deep roots in the city's factories and was guided, through strike committees and shop |
all the costs of EU regulation, assert that there are no benefits from it and assume that, after Brexit, the whole lot could be scrapped. The OECD club of mostly rich countries has compared the extent of regulation in product and labour markets among its members and finds that Britain is among the least regulated countries in Europe.Indeed, Britain compares favourably with non-EU countries such as America, Australia and Canada. And there is little to suggest that, if it were to leave the EU, it would tear up many rules. Moreover, if a post-Brexit Britain wanted to retain full access to the single European market, it would almost certainly have to stick with most of the accompanying rules.
What are the options if Britain decided to leave the EU? Most of the alternatives to full membership are unattainable, unappealing or both. The EU will not disappear as an institution or a big market. A post-Brexit Britain will have to form a set of trading and institutional relationships with it. The uncertainty is over what these would be—and how long they might take to negotiate.
Broadly, there are five models to choose from. The first is to join the European Economic Area, a solution adopted by all but one of the EFTA states that did not join the EU. But the EEA now consists of just one small country, Norway, and two tiddlers, Iceland and Liechtenstein. The second option is to try to emulate Switzerland, the remaining EFTA country. It is not in the EEA but instead has a string of over 20 major and 100 minor bilateral agreements with the EU. The third is to seek to establish a customs union with the EU, as Turkey has done, or at least to strike a deep and comprehensive free-trade agreement. The fourth is simply to rely on normal World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules for access to the EU market. The fifth, preferred by most Eurosceptics, is to negotiate a special deal for Britain alone that retains free trade with the EU but avoids the disadvantages of the other models, but it would be extremly hard or even impossible to negotiate this in an atmosphere, post-Brexit, that would hardly be a warm one.
In fact Britain has influenced the EU for the better. The European project it joined in 1973 had obvious flaws: ludicrously expensive farm and fisheries policies, a budget designed to cost Britain more than any other country, no single market and only nine members. Thanks partly to British political clout, the EU now has less wasteful agricultural and fisheries policies, a budget to which Britain is a middling net contributor, a liberal single market, a commitment to freer trade and 28 members. Like any club, it needs reform. But the worst way to effect change is to loiter by the exit.
Read more: Our recent Special Report on Britain and EuropeOn the night of June 17th, 24-year-old security guard Frank Wills found an out-of-place piece of duct tape while patrolling the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters.
Its discovery led to the Watergate investigation that took down President Richard Nixon.
Sometimes, the simplest things can topple an empire.
For former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, it is her husband’s absent-minded doodles on White House stationary that could prove her undoing.
Clinton has sworn up and down that her controversial, home-brewed email server was safe, secure and legal. She’s said there’s no proof at all that foreign hackers were able to break into it and peek at her top-secret emails containing critical national security data.
But Clinton’s biggest lie may have just been exposed in the most unlikely way possible: In a series of doodles drawn by husband Bill Clinton.
A shocking new revelation connects a hacker’s release of Bill Clinton’s silly White House drawings to what may be one of the biggest national security breaches in the nation’s history — one that comes with a 10-year jail sentence.
Like a kid not paying attention in elementary school, the former president was known for doodling all over his paperwork when he was in office.
Reporters have tried to obtain those doodles… but his library has refused to release them.
Then in 2013 the hacker Guccifer – a Romanian whose real name is Marcel Lazar and who is now in federal custody – released the drawings online.
He didn’t say where he got them from at the time, but it was widely assumed by the media that he had hacked the Clinton Library.
Turns out the media may have been wrong.
Instead, new evidence indicates that the stolen doodles came from the hacking into the former president’s personal server — the same server that was also being used to house wife Hillary’s emails.
Clinton may have accidentally revealed exactly what happened last year, when she explained how her email server was set up in an interview with Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“It was already there,” Clinton said. “It had been there for years. It is the system that my husband used when he got out of the White House. And so it was sitting there in the basement.”
In other words, the email server that contained the former president’s personal files – including, perhaps, his White House doodles – was the same as the server Clinton used for storing classified government information.
And by releasing the doodles, Lazar lent credence to his claims that he repeatedly broke into the Clintons’ personal server. And Hillary Clinton’s failure to protect classified national security information should lead to criminal charges.
Lazar, apparently, wasn’t the only one to break into the server. He told Fox News last week he saw that the server had been accessed by at least 10 different IP addresses all over the world.
Hillary Clinton has tried to dismiss the hacker’s claim, but the new revelation gives the hacker serious credibility.
And that makes the warning he issued to the news network all the more ominous.
Lazar claimed he had more than just doodles. He said he’s hidden 2 gigabytes of data that’s “too hot” and “is a matter of national security.”
If he did gain access, it’s not hard to believe he found sensitive data: Of the more than 30,000 pages of the emails from Clinton’s private server released by the State Department, 22 were classified as “top secret,” 65 as “secret,” and more than 2,000 were listed as “confidential.”
Under federal law, it’s a crime not only to steal classified government data, but it’s also a crime to allow information to be taken through “gross negligence.”
In fact, handling national security information with “gross negligence” is a violation of the Espionage Act, which comes with a prison sentence of up to 10 years.
If Lazar is sitting on that data, it is not far fetched to believe the FBI will decide “gross negligence” includes Clinton putting sensitive government documents on a basement server. The FBI is also reportedly looking into the possibility that Clinton and her aides tried to obstruct their investigation.
Duct tape took down a president before. It is reasonable to think doodles like these are proof Hillary Clinton is set to be undone?
— The Horn News editorial staffThe Me-Gender: Sexist harassment
As conceived by feminists, the purpose of the legal concept of sexual harassment is to attack the male sexual role, and that's sexist!
For example, she states that the basic principle behind sexual harassment is sexism not sexuality -- that "sexual harassment is a way men obstruct women from doing work." Bull manure! Oh, excuse me. I don't want to be sexist. Cow manure! Look at the EEOC definition of sexual harassment: "Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature..." And think back to actual occurrences in the news. In word and deed, sexual harassment is about sex, not sexism.
But Gallop is correct in a way that I'm sure she did not intend. Sexual harassment itself is about sexuality. But the way sexual harassment is used is about sexism. Because it is aimed at men. Or more specifically, because it is aimed at the male sexual role. Gallop states that feminists must avoid setting standards which more women than men will fail to meet. However, it appears that standards which affect men to a greater degree are OK. Or as my old granddad always used to say: "Woman is a contradiction at best."
Criminalizing masculinity
Since the male and female sexual roles are so different, it is easy to fashion a law which tendentiously criminalizes the male side, while ignoring the female role. And that's the case with sexual harassment. It is a way to punish men for any discomfort they cause women. No matter how unfair to men. No matter how much discomfort it causes men. The self-indulgence of The Me Gender is unbounded.
Can you imagine the outcry if behavior usually limited to women were criminalized? New law: any person who waits for a love interest to call, and then complains that the jerk didn't call, will be guilty of a Miss Demeanor. Punishment will include a $100 fine and completion of the remedial course Phone Dialing 101.
Clearly, phrases like "sexual advances" and "requests for sexual favors" in the legal definition disproportionately single out men as the culprits. Sure, sometimes women are charged, but only if they assume the traditionally male initiator role. As a society, we may well decide that the initiator role is the problem. But, if that's the case, women better damn well start doing half of the initiating. It's hypocritical for women to criticize (and criminalize) men for behavior which women demand of men and generally refuse to perform themselves.
Celebrating femininity
The word "unwelcome" also singles out men. When it comes to sex, most anything is welcomed by men. And most everything is unwelcomed by women. One would think a compromise is in order. Not a chance. Once again, the law protects women's interests. Or as my old granddad always used to say: "Total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation."
Men can certainly see that women's sexual behaviors are not discouraged in the workplace. Women can wear sexy outfits, leave Cosmo or romance novels on their desks, flirt, and use sex to get money and promotions. And they are rarely punished for this behavior. Yet, men must be careful when telling a sexual joke or admiring the effects of a Wonderbra. Quite a double standard. Or as my old granddad always used to say: "When men talk dirty to women, it's sexual harassment. When women talk dirty to men, it's $3.98 a minute."
Sexual harassment has always been a very vague concept. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has complained about the "vague statutory language." Not that the courts are doing anything to make the situation any clearer. The Ninth Circuit Court has said that, to a large extent, sexual harassment is whatever a "reasonable woman" says it is. (Talk about begging the question!) Using a reasonable woman standard instead of a reasonable person standard, incorporates stereotypes and sexual roles into the law. He is seen as aggressive, dirty, animalistic, and promiscuous. She is seen as passive, innocent, spiritual, and virginal. This makes it easier to punish men's and ignore women's sexual behaviors.
And why do we focus on just "sexual" harassment? There are many behaviors in the workplace which can harass or obstruct people from doing work. Why single out sex? Is it to protect The Me Gender?
Sexual harassment seems to be much about money. If Joe bothers Kate on the street, Kate has little recourse. But if Joe does the same thing at work, suddenly a heavily insured employer with deep pockets magically appears. Every Joe now has a Sugar Daddy behind him. BINGO! The employer must pay for Kate's discomfort.
Of course, there are bona fide examples of sexual harassment---cases that require governmental intervention. But the definition and application have become so very broad. To the point of ridiculousness. Just ask Jane Gallop. Of all the aspects of sexual harassment that she just doesn't get, that is one idea that she (finally) gets.
Balder's grandfather liked to paraphrase Alexander Pope, St. Augustine, and Mike Dougan.We’re pleased to confirm that The Postal Museum & Mail Rail – London’s most anticipated new heritage attraction – will officially open to the public on Friday 28 July 2017.
Visit the museum’s galleries and take a journey through five centuries of world-class curiosities, providing a different, previously unseen view on some of the world’s most significant historical events, and an insight into the quirky beginnings of the earliest social network.
Once you’ve taken in the museum, head over the road to a subterranean world that – up until now – has remained hidden from public view.
Descend into the old engineering depot of Mail Rail – the one hundred year old little-known Post Office railway – and board a specially designed miniature train for a ride through the narrow subterranean tunnels. Stopping at the original Mount Pleasant station platforms, an impressive audio visual display will take you back in time, giving an insight into the heyday of the railway.
Mail Rail will also have a dedicated and interactive children’s play zone: Sorted! Here is a sneak peek:
Adrian Steel, Director of The Postal Museum, said:
“It’s fantastic to be able to announce our opening date. Our new home is much more than a traditional museum. We want our visitors to discover our stories through interactive digital and physical displays, bringing them to life. Along with an immersive ride through Mail Rail’s original tunnels, it promises to offer something for everyone. We can’t wait to start welcoming people through our doors so they can experience it all for themselves.”
The Postal Museum has been made possible through the generous support of a number of organisations and individuals, including National Lottery players through the Heritage Lottery Fund, Royal Mail and Post Office Limited. A big thank you to all of them.
Adult tickets will cost £16 inclusive of an optional £1.50 voluntary donation. A ticket on-sale date will be confirmed shortly, along with full ticketing information, including child, group and concession rates.
For the latest updates and to gain exclusive early access to book tickets sign up to our newsletter here.Image copyright ELISABETH DAYNES/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Image caption Neanderthals may have been breeding with modern humans much earlier was thought
Neanderthals and modern humans were interbreeding much earlier than was previously thought, scientists say.
Traces of human DNA found in a Neanderthal genome suggest that we started mixing with our now-extinct relatives 100,000 years ago.
Previously it had been thought that the two species first encountered each other when modern humans left Africa, about 60,000 years ago.
The research is published in the journal Nature.
Dr Sergi Castellano, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in Germany, said: "It is significant for understanding the history of modern humans and Neanderthals."
Image copyright BENCE VIOLA Image caption The Neanderthal remains were found in a cave in Siberia
The ancient remains of a female Neanderthal, found in a remote cave in the Altai Mountains in Siberia, are the source of these revelations about the sex lives of our ancestors.
A genetic analysis reveals that portions of human DNA lie within her genome, revealing an interspecies mingling that took place 100,000 years ago.
We really don't know how widespread Neanderthals and early modern humans might have been in the regions between Arabia and China at this time Prof Chris Stringer, Natural History Museum
Earlier research suggested that humans started interbreeding with our heavy-browed, stocky relatives when they migrated out of Africa and began to spread around the world.
As they left the continent, they met - and mingled with - the Neanderthals, who lived across Europe and Asia.
Neanderthal genes from these encounters are found in humans today, and recent studies have shown that these portions of DNA play an integral role in everything from our immune system to our propensity to diseases.
But the latest finding of a flow of genes in the opposite direction, from humans to Neanderthals, suggests such mating was happening thousands of years earlier.
It is not yet clear what impact these genes had on Neanderthals.
"The functional significance of this is unclear at the moment," said Dr Castellano.
Image copyright Science Photo Library Image caption Neanderthal genes in the humans are found in many Europeans and Asian populations
However, the findings do shed more light on the history of human migration.
At the moment we simply don't know how these matings happened Prof Chris Stringer, Natural History Museum
If early humans were having sex with Neanderthals 100,000 years ago, then they must have been doing so outside of Africa because our close relatives were not found there.
And this means that they had left Africa before the larger dispersal that took place at least 40,000 years later.
This adds to the idea that early forays out of the continent took place. Other recent evidence includes early human fossils found in Skhul and Qafzeh in Israel, and recent research that suggests people were living in China at least 80,000 years ago.
Commenting on the study Prof Chris Stringer, research leader in human origins, from the Natural History Museum in London, said: "I think that anywhere in southern Asia could theoretically have been the location of this early interbreeding, since we really don't know how widespread Neanderthals and early modern humans might have been in the regions between Arabia and China at this time."
He added: "At the moment we simply don't know how these matings happened and the possibilities range from relatively peaceful exchanges of partners, to one group raiding another and stealing females (which happens in chimps and some modern hunter-gatherers), through to adopting abandoned or orphaned babies.
"Eventually, geneticists should be able to show if the transfer of DNA in either direction was mainly via males, females, or about equal in proportion, but it will need a lot more data before that becomes possible."
Follow Rebecca on TwitterStory highlights Federal judge orders Michigan to conduct a statewide recount
Michigan is one of three state where Green Party candidate Jill Stein has sought a recount
(CNN) Michigan will become the second state to conduct a recount of ballot casts during the 2016 presidential election.
U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith early Monday morning issued an order for Michigan election officials to begin counting ballots starting at noon.
The ruling follows a request from Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein after a razor-thin margin made the state the last to be called in the November election. President-elect Donald Trump ended up winning Michigan's 16 electoral votes by just 0.2 percentage points, or just under 10,000 votes out of over 5.5 million cast.
JUST WATCHED Jill Stein: No proof of voter fraud yet Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Jill Stein: No proof of voter fraud yet 00:42
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, a Republican, last week filed a lawsuit to stop the recount.
"It is inexcusable for Stein to put Michigan voters at risk of paying millions and potentially losing their voice in the Electoral College in the process," Schuette said in a statement.
Read MoreUSC has reached an agreement with United Airlines for the naming rights of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, according to Sports Business Daily. University officials said an agreement has not been finalized.
According to Sports Business Daily, United would pay $70 million in a span of 15 years, making it the highest-priced naming rights deal in college football. The Los Angeles Times reported that Coliseum officials wanted to keep the words “Memorial Coliseum” in the stadium’s name.
“As part of its agreement to operate the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and to support the renovation, restoration and operation of the Coliseum, USC has been pursuing a naming rights arrangement with various entities,” USC officials said in a statement emailed to the Daily Trojan. “At this time, no naming rights deal has been finalized.”
The stadium is currently undergoing a $270 million-dollar renovation projected to be completed by the 2019 football season.
The Coliseum has played host to the USC football team since it was built in 1923.The city of Dana Point, California has a Green Lantern Street. I’ve always thought there should be a comic store on there, but I don’t think there’s really room for one.
Actually, Dana Point has a whole bunch of “Street of the ___ Lantern” names dating back to the 1920s, the biggest one being Street of the Golden Lantern. I never really thought about the rest of them in super-hero terms, but of course Blackest Night brings a while new set of X Lantern Corps.
I was in Dana Point a few weeks ago for a company Christmas party, and while driving back the next day, decided that “someday” I should drive around getting pictures of all the relevant Lantern streets. I mentioned this to my wife, who said, “No time like the present!” So, armed with the Thomas Bros. map of Orange County, we drove up and down Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) looking for all the Corps-appropriate lanterns we could find.
More photos after the cut!
Blue Lantern: Hope
Blue Lantern St. is (appropriately) right next to Green Lantern, and seems to be one of the larger streets. There’s actually a Blue Lantern Plaza.
Violet Lantern: Love
The next easy one to spot was Street of the Violet Lantern. Fun fact: I kept typing “Violent Lantern” and correcting myself. Yeah, the Star Sapphires aren’t exactly pacifists, but I’m pretty sure the most violent corps would be the Red Lanterns…
After these three, we ran out of standard color names and had to find corresponding colors.
Golden (Yellow) Lantern: Fear
Golden Lantern makes a decent match for yellow, though I suspect Sinestro would rather destroy a tiny seaside town than live there.
Ruby (Red) Lantern: Rage
We actually missed Ruby Lantern on our first pass because it’s such a small street, but once we looked at the map, it was easy to find. Somehow “ruby” doesn’t say “rage,” though.
Amber (Orange) Lantern: Greed
Okay, this one’s probably reaching a bit. At least “amber and avarice” alliterates.
Missing Lanterns
Sadly, there was no sign of an Indigo Lantern or Black Lantern, though the map did show an “Indigo Way” up in the hills. The only other color-themed names we spotted were Copper Lantern and Silver Lantern (clearly to go along with Golden Lantern). Then it went into locations, like Starboard Lantern, Park Lantern, Terrace Lantern, etc.
View Larger Map
ShareThe Idaho Athletic Department confirmed Sunday that defensive line coach Bam Hardmon and defensive backs coach Ashley Ambrose are no longer with the football program.
“We would like to thank them for all of their hard work for the Vandals,” Idaho coach Paul Petrino said in a statement through a team spokesperson.
FootballScoop.com initially reported the news on Saturday. The site reports Hardmon accepted a job at Troy where he will have the same position he had at Idaho, while Ambrose accepted a job at Texas State and will coach cornerbacks. Both teams play in the Sun Belt, which is the same conference as the Vandals.
Hardmon, a former standout at Florida, leaves Idaho after two seasons with the program. Ambrose, who played 16 seasons in the NFL, leaves Moscow after spending one season with the Vandals.
Hardmon and Ambrose are the fifth and sixth assistant coaches to leave the program since Petrino was hired prior to the 2013 season.
FootballScoop is reporting that former San Diego defensive line coach Kenny Holmes is the leading candidate to replace Hardmon. Nothing has been said to who will replace Ambrose. The team has not confirmed the Holmes report.
Korbin McDonald can be reached at vandalnation@uidaho.eduNEW YORK -- A group of passengers came to the aid of two Muslim women being verbally harassed by a Trump supporter on a Manhattan-bound subway earlier this week, according to a report.
The man, who was pushing a baby stroller when he boarded the F train in Queens around 8 a.m. Monday, told the hijab-wearing women that they were terrorists, NYDailyNews.com reported. He added they should "go back home and take their bombs with them," the site reported.
A diverse group of straphangers told the agitated man to leave the women alone, but he continued with his rant. Among his comments were that "Donald Trump is right," the report said.
The man finally quieted down when one of the men who defended the women said, "This is New York City. We protect our own and we don't (care) what anyone looks like or who they love or any of those things. It's time for you to leave these women alone, sir."
The man got off the train a few stops later.
Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JeffSGoldman. Find NJ.com on Facebook.Biblical history comes alive with a recent discovery on the outskirts of Israel.
The iconic story of young David’s epic encounter with Goliath has captured imaginations for millennia. The classic underdog narrative resonates with all people as they face insurmountable odds—their figurative giants. But is the history of David and Goliath, as well as the history of their respective nations, only figurative, or is the history as the Bible describes a literal account of what took place?
A recent discovery in archaeological excavations at Goliath’s hometown of Gath is helping provide the answer.
The biblical city of Gath has been excavated extensively over the past 100 years. However, it was only at an archaeological dig this past summer that excavators happened upon a huge city wall and adjacent gate.
According to head archaeologist Prof. Aren Maeir of Bar-Ilan University in Israel, his team began to excavate the lower city of the mound (also known as Tel es-Safi) to determine whether it had been fortified during the Iron Age, the archaeological period in which the nation of Israel was also present in the land.
“In the past, we saw evidence of this but could not find definite proof,” Professor Maeir told Bible History Daily. “Once the remains were found in the specific trench, we ‘connected the dots’ regarding other features we could see on the surface and then began excavating them as well.”
Philistine and Israelite territories during the time of King Saul
Before long, the outline of a massive gate began to literally emerge from the ground. Excavators only discovered the top of the fortification and gate during this season, so only the very top of the wall is visible. It will take many more excavation seasons to reveal the full height of the remains.
While the exact dimensions of the gate at the entrance to the city are yet to be released, Maeir claims that “the city gate is among the largest ever found in Israel and is evidence of the status and influence of the city of Gath during this period.”
Indeed it does.
The fact that Gath was a prominent city during the time of King Saul and King David perfectly correlates with history related in the Bible.
Even so, some, including the archaeologist heading the excavation, say that this discovery presents a history contradictory to the Bible.
According to reporting by left-leaning Israel daily Haaretz, Maier said, “The Judean kingdom is supposed to be big, important and strong, but it turns out there is a very big city on its western border. For years, I claimed Gath was a big city, but they countered that it has no lower city, and if it has one, it is not fortified. After finding a huge fortification, it’s clearly the most important city of the 10th and ninth centuries.”
This hasty logic is surprising from such a distinguished scholar. The fact that a formidable city existed on the border of Israel does not exclude Israel from being “big, important and strong.”
In so many cases, as well as this one, a verdict is given about the veracity of the Bible without a proper understanding of what the text actually states.
So what does the Bible say about Israel and the Philistines at the time?
The Bible states that Gath was one of the five major cities of the Philistines (1 Samuel 6:17). While there is no real indication that the Philistines were a major power when Israel conquered the Promised Land during the time of Joshua, the Philistines do appear prominently in the later period of the judges, leading up to the establishment of the monarchy in Israel.
Because of the repetitive sins of Israel, God allowed the Philistines to oppress the Israelites during the time of the judges, at which point God raised up the mighty Danite Samson. Though Samson had his own problems, God used him to knock back the rising power of the Philistines. In his final act, as he was tied between two central pillars of a Philistine building in Gaza, Samson brought the house down on Philistine leadership, giving the Israelites a short reprieve (Judges 16:29-30).
However, it didn’t take long until a resurgent Philistine nation battled again with Israel at the very end of the period of the judges. At which time, the precious ark of the covenant was lost and the nation’s hope dwindled. Through the next 80 years (during the reigns of Saul and David), the Philistines and the Israelites battled back and forth, with the borderland between the two witnessing almost constant warfare. In reality, an outside political observer at the time would be hard pressed to guess which of the two nations would rise to eventual dominance over the other.
Throughout the reign of King Saul and into the reign of David, the Philistines maintained the upperhand on Israel. The Bible states directly that Philistine garrisons existed in such Israelite cities as Bethlehem and Gibeon (1 Samuel 10:5; 2 Samuel 23:14). The Philistines were so powerful that Israel was forbidden to sharpen their own iron tools, instead they had to go down to the Philistines who charged an exorbitant price (1 Samuel 13:19-21).
When the Israelites finally did overcome the Philistines during the reign of David, there is no mention of a messy destruction of Philistine cities (2 Samuel 8:1; 1 Chronicles 18:1). Unlike many other surrounding nations, the Philistines were neither absorbed into the kingdom of Israel or exiled elsewhere, but were able to continue living in their home territories, yet under Israelite rule. In fact, nowhere in the Bible is there a mention of Israel destroying the city of Gath, not until 200 years after King David, during the reign of Uzziah (2 Chronicles 26:6).
Rather than countering the biblical narrative, an honest look at the text should lead scholars to expect to find such massive Philistine fortifications such as the gatehouse at Gath. The fact that the gate is similar in size to some of the largest found in Israel fits the scenario described in the Bible most beautifully.
While no single artifact or discovery can “prove the Bible true,” discoveries such as the one at Gath certainly do add to the weight of evidence archaeology has contributed to confirming the accuracy of the biblical account.
Congratulations to the excavation team at Gath for such a wonderful discovery. We look forward to next year’s season when more of the gate of Gath is uncovered.President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin will discuss bilateral relations and issues of Syrian settlement, Kremlin aide Yuriy Ushakov said Wednesday.
"The presidents [of Turkey and Russia] will go over the whole range of bilateral cooperation, which is now gaining momentum and has already reached the pre-crisis level. In this regard virtually all restrictions on trade and economic relations were lifted, and they are [now] successfully developing," Ushakov said.
Ushakov added that Erdoğan and Putin will also discuss the situation in Syria as well as preparations for Russian-sponsored congress of Syrian groups.
"All Syrian issues, including preparations for the Congress of Syrian peoples, [or] the Congress of national dialogue, as it is now called, will be discussed," Putin's aide said, adding that this will be the main part of the meeting.
Erdoğan is scheduled to meet with Putin in the Russian Black Sea coastal city of Sochi on Nov. 13.Hewlett-Packard plans to trim its workforce by about 9,000 in the U.S. as part of its long-term plan to reduce 27,000 jobs worldwide by fiscal 2014, a source familiar with the company's plans said.
HP in May said it was cutting about 8 percent of its workforce through a combination of layoffs and retirement offers in an effort to save US$3 billion to $3.5 billion through fiscal year 2014. At the time, HP said that employee reductions would vary by country.
HP also plans to reduce 8,000 jobs in the European Union, which is in line with the company's legal obligations to inform and consult with the European Works Council (EWC), a body in the European Union that represents the workers of multinational companies.
HP declined to comment on the layoff plans. A further breakdown on where employee headcounts would be reduced was not available.
The layoffs began last year starting on Oct. 31, when the company's employee count was at around 350,000. HP's reduction in employee count is intended to preserve the long-term health of the company, CEO Meg Whitman said at the time of the announcement in May.
HP's employee count in 2007 was 172,000, but jumped sharply after the company acquired services company EDS in 2008. Since then, the company's employee count has been above 300,000 every year.
A majority of the savings from the restructuring program will be reinvested in the company, Whitman said last month. The company wants to make the buying experience simpler for customers, and is investing in marketing and sales tools. Some of the results are already visible, with the company trying to make computer buying experience less confusing with PCs now organized around core brands that have been successful.
HP is trying to put more focus on the higher-margin enterprise business while reworking its PC business to deliver better margins. Under former CEO Leo Apotheker, the company thought about selling or spinning off its PC business, which was ultimately retained after Whitman was appointed CEO in September last year.
The company's Personal Systems Group (PSG), which deals in PCs and mobile products, is the company's single largest unit, delivering 30 percent of the company's revenue in the second quarter of fiscal 2012, which ended on April 30. The Services unit had 28 percent of revenue, the Imaging and Printing Group accounted for 19 percent and the Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking group had 17 percent.
On the enterprise side, the company is looking to bring hardware, software and services closer by offering integrated packages. HP's enterprise business continues to revolve around services and hardware but the company wants to become a player in software, as evidenced by the acquisition of analytics company Autonomy for $12 billion last year. The company intends to put its Autonomy software across its entire product portfolio.
Where the savings from the restructuring program will go is anyone's guess, said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT.
The focus on software and emphasis on areas such as cloud computing, security and information management is a step in the right direction, but those are not easy markets to go after, King said.
"The only caveat is every one of HP's major competitors are actively pursuing that area as well. It behooves HP and Whitman to say... how they are going to differentiate themselves," King said. HP's major competitors include IBM, Dell and Oracle.
Integrating software and services will bring incremental value to the company's hardware products, King said.
HP, however, has some issues to address, especially in the printing and imaging business, which has been the company's cash cow for years but where profit is now dwindling, King said. HP also has to clarify its mobile strategy, which remains in limbo after discontinuing devices based on WebOS and its decision to open source the operating system.
There have also been bumps in the company's software efforts with the departure of top Autonomy executives, including founder Mike Lynch], King said. HP is primarily a hardware company and has to prove it has the software chops to effectively integrate Autonomy across products.
HP's net profit for the second fiscal quarter was $1.6 billion, a drop of 31 percent over the same quarter a year ago. HP's revenue was $30.7 billion, falling from $31.6 billion in the same quarter of the previous year. HP has forecast third quarter earnings of $0.94 to $0.97 per share, below previous expectations of $1.02 per share.
Agam Shah covers PCs, tablets, servers, chips and semiconductors for IDG News Service. Follow Agam on Twitter at @agamsh. Agam's e-mail address is agam_shah@idg.comThis year, many college athletes will be receiving slightly more scholarship money to help pay for food, books, clothes and other stuff. Hooray!
Coaches are already lining up to take away that money! Boo!
Cincinnati’s Tommy Tuberville said he will consider withholding some cost of attendance money for off the field shortcomings/violations. — Joe Schad (@schadjoe) August 27, 2015
Virginia Tech defensive coordinator Bud Foster said the same thing on Wednesday. Athletic director Whit Babcock later clarified that fining players out of the bowl allowance has "been in place for a number of years," but that Virginia Tech says it will end the practice (and will not be fining players cost of attendance money, either).
This, however, does not look good.
Virginia Tech will no longer be doing this, and Babcock says no money actually changed hands. That being said, STOP DOING THIS, college programs!
The NCAA was just gifted a surprise reversal from the National Labor Relations Board, ruling that Northwestern football players are not employees. Issuing fines out of a monthly stipend sure seems like something an employer would do to an employee... and when that monthly stipend is only around $300 per month, it really does not sound good coming out of the mouth of coaches making seven figures.
Cincinnati clarified in a statement, saying athletes would be allowed to appeal and that fines would be restricted to certain violations.
It (a reduction in aid), which they would be notified of and would be allowed to appeal, would be allowed if they don't meet certain academic requirements and a myriad of other things. Not related to their on field performance. Only for violations of team rules including student code of conduct and athletic dept. policies.
The Bearcats' athletic director doubled down.
Cincinnati athletics director Mike Bohn: "It’s not a fine. It’s not a threat. It’s a tool." Bohn says it’s an "accountability measure." — Joe Schad (@schadj |
there.
The eleventh photo (memory 15) can be found near Mount Lanayru. To the west of the mountain is Naydra Snowfield, which leads past Purifier Lake and into Lanayru Promenade. It is in the path between the East Gate and Lanayru road that the player would find the memory.
The twelfth photo (memory 16) can be found in a forest area east of the Hyrule Field. Specifically, looking at the east of Hyrule Field, players would find the Bottomless Swamp and just above it is a forest area that runs parallel to the Hylia River. It is in this forested area that players would find the memory.
Once the player recovers every single memory, they would need to return to Impa. She would go on to show the player one final photo that would show an important memory. This can be then found near Kakariko, but it is closer to the Ha Dahamar Shrine and the Duelling Peaks Stable. Just east of these two locations is Ash Swamp and that is where the memory can be found.
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© 2019 ITECHPOST, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.Students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison held a "die in" to protest a statue of President Abraham Lincoln "because he owned slaves."
An indigenous student group called Wunk Sheek had 50 people attend the protest.
According to Misha (Lac du Flambeau Ojibwe), co-president of fiscal relations for Wunk Sheek, the demonstration was oriented not only around raising awareness about Columbus, but also about Lincoln’s role in native history. In 1862, Lincoln ordered the execution of 38 Dakota men, making it the largest mass execution ordered by a U.S. president, according to leaders in Wunk Sheek. For this reason, the organization chose to hold the demonstration in front of his statue on Bascom. A sign hung around Lincoln’s neck describing the execution and ended with “#DecolonizeOurCampus.” The demonstration was staged as a “die-in” in which supporters laid on the ground in solidarity with the executed Dakota men. The die-in began at 12:26 p.m. to honor the Dec. 26 date of the execution, and lasted for 38 minutes to honor the 38 executed men. “Everyone thinks of Lincoln as the great, you know, freer of slaves, but let’s be real: He owned slaves, and as natives, we want people to know that he ordered the execution of native men,” Misha said. “Just to have him here at the top of Bascom is just really belittling.”
Here's a quick fact check for Misha: Lincoln grew up poor and never owned slaves. He is considered by many to be the nation's greatest president because he kept the nation together and abolished slavery.
But not even Lincoln is spared the wrath of those who want to tear down statues in the name of political correctness.
The left has also targeted statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson because they each owned slaves. If we erase every historical figure who ever did anything bad, we'd be left with a society devoid of our own history. Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln were all men of their times. Nobody is perfect. We're human.
Perhaps gaining a basic understanding of our nation's history would serve these students better than taking the day off to protest a statue of the most beloved and respected president in U.S. history.
But that requires thinking. And thinking is hard.Russia has called for restraint after a fresh wave of fighting erupted Saturday between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
The territory, which lies within Azerbaijan but is populated largely by Armenians, has been the focus of a frozen conflict ever since the conclusion of a six-year war in 1994 that left 30,000 dead.
The intractability of the situation led to the creation of the Minsk Group, co-chaired by Russia, France, and the United States, to seek a solution. But Russia, the country most heavily involved on the ground, has a complex array of interests at stake.
“Russia is the main security guarantor for Armenia, but it sells weapons to both countries,” says Jeffrey Mankoff, a former adviser on US-Russia relations at the US State Department, in a telephone interview with The Christian Science Monitor.
“Russia is not just looking for peace, but is rather looking for some arrangement that maximizes their regional influence over both countries.”
Nagorno-Karabakh dissolved into conflict in 1988, as the Soviet Union was disintegrating, with Azerbaijani troops and Armenian separatists clashing in a brutal war.
A Russian-brokered ceasefire has maintained an uneasy truce ever since 1994, with periodic bouts of violence breaking out, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) set up the Minsk Group that same year to seek a lasting solution.
In this latest outbreak of hostility, it is hard to know how it began or what has actually happened, with PanARMENIAN.net talking of Azerbaijani “saboteurs” being thrown “back to their positions”, and AzerNews stating “on the night of April 2, all the frontier positions of Azerbaijan were subjected to heavy fire.”
Perhaps more interesting than the details of the latest hostilities, says Dr. Mankoff, who is currently deputy director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Russia and Eurasia Program, is the fact that the presidents of both countries are in the United States for the nuclear security summit, giving them a far larger global audience than they would normally expect.
So, if this latest development does represent some kind of a cry for international attention, what hope is there of a peaceful resolution?
“If there’s going to be a settlement, it will have to be on Russia’s terms,” says Mankoff. “Yes, there’s the Minsk group, but Russia has 5,000 troops in Armenia, and I’ve heard they sent more.”
The Russian troops’ main role, as Mankoff explains, is to deter Turkish involvement, should there be a serious resumption of conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Turkey and Azerbaijan have a close relationship, and Turkey’s border with Armenia has remained closed for two decades because of this conflict.
The position of the United States is that Nagorno-Karabakh is a disputed region, but other surrounding tracts of land that Armenia has accumulated amount to occupied territory and should be returned.
Yet, while Azerbaijan is unlikely to take the risk of invading Nagorno-Karabakh, geography and a predominantly Armenian population making it a daunting challenge, many Azeris detect double-standards in the West’s approach.
“They wonder why the West punishes Russia for annexing Crimea, but not Armenia for similar behavior in Karabakh,” notes The Economist. “Many ask why the West approves of Ukraine using force to restore territorial integrity, but insists on Azerbaijan’s peaceful patience.”
Nobody has formally recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as a part of Armenia; even the Armenian government has made no effort to annex the territory.
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And yet while full-scale military intervention - by any party - seems highly unlikely, there is also a question mark over how seriously Russia, the main power-broker, wants to pursue full-scale peace.
“Russia doesn’t want conflict because it’s trying to increase its influence over both countries,” says Mankoff. “If they can do that through resolving the conflict, then that’s an option, but failing that, the status quo benefits Russia fairly well.”Industrial pollution from Indian pharmaceutical companies making medicines for nearly all the world’s major drug companies is fuelling the creation of deadly superbugs, suggests new research. Global health authorities have no regulations in place to stop this happening.
A major study published today in the prestigious scientific journal Infection found “excessively high” levels of antibiotic and antifungal drug residue in water sources in and around a major drug production hub in the Indian city of Hyderabad, as well as high levels of bacteria and fungi resistant to those drugs. Scientists told the Bureau the quantities found meant they believe the drug residues must have originated from pharmaceutical factories.
The presence of drug residues in the natural environment allows the microbes living there to build up resistance to the ingredients in the medicines that are supposed to kill them, turning them into what we call superbugs. The resistant microbes travel easily and have multiplied in huge numbers all over the world, creating a grave public health emergency that is already thought to kill hundreds of thousands of people a year.
When antimicrobial drugs stop working common infections can become fatal, and scientists and public health leaders say the worsening problem of antibiotic resistance (also known as AMR) could reverse half a century of medical progress if the world does not act fast. Yet while policies are being put into place to counter the overuse and misuse of drugs which has propelled the crisis, international regulators are allowing dirty drug production methods to continue unchecked.
Global authorities like the Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency strictly regulate drug supply chains in terms of drug safety - but environmental standards do not feature in their rulebook. Drug producers must adhere to Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) guidelines - but those guidelines do not cover pollution.
Even the World Health Organisation (WHO) - a global public health body which has repeatedly called for concerted international action to tackle the dangerous threat of antibiotic resistance - buys antibiotics from companies whose drug ingredients are made in Hyderabad without carrying out environmental checks.
The international bodies say the governments of the countries where the drugs are made are the ones responsible for stopping pollution - but domestic legislation is having little impact on the ground, say the study's authors. The lack of international regulation must be addressed, they argue, highlighting the grave public health threat faced by antibiotic resistance as well as the rampant global spread of superbugs from India, which has become an epicentre of the crisis.I have been working with my esp8266 off late and I found that someone has asked in reddit about how to get micropython running ESP8266. Since I have already done something similar for node mcu, I wrote a tutorial about it.
$sudo pip install virtualenv $virtualenv mylocalpy $source mylocalpy/bin/activate
Installing esptool:
You can get this tool from here https://github.com/espressif/esptool or https://pypi.python.org/pypi/esptool
Since it is part of the CheeseShop I wanted to try that one this time.
(localpy)$pip install esptool
Installing Ampy:
The Next thing is a tool used for working with micropython called Ampy from Adafruit. It is a a utility to work with MicroPython using Serial interface.
(localpy)$pip install adafruit-ampy
Now insert your favourite ESP8266 board. It can be anything from nodeMCU or a esp-12-e based self built board. Make it ready for flashing with the apropriate boot settings. Identify the serial device from dmesg and lsusb commands-
Download the Micropython:
(localpy)wget http://micropython.org/resources/firmware/esp8266-20170108-v1.8.7.bin
(localpy)esptool.py --port /dev/ttyUSB0 erase_flash esptool.py v1.3 Connecting.... Running Cesanta flasher stub... Erasing flash (this may take a while)... Erase took 10.8 seconds
Pull the power off and reinsert again to get the board back in to the bootmode.
I needed this for my board, you may not need to do this.
(localpy)esptool.py --port /dev/ttyUSB0 --baud 460800 write_flash --flash_size=detect 0 esp8266-20170108-v1.8.7.bin esptool.py v1.3 Connecting.... Auto-detected Flash size: 32m Running Cesanta flasher stub... Flash params set to 0x0040 Wrote 589824 bytes at 0x0 in 13.1 seconds (359.4 kbit/s)... Leaving...
You can now test your micropython by opening your favourite serial terminal
such as minicom, putty etc. You need to open the serial line with 115200 as baudrate
Getting started with Ampy:
The Ampy tool is very handy for uploading, download, running, reseting the micropython
installed esp8266.
(localpy)$ampy -p /dev/ttyUSB0 ls boot.py
Create a blink example:
The ESP-12-E module has a onboard LED connected to GPIO 2.
import machine import time pin = machine.Pin(2, machine.Pin.OUT) while True: pin.low() time.sleep(1.0) pin.high() time.sleep(1.0)
ampy -p /dev/ttyUSB0 put blink.py
$ampy -p /dev/ttyUSB0 get blink.py import machine import time pin = machine.Pin(2, machine.Pin.OUT) while True: pin.low() time.sleep(1.0) pin.high() time.sleep(1.0)
ampy -p /dev/ttyUSB0 run blink.py
Running the blink.py permanently: The Micropython runs the boot.py and the run the main.py if that exist. Using Ampy its possible to copy the blink.py as main.py as show below. After successfully copying the file, reboot the ESP8266 and it should blink automatically 🙂
$ampy -p /dev/ttyUSB0 put blink.py /main.py
I experienced some inconsistency in the entire flow, But things were working if I open the serial console (I used putty) immediately after flashing micropython and then use the Ampy.Classic – Him Kee 謙記火鍋
Solid. Just solid. This is your regular, run of the mill hot pot place that you can’t go wrong with. There are no special bells and whistles or surprises, just solid broth and fresh ingredients. If you’re looking to satiate your hot pot craving, come to Him Kee.
Him Kee 謙記火鍋
1/F – 3/F, Workingfield Commercial Building, 408-412 Jaffe Road, Causeway Bay
T: 2838 6116
Hot Pot with a View – Budaoweng (iSquare) 不倒翁
Photo credit: http://food.ulifestyle.com.hk/
If you’re looking to impress a date or take a client out, the Budaoweng in iSquare is definitely the way to go. Being on the 23rd floor, it has an AMAZING view of the skyline AND their food is really good. All of their ingredients are super fresh. I also enjoy that they offer really unique broths, such as tortoise, and that they offer Japanese food, such as sashimi.
Naturally with the view and premium ingredients, Budaoweng definitely runs on the more expensive end of hot pot places but it’s worth it.
What does Sam the Local specifically recommend? Their scallops are delicious. The slices of fish are one-of-a-kind. And their beef…we don’t even have words to describe it.
Pro tip: Make a reservation at 7:30pm and ask for the window seat to catch the Symphony of Lights that starts at 8:00pm.
Budaoweng (iSquare) 不倒翁
Shop 2301, 23/F, iSQUARE, 63 Nathan Road
T: 2152 1166
Vintage – Tai Fung Lau Peking Restaurant 泰豊廔酒家
Photo credit: http://inshokuhongkong.blogspot.hk/
Established in the 1960’s, this famous restaurant is one of the only places in Hong Kong that still offers coal-burning hot pot! The unusual looking contraption has a chimney in the middle of the pot where the coals are burning to heat the broth.
Of their ingredients for hot pot, they are famous for their thinly sliced lamb and beef. They’ll also have the other common ingredients.
As a bonus, because they serve Northern Chinese food, they are also famous for their Peking Duck! Give it a shot to mix it up from the hot pot.
Tai Fung Lau Peking Restaurant 泰豊廔酒家
29-31, Chatham Road, Tsim Sha Tsui
T: 2366 2494
All You Can Eat (AYCE) – Tack Hsin Restaurant 德興火鍋
Sometimes when you’re really hungry and craving hot pot, it’s the best choice to go for AYCE. The quality here isn’t the best you can find in Hong Kong, but it’s definitely good enough to settle the craving.
Depending on when you go, the price ranges from $150-$190. It’s additional for sauces (approximately $9) and if you want to get more premium broths or ingredients. I specifically recommend the pork and mushroom balls and crystal custard and BBQ pork dumplings.
Pro tip: It’s cheaper if you’re seated after 21:00.
Tack Hsin 德興火鍋 Locations
East Tsim Sha Tsui – 2/F, Peninsula Centre, 67 Mody Road, T: 2721 8102
Jordan – G/F, G/F, 3 Tak Hing Street, Yau Ma Tei, T: 2723 2646
Mong Kok – 4/F, Chong Hing Square, 601 Nathan Road, T: 2780 0182
Sham Shui Po – 1/F, Golden Court, 94 Yen Chow Street, T: 2708 2777
Kwun Tong – 7/F, One Pacific Centre, 414 Kwun Tong Road, T: 2770 6333
Causeway Bay – 6/F, Causeway Bay Plaza II, 463-483 Lockhart Road, T: 2573 9090
Winter Melon Hot Pot – 冬瓜盅火鍋
Yes, it’s just like it sounds. You hot pot out of a winter melon! Essentially, the large winter melons are cut in half, seeded, put it in a tall pot and filled with a simple broth for our hot potting pleasure. The awesome thing about this is that because winter melon can “cool” your body, eating it this way can help negate some of the “hot” effects of hot pot.
This hole-in-the-wall place is so hole-in-the-wall that it can’t even be found on Openrice. It’s the type that will just break out more tables in the side alley as patrons come to get their fill. So grab your winter coats, and head over to try this unique version of hot pot.
冬瓜盅火鍋
Poplar Street (白楊街) and Tai Nan Street (大南街), Prince Edward
Chicken Hot Pot – 66 Hot Pot 陸陸雞煲火鍋
In the past 4-5 years, chicken hot pot has really taken off but rumors say that the first restaurant that served it was in Hung Hom. So what is it? It’s a half or whole bone-in chicken cooked in spices, usually of the numbing variety, along with other herbs which is then brought out to your table for consumption. You eat the chicken first and then add broth to the pot to continue to your hot pot part of the journey. The broth becomes super tasty and your hot pot ingredients also absorb the flavor.
We specifically recommend the BB spice level (you can pick different levels) at 66 Hot Pot because we find it to be just spicy enough to get our senses tingling but not overwhelming. Also, we’re not sure exactly what kind of spices they cook their chicken with but it’s not as numbingly spicy as a lot of Sichuan spice tends to be.
Hands down, one of our favorite hot pot ingredients here is the fried fish skin. It has a thick coat of batter which makes it super, super crunchy. We also love their variety of different balls (squid ink, lobster, fish, black pepper beef, pork and mushroom, cheese, crab roe, just to name a few).
66 Hot Pot 陸陸雞煲火鍋
G/F, 33 Nelson Street, Mong Kok, T: 2392 4966
16 Pak Po Street, Mong Kok, T: 2363 8466
Fish – Happy Family Restaurant 前家樂
Along with the other innovations on the classic hot pot, fish hot pot has also become a trendy new thing to do. This is definitely different than the other because the fish is first roasted and then put in a long shallow pan (imagine a baking sheet but just deep enough to fit a whole fish) with the broth. In this variation, you can also pick the flavor of the broth but our favorite is with the pickled vegetables. Contrary to the chicken hot pot, you can simultaneously eat the fish and hot pot with the broth at the same time. I do find it a little harder to cook the ingredients because the pan is shallow and doesn’t always allow the piece of food to be completely submerged.
Of the variety of ingredients, we specifically recommend the pork and mushroom balls and sweet corn.
Happy Family Restaurant 前家樂
G/F., 119 Ivy Street, Tai Kok Tsui
T: 3486 6286
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Hong Konnovation. Stay warm!
Want to explore Hong Kong through the eyes of a Local? Book your next journey now at www.SamtheLocal.com/locals.
Hong Konnovation is a series of blog posts that highlights Hong Kong’s unique ability to innovation on traditional things and their love for variety. Stay tuned for more posts, and if you have suggestions for a Hong Konnovation topic, please email [email protected].Speaking on MSNBC’s “AM Joy” on Saturday, a Democratic pollster went on an unhinged rant, calling the Republican Party “pro-pedophilia” and a “domestic terror group.”
When Fernand Amandi was asked why Florida Congressmen and women haven’t renewed the Children’s Health Insurance Program, he replied, "Is it any surprise that the party that is pro-pay-for-play, pro-Putin — and now with Roy Moore, pro-pedophilia — the fact that they’re anti-children, is that any surprise? I don’t think it is."
Amandi then plunged to even lower depths:
I think the American people should ask themselves the broader question: What has the Republican Party in the last 10 years done to help the American people? What have they done? This is not a political party — this is a domestic terror group. … I think what the American people should consider when they ask themselves that question — with a party that has done nothing to help the American people — is to vote them out and consider possibly afterwards locking them up.
In May 2017, Amandi, a vociferous opponent of President Trump, was dropped from his radio slot on WIOD in Miami; the station cited “cost-cutting measures.” He was replaced by Brian Mudd, a conservative talk-show host. After Amandi was let go, he tweeted, “You can rest assured you haven't heard the last of Fernand Amandi,”
Amandi has even stated that everything about the Trump Administration is evil:
H/T The BlazeMonday on Fox Business Network’s “Varney & Co.,” conservative commentator Ann Coulter, author of “In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!” suggested rather than impose a ban on people from certain countries, President Donald Trump should enact a temporary ban on all immigration to the United States.
Coulter said if everyone were banned, that would eliminate the religious aspects that are preventing Trump from enacting his policy on immigration.
“I mean, what Trump, for example, suggested in his immigration policy paper, the greatest document since the Magna Carta, was a temporary ban on all immigration,” Coulter said. “You have no religious problem then. Why doesn’t he go back to that? It’s both more aggressive – be very careful. Let in a few a year. We’re letting in 2 million people a year – illegal, legal, guest workers. Probably more than 2 million. And The New York Times writes, ‘Well, it’s just impossible to vet that many people coming in.’ Well, don’t let in that many people then. It’s not that hard.”
“And as for the detention, I would say yes, there are ways to be aggressive,” she continued. “I’d think in some ways I’d be more aggressive. But I don’t think it would raise as many hackles because it looks nothing like an internment. I mean, Europe as an easier time than we do. They don’t have a First Amendment. In Germany, it’s a crime to support the Nazi Party. Are you worried about the Nazis today? No, but we are worried about ISIS. We are worried about Islamic terrorism. It ought to be a crime not merely to communicate, but to advocate that ideology and they ought to be thrown out of the country.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poorA fleet of eight prehistoric boats, including one almost nine metres long, has been discovered in a Cambridgeshire quarry on the outskirts of Peterborough.
The vessels, all deliberately sunk more than 3,000 years ago, are the largest group of bronze age boats ever found in the same UK site and most are startlingly well preserved. One is covered inside and out with decorative carving described by conservator Ian Panter as looking "as if they'd been playing noughts and crosses all over it". Another has handles carved from the oak tree trunk for lifting it out of the water. One still floated after 3,000 years and one has traces of fires lit on the wide flat deck on which the catch was evidently cooked.
Several had ancient repairs, including clay patches and an extra section shaped and pinned in where a branch was cut away. They were preserved by the waterlogged silt in the bed of a long-dried-up creek, a tributary of the river Nene, which buried them deep below the ground.
"There was huge excitement over the first boat, and then they were phoning the office saying they'd found another, and another, and another, until finally we were thinking, 'Come on now, you're just being greedy,'" Panter said.
The boats were deliberately sunk into the creek, as several still had slots for transoms – boards closing the stern of the boat – which had been removed.
Archaeologists are struggling to understand the significance of the find. Whatever the custom meant to the bronze age fishermen and hunters who lived in the nearby settlement, it continued for centuries. The team from the Cambridge Archaeological Unit is still waiting for the results of carbon 14 dating tests, but believes the oldest boats date from around 1,600 BC and the most recent 600 years later.
They already knew the creek had great significance – probably as a rich source of fish and eels – as in previous seasons at the Much Farm site they had found ritual deposits of metalwork, including spears.
The boats themselves may have been ritual offerings, or may have been sunk for more pragmatic reasons, to keep the timber waterlogged and prevent it from drying out and splitting when not in use – but in that case it seems strange that such precious objects were never retrieved.
Some of the boats were made from huge timbers, including one from an oak which must have had a metre-thick trunk and stood up to 20 metres tall. This would have been a rare specimen as sea levels rose and the terrain became more waterlogged, creating the Fenland landscape of marshes, creeks and islands of gravel.
"Either this was the Bermuda Triangle for bronze age boats, or there is something going on here that we don't yet understand," Panter said.
Kerry Murrell, the site director, said: "Some show signs of long use and repair – but others are in such good condition they look as if you could just drop the transom board back in and paddle away."
The boats were all nicknamed by the team, including Debbie – made of lime wood, and therefore deemed a blonde – and French Albert the Fifth Musketeer, the fifth boat found. Murrell's favourite is Vivienne, a superb piece of craftsmanship where the solid oak was planed down with bronze tools to the thickness of a finger, still so light and buoyant that when their trench filled with rainwater, they floated it into its cradle for lifting and transportation.
Because the boats were in such striking condition, they have been lifted intact and transported two miles, in cradles of scaffolding poles and planks, for conservation work at the Flag Fen archaeology site – where a famous timber causeway contemporary with the boats was built up over centuries until it stretched for almost a mile across the fens.
"My first thought was to deal with them in the usual way, by chopping them into more manageably sized chunks, but when I actually saw them they just looked so nice, I thought we had to find another way," Panter, an expert on waterlogged timber from York Archaeological Trust, said. "I think if I'd arrived on the site with a chainsaw, the team would have strung me up."
Must Farm, now a quarry owned by Hanson UK, which has funded the excavation, has already yielded a wealth of evidence of prehistoric life, including a settlement built on a platform partly supported by stilts in the water, where artefacts including fabrics woven from wool, flax and nettles were found. Instead of living as dry-land hunters and farmers, the people had become experts at fishing: one eel trap found near the boats is identical to those still used by Peter Carter, the last traditional eel fisherman in the region.
The boats will be on display from Wednesday at Flag Fen, viewed through windows in a container chilled to below 5c – funded with a £100,000 grant from English Heritage which regards their discovery as of outstanding importance – built within a barn at the site. At the moment conservation technician Emma Turvey, dressed in layers of winter clothes, is spending up to eight hours a day spraying the timbers to keep them waterlogged and remove any potentially decaying impurities. They will then be impregnated with a synthetic wax, polyethylene glycol, before being gradually dried out over the next two years for permanent display.
Murrell is convinced there is more to be found down in the silt.
"The creek continued outside the boundaries of the quarry, so it's off our site – but the next person who gets a chance to investigate will find more boats, I can almost guarantee it."Georgina Callander has been named as the first victim
At least 22 people have died and more than 59 injured after what Theresa May described as an “appalling terror attack” at the Manchester Arena during an Ariana Grande pop concert. Here are the latest updates:
Here is how the events of the night unfolded:
Monday, 6pm: Doors open at Manchester Arena in the north of the city centre. US pop singer Ariana Grande is on the bill for a sell-out concert at the 21,000-capacity venue. Fans, many of them teenage girls, excitedly share selfies as they wait for the show to begin.
7.30pm: Show’s scheduled start time. After a performance from support act BIA, an American rapper, Grande takes the stage.
10.30pm Show’s scheduled finish. Thousands of fans begin to file out of the arena’s four exits.
A “huge bomb-like bang” is heard at the arena. Witnesses describe being knocked from their feet by an explosion and seeing dozens of injured, possibly dead, people including children lying on the floor. Others describe panic as concert-goers run for exits.
10.35pm: Greater Manchester Police (GMP) are called to reports of an explosion at Manchester Arena. Dozens of emergency services vehicles stream into the area.
10.55pm: Police urge people to stay away from the area as responders deal with a “serious incident”.
11.46pm: Police say there have been a number of confirmed fatalities.
Tuesday, 1.10am: Nineteen people are confirmed dead and around 50 others injured following the suspected explosion police say is being treated as a terrorist incident.
1.35am: A controlled explosion is carried out on a suspicious item in the Cathedral Gardens area near Manchester Arena. It is later confirmed to be abandoned clothing.
2.15am Prime Minister Theresa May says her thoughts are with the victims and families of those affected in “what is being treated by the police as an appalling terrorist attack”.
3.04am Chief Constable Ian Hopkins, Greater Manchester Police, says: “My thoughts are very much with those who have been injured and lost their lives. We are currently treating this as a terrorist incident until we have further information. This is clearly a very concerning time for everyone.
I want to thank people for their support and ask them to remain vigilant.”
4am Campaigning has been suspended in Britain’s national election after a deadly explosion at Manchester Arena.
7am Greater Manchester Police confirm death toll has risen to 22, and that the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber.
9am An emergency meeting of Cobra is convened.Republican Greg Gianforte muscled his way to victory in Montana, overcoming a challenge from Democrat Rob Quist and an election-eve scuffle with a reporter that led to a criminal charge being filed against him.
Mr. Gianforte defeated Mr. Quist less than 24 hours after he allegedly body-slammed a reporter from Britain’s Guardian newspaper and police charged him with misdemeanor assault.
The Associated Press called the race for the Republican more than 2½ hours after polls closed at 8 p.m. MDT.
With 83 percent of the precincts counted, Mr. Gianforte led Mr. Quist by a 50.3 percent to 43.9 percent margin. Libertarian Mark Wicks had 5.8 percent of the vote.
“Tonight, Montanans are sending a wake up call to the Washington DC establishment!” Mr. Gianforte said at his election night party. “Montanans said, ‘Bernie Sanders and Nancy Pelosi can’t call the shots here in Montana.’ Montanans said, ‘We are going to drain the swamp.’ “
Mr. Gianforte then apologized by name to reporter Ben Jacobs, who accused him of body slamming him, saying it was a mistake and saying he took “an action that I can’t take back.”
“That is not the person that I am and it is not the way that I will lead in this state,” he said.
Undefeated in this year’s special congressional races after the election of President Trump, Republicans will now hold a 239-193 majority in the House.
Steve Stivers, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, described the outcome as another “hard-fought victory” and applauded Mr. Gianforte for offering up an apology.
“Now he needs to resolve his legal issue so that he can start off on the right foot serving his constituents,” Mr. Stiver said.
During the campaign, Mr. Gianforte embraced Mr. Trump, who won the state by more than 20 percentage points in the November election.
Still, there were signs Thursday that Mr. Gianforte’s victory could cause headaches for GOP lawmakers, who faced a barrage of questions over whether they condone Mr. Gianforte’s behavior and whether he should be barred from joining the GOP conference.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, Wisconsin Republican, told reporters on Capitol Hill on Thursday that Mr. Gianforte should apologize to Mr. Jacobs but said the rest lay in the hands of Montana voters.
“The choice will be made by the people of Montana,” Mr. Ryan said. “I do not think this is acceptable behavior, but the choice will be made by the people of Montana.”
Sen. Steve Daines, Montana Republican, also said Mr. Gianforte’s behavior was unacceptable and said he doesn’t condone that sort of violence.
Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, described Mr. Gianforte as a “sort of wannabe Trump” and said she hoped Montana voters would demand a “higher standard of behavior … for the sake of the children”
“How do you explain that to children? You ask a question, I’m going to strangle you? I mean, really,” she said.
Voters — many of whom have a negative opinion of the news media — were not swayed enough to push Mr. Quist over the finish line.
More than 200,000 absentee ballots absentee ballots were cast before the tussle.
For Democrats, Mr. Gianforte’s victory is a letdown.
The party is eager to capitalize on the wave of anti-Trump sentiment among progressive activists and to score an electoral victory that they can point to as proof that Mr. Trump’s star has dimmed four months into his presidency.
Democrats hoped the backlash against the bill the House GOP passed to repeal and replace Obamacare would be enough for Mr. Quist to capture the at-large seat, which Republicans have held since 1997.
Mr. Gianforte also shot himself in the foot Wednesday with the incident with the reporter, who had asked him to respond to a Congressional Budget Office analysis that found that 23 million fewer people would have health coverage on the GOP plan.
Three newspapers in the state responded by rescinding their endorsements of Mr. Gianforte.
The fallout lifted the hopes of Democrats.
Looking to make the most of the incident, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released a television ad Thursday that highlighted audio from the wild confrontation.
But Democrats are now 0 for 2 in special election races.
Democrats also came out on the losing end of the April special election in the 5th Congressional District in Kansas — though they touted the final result as a moral victory after they cut 24 percentage points off Mr. Trump’s margin of victory in the November election.
Charles Chamberlain, executive director of Democracy for America, spun the outcome in a positive light, saying Republicans once against had to “pull out all the stops to eke out a narrow win for another billionaire candidate, pouring millions more than Democrats into a race in a district that Donald Trump won by more than 20 points.”
Both parties will now turn their attention to the June 20 special election in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District, where polls show Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel in a tight race.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.4/28/14 UPDATE: More filthy excerpts from Donald Sterling's deposition
AUGUST 12--Just what the NBA needs, another sex scandal: Donald Sterling, the miserly tycoon who owns the Los Angeles Clippers, testified last year that he regularly paid a Beverly Hills woman for sex, describing her as a $500-a-trick "freak" with whom he coupled "all over my building, in my bathroom, upstairs, in the corner, in the elevator."
Sterling's graphic testimony--which came during a two-day pre |
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In my real project I generate this file at build time from an ERB template, to make sure I get all the source files and tests. However you do it, make sure it works in a browser first. Yes. Really.
Step 2: Get the bits that you need
In my lib directory I have:
js.jar – which is the Rhino implementation of JavaScript. I already used this to run JsLint as part of my build
env.rhino.1.2.js – which is Envjs – a DOM implementation written in JavaScript.
jasmine.console_reporter.js, jasmine.junit_reporter.js and envjs.bootstrap.js – all from Larry Myers’ excellent Jasmine Reporters project. Jasmine Reporters is really what glues everything together.
Step 3: Wire up Jasmine Reporters
You can have many Jasmine reporters wired up in the SpecRunner.html. In this example I’m leaving two in – the TrivialReporter that gives HTML/CSS reports, and the ConsoleReporter, which we’ll use later. Here’s the edit to the SpecRunner file now:
<script type="text/javascript">
jasmine.getEnv().addReporter(new jasmine.ConsoleReporter());
jasmine.getEnv().addReporter(new jasmine.TrivialReporter());
jasmine.getEnv().execute();
</script>
Step 4: Put it all together
Here’s where it all happens. In my example I use a shell script but in real life the Rakefile that generates the SpecRunner file also fires up the JVM and checks STDOUT for error messages.
#!/bin/bash
java -jar lib/js.jar -opt -1 lib/envjs.bootstrap.js SpecRunner.html
envjs.bootstrap.js is worth examining, too:
load('lib/env.rhino.1.2.js');
Envjs.scriptTypes['text/javascript'] = true;
var specFile;
for (i = 0; i < arguments.length; i++) {
specFile = arguments[i];
console.log("Loading: " + specFile);
window.location = specFile
}
This file takes the list of HTML files that you give it and tells the fake browser inside the JVM to load each one. Jasmine then fires and runs your tests:
jsimpson@curie:~/Documents/workspace/jasmine-rhino-envjs$./jasmine
[ Envjs/1.6 (Rhino; U; Linux i386 2.6.32-26-generic; en-US; rv:1.7.0.rc2) Resig/20070309 PilotFish/1.2.13 ]
Loading: SpecRunner.html
Runner Started.
Player : should be able to play a Song...
>> Jasmine Running Player should be able to play a Song...
Passed.
when song has been paused : should indicate that the song is currently paused...
>> Jasmine Running when song has been paused should indicate that the song is currently paused...
Passed.
when song has been paused : should be possible to resume...
>> Jasmine Running when song has been paused should be possible to resume...
Passed.
when song has been paused: 4 of 4 passed.
Player : tells the current song if the user has made it a favorite...
>> Jasmine Running Player tells the current song if the user has made it a favorite...
Passed.
#resume : should throw an exception if song is already playing...
>> Jasmine Running #resume should throw an exception if song is already playing...
Passed.
#resume: 1 of 1 passed.
Player: 8 of 8 passed.
Runner Finished.
There’s also a JUnit compatible XML reporter, courtesy of Larry. This lets you make the Continuous Integration server report test results as usual.
Summary
I’m very impressed. All of my tests that used to run in the browser run headless, with some fiddling of paths. I’m using the Jasmine JQuery plugin, which probably saved my bacon on the test that is too tightly coupled to views. I’ve collected the example on GitHub.
Props to Ingvald, Larry, and the Jasmine, Rhino and Envjs teams. You guys rock.UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine researchers have identified the genetic mutation responsible for a form of cleft palate in the dog breed Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retrievers.
They hope that the discovery, which provides the first dog model for the craniofacial defect, will lead to a better understanding of cleft palate in humans. Although cleft palate is one of the most common birth defects in children, affecting approximately one in 1,500 live human births in the United States, it is not completely understood.
The findings appear this week online in the journal PLOS Genetics and are available online at https://tinyurl.com/knr8wb3.
“This discovery provides novel insight into the genetic cause of a form of cleft palate through the use of a less conventional animal model,” said Professor Danika Bannasch, a veterinary geneticist who led the study. “It also demonstrates that dogs have multiple genetic causes of cleft palate that we anticipate will aid in the identification of additional candidate genes relevant to human cleft palate.”
Bannasch, who holds the Maxine Adler endowed chair in genetics, explains that common breeding practices have made the dog a unique animal model to help understand the genetic basis of naturally occurring birth defects.
By conducting a genome-wide study of these particular retrievers with a naturally occurring cleft palate, researchers identified a mutation responsible for the development of cleft palate in the breed. Dogs with this mutation also have a shortened lower jaw, similar to humans who have Pierre Robin Sequence. The disorder, a subset of cleft palate, affects one in 8,500 live human births and is characterized by a cleft palate, shortened lower jaw and displacement of the tongue base.
Cleft palate condition occurs when there is a failure in the formation of the secondary palate, which makes up all of the soft palate and the majority of the hard palate. A disruption in the sequential steps of palate development causes a cleft palate and leads to the spectrum of cases that are observed. Children born with cleft palate may develop hearing loss and difficulties with speech and eating. They also may be at increased risk for neurological deficits.
Additional UC Davis researchers include: Zena T. Wolf, a graduate student in the Department of Population Health and Reproduction at the School of Veterinary Medicine, whose thesis topic is the study of craniofacial clefts in dogs; and Assistant Professor Boaz Arzi from the Department of Surgical and Radiological Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine.
Funding was provided by the Center for Companion Animal Health at the School of Veterinary Medicine and the National Institutes of Health.Imagine an election—a close one. You’re undecided. So you type the name of one of the candidates into your search engine of choice. (Actually, let’s not be coy here. In most of the world, one search engine dominates; in Europe and North America, it’s Google.) And Google coughs up, in fractions of a second, articles and facts about that candidate. Great! Now you are an informed voter, right? But a study published this week says that the order of those results, the ranking of positive or negative stories on the screen, can have an enormous influence on the way you vote. And if the election is close enough, the effect could be profound enough to change the outcome.
In other words: Google’s ranking algorithm for search results could accidentally steal the presidency. "We estimate, based on win margins in national elections around the world," says Robert Epstein, a psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology and one of the study’s authors, "that Google could determine the outcome of upwards of 25 percent of all national elections."
Epstein’s paper combines a few years’ worth of experiments in which Epstein and his colleague Ronald Robertson gave people access to information about the race for prime minister in Australia in 2010, two years prior, and then let the mock-voters learn about the candidates via a simulated search engine that displayed real articles.
One group saw positive articles about one candidate first; the other saw positive articles about the other candidate. (A control group saw a random assortment.) The result: Whichever side people saw the positive results for, they were more likely to vote for—by more than 48 percent. The team calls that number the "vote manipulation power," or VMP. The effect held—strengthened, even—when the researchers swapped in a single negative story into the number-four and number-three spots. Apparently it made the results seem even more neutral and therefore more trustworthy.
But of course that was all artificial—in the lab. So the researchers packed up and went to India in advance of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, a national campaign with 800 million eligible voters. (Eventually 430 million people voted over the weeks of the actual election.) "I thought this time we’d be lucky if we got 2 or 3 percent, and my gut said we’re gonna get nothing," Epstein says, "because this is an intense, intense election environment." Voters get exposed, heavily, to lots of other information besides a mock search engine result.
The team 2,150 found undecided voters and performed a version of the same experiment. And again, VMP was off the charts. Even taking into account some sloppiness in the data-gathering and a tougher time assessing articles for their positive or negative valence, they got an overall VMP of 24 percent. "In some demographic groups in India we had as high as about 72 percent."
The effect doesn’t have to be enormous to have an enormous effect.
The fact that media, including whatever search and social deliver, can affect decision-making isn’t exactly news. The "Fox News Effect" says that towns that got the conservative-leaning cable channel tended to become more conservative in their voting in the 2000 election. A well-known effect called recency means that people make decisions based on the last thing they heard. Placement on a list also has a known effect. And all that stuff might be too transient to make it all the way to a voting booth, or get swamped by exposure to other media. So in real life VMP is probably much less pronounced.
But the effect doesn’t have to be enormous to have an enormous effect. The Australian election that Epstein and Robertson used in their experiments came down to a margin of less than 1 percent. Half the presidential elections in US history came down to a margin of less than 8 percent. And presidential elections are really 50 separate state-by-state knife fights, with the focus of campaigns not on poll-tested winners or losers but purple “swing states” with razor-thin margins.
So even at an order of magnitude smaller than the experimental effect, VMP could have serious consequences. "Four to 8 percent would get any campaign manager excited," says Brian Keegan, a computational social scientist at Harvard Business School. "At the end of the day, the fact is that in a lot of races it only takes a swing of 3 or 4 percent. If the search engine is one or two percent, that’s still really persuasive."
The Rise of the Machines
It’d be easy to go all 1970s-political-thriller on this research, to assume that presidential campaigns, with their ever-increasing level of technological sophistication, might be able to search-engine-optimize their way to victory. But that’s probably not true. "It would cost a lot of money," says David Shor, a data scientist at Civis Analytics, a Chicago-based consultancy that grew out of the first Obama campaign’s technology group. "Trying to get the media to present something that is favorable to you is a more favorable strategy."
That’s called, in the parlance of political hackery, "free media," and, yes, voters like it. "I think that generally people don’t trust campaigns because they tend to have a low opinion of politicians," Shor says. "They are more receptive to information from institutions for which they have more respect." Plus, in the presidential campaign high season, whoever the Republican and Democratic nominees are will already have high page ranks because they’ll have a huge number of inbound links, one of Google’s key metrics.
Search and social media companies can certainly have a new kind of influence, though. During the 2010 US congressional elections, researchers at Facebook exposed 61 million users to a message exhorting them to vote—it didn’t matter for whom—and found they were able to generate 340,000 extra votes across the board.
But what if—as Harvard Law professor Jonathan Zittrain has proposed—Facebook didn’t push the “vote” message to a random 61 million users? Instead, using the extensive information the social network maintains on all its subscribers, it could hypothetically push specific messaging to supporters or foes of specific legislation or candidates. Facebook could flip an election; Zittrain calls this "digital gerrymandering." And if you think that companies like the social media giants would never do such a thing, consider the way that Google mobilized its users against the Secure Online Privacy Act and PROTECT IP Act, or "SOPA-PIPA."
In their paper, Epstein and Robertson equate digital gerrymandering to what a political operative might call GOTV—Get Out the Vote, the mobilization of activated supporters. It’s a standard campaign move when your base agrees with your positions but isn’t highly motivated—because they feel disenfranchised, let’s say, or have problems getting to polling places. What they call the "search engine manipulation effect," though, works on undecided voters, swing voters. It’s a method of persuasion.
If executives at Google had decided to study the things we’re studying, they could easily have been flipping elections to their liking with no one having any idea. Robert Epstein
Again, though, it doesn’t require a conspiracy. It’s possible that, as Epstein says, "if executives at Google had decided to study the things we’re studying, they could easily have been flipping elections to their liking with no one having any idea." But simultaneously more likely and more science-fiction-y is the possibility that this—oh, let’s call it "googlemandering," why don’t we?—is happening without any human intervention at all. "These numbers are so large that Google executives are irrelevant to the issue," Epstein says. "If Google’s search algorithm, just through what they call 'organic processes,' ends up favoring one candidate over another, that’s enough. In a country like India, that could send millions of votes to one candidate."
As you’d expect, Google doesn’t think it’s likely their algorithm is stealing elections. "Providing relevant answers has been the cornerstone of Google’s approach to search from the very beginning. It would undermine people’s trust in our results and company if we were to change course," says a Google spokesperson, who would only comment on condition of anonymity. In short, the algorithms Google uses to rank search results are complicated, ever-changing, and bigger than any one person. A regulatory action that, let’s say, forced Google to change the first search result in a list on a given candidate would break the very thing that makes Google great: giving right answers very quickly all the time. (Plus, it might violate the First Amendment.)
The thing is, though, even though it’s tempting to think of algorithms as the very definition of objective, they’re not. "It’s not really possible to have a completely neutral algorithm," says Jonathan Bright, a research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute who studies elections. "I don’t think there’s anyone in Google or Facebook or anywhere else who’s trying to tweak an election. But it’s something these organizations have always struggled with." Algorithms reflect the values and worldview of the programmers. That’s what an algorithm is, fundamentally. "Do they want to make a good effort to make sure they influence evenly across Democrats and Republicans? Or do they just let the algorithm take its course?" Bright asks.
That course might be scary, if Epstein is right. Add the possibility of search rank influence to the individualization Google can already do based on your gmail, google docs, and every other way you’ve let the company hook into you…combine that with the feedback loop of popular things getting more inbound links and so getting higher search ranking…and the impact stretches way beyond politics. “You can push knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and behavior among people who are vulnerable any way you want using search rankings,” Epstein says. “Now that we’ve discovered this big effect, how do you kill it?”The New York Times weddings section is renowned for its obsession with status, providing a window into what the world’s most self-important people deem to be important. Sex and the City references the section repeatedly, and many publications have taken to scrutinizing couples’ credentials over the years.
In 2013, I built Wedding Crunchers, a search engine for the express purpose of analyzing NYT wedding announcements, and published an exploration of trends across 35 years of what I dubbed "yuppie nuptials." Three years after my first effort, if feels like an opportune time to revisit the analysis and take a look at some new trends. The data set now includes more than 63,000 wedding announcements dating back to 1981, and a lot has changed in the weddings section since then.
The latest data shows that:
The modern announcements focus less on debutante culture and more on people of diverse religious backgrounds.
The average age of the people in wedding announcements is increasing.
Technology plays a more prominent role: Many couples now meet online, and tech companies account for an increasing percentage of employers.
Some things remain the same — the omnipresence of the Ivy League, lawyers, and Wall Street, to name a few — but with the preamble out of the way, let’s dive in and see what we can learn.
Schools are the most common place to meet — but apps are on the rise
The NYT only recently began including information about how couples met, whether in college, online, at SoulCycle, or by some other method. I extracted this "how they met" data from 702 announcements since August 2015 and assigned each announcement to a high-level category. Here’s how the meeting spots of the NYT wedding section break down.
How the couples met
Based on 702 New York Times wedding announcements published since August 23, 2015
Schools account for more introductions than any other category, with colleges outnumbering graduate programs by about a 2-to-1 ratio. The somewhat vague "met via mutual friends" comes in a close second, followed by online dating and what I labeled "happenstance," which applies to announcements that say something like "they met at a bar" or, in one case, at Burning Man.
Schools where NYT couples meet
The "organized activity" label I created includes couples who met doing things like volunteering for political campaigns, playing in kickball leagues, or attending church. The "other" bucket is something of a catchall, including couples who were set up on blind dates, met at other weddings, or were childhood friends.
There are clearly some universities that dominate the wedding listings. Of the 188 couples who met at school, 15 met at Harvard, more than any other institution. On the right is the full list of schools that produced more than five couples.
Older couples are more likely to have met online or via mutual friends. I also parsed out age data for each individual, so I could make the same "how they met" graph for people in their 20s, 30s, and over 40.
How the couples met, by age
Based on 702 New York Times wedding announcements published since August 23, 2015
It’s interesting, if not surprising, to see how the frequencies change based on age group. Almost half of 20-somethings in the NYT weddings section met in school, compared with only 2 percent of the 40-plus demographic. As people get older, it’s more likely they met via mutual friends or online.
Tinder’s Wedding Section debut: Dating apps begin to make their mark
I was curious which dating services were most frequently mentioned, so I took all the couples who met online and split them further by the particular services they used.
Online dating sites
Based on 87 New York Times wedding announcements published since August 23, 2015
OkCupid leads the pack, having introduced 39 couples, while Match and JDate follow with 16 and nine couples, respectively. Tinder and Hinge have four each, but their numbers might be limited by a selection bias. Phone-based dating apps are relatively new, so it’s nearly impossible that a couple who met online five years ago could have met using a phone-based app (though shout-out to Reverend Dennis Tinder, who officiated this 1988 wedding, cementing his status as the first "Tinder" appearance in the weddings section).
The "other" bucket includes a handful of dating services that appear in one announcement each, and some folks who met online even though they didn’t use a dating service. One recent couple met on Instagram, proving that even in the relatively staid world of the NYT, it can, and does, go down in the DM.
While Tinder and Hinge have each introduced four NYT couples, Tinder is winning a subtler competition for notoriety.
Whenever Tinder appears in an announcement, it requires no additional description, whereas Hinge is always referred to as "the dating app Hinge." The implication is that of course people know what Tinder is, but maybe they’ve never heard of Hinge, much in the same way that Goldman Sachs is consistently described as the investment bank, while less notable companies are often "an investment bank." Here are the relevant excerpts:
"introduced through Hinge, a dating service"
"introduced through Tinder in 2013"
"introduced through Tinder in February 2014"
"met in Houston through Tinder in 2014"
"met in Manhattan in 2013 via the dating app Hinge"
"introduced through the dating app Hinge"
"introduced in June 2014 through the dating app Hinge"
"introduced through Tinder in March 2014"
30-somethings are the new 20-somethings
People in the NYT Weddings Section have been getting older over time. Wedding announcements started including ages in 1989, when the median age was 27 for women and 29 for men. As of 2016, the median ages have increased to 30 for women and 32 for men. In 1989 you were twice as likely to see a 20-something in the weddings section as you were a 30-something, but as of 2016 the 30-somethings have taken over the majority, presumably to the chagrin of expectant grandparents throughout the tristate area:
30s are the new 20s
Based on 38,274 New York Times wedding announcements published since 1989
Same-sex couples are an exception to this trend: The median age of same-sex couples was 43 in 2011 and has since fallen to 35. But that might be an artifact of the legal process: When New York state recognized same-sex marriage in 2011, there was likely a backlog of older couples who would have been married years earlier had it been been allowed, and these older couples would cause the median age to skew higher shortly after the official recognition.
The words you’re most likely to see in a New York Times wedding announcement
Wedding Crunchers lets you search for words and phrases, then returns a graph that shows you how frequently they appear in weddings announcements. This is called an "n-gram analysis," where the y-axis represents the average number of occurrences per announcement. So for example, if you see a y-axis value of 0.1 for a word, it means that word appears an average of 0.1 times per announcement.
NYT wedding announcements lend themselves nicely to n-gram analysis because they’re fairly consistently structured, including data on where people went to school, their job titles, who officiated the ceremony, and more. The special Vows articles are an exception: They are longer and don’t follow the standard announcement structure, so Wedding Crunchers specifically excludes Vows articles from n-gram results. As of May 2016 there are 63,000 wedding announcements in the Wedding Crunchers database.
Is tech encroaching on finance’s status as the city’s "it" profession?
New York is widely known as the financial capital of the United States, if not the world, and it shouldn’t be surprising that a lot of married folks work in the financial industry. In more recent years, the city has grown its presence in the technology sector as well, embodied by Google pulling even with Goldman Sachs in NYT wedding announcement mentions:
Goldman Sachs versus Google
There are, of course, of more scientific ways to compare NYC’s tech and financial industries beyond cherry-picking wedding announcement mentions for two particular companies. Employment and wage data might be good places to start, but I’d argue that NYT wedding mentions get at something core to New York City's prestige-obsessed culture that would be difficult to quantify with traditional employment data alone.
Put another way: I doubt that people explicitly choose jobs by asking themselves, "What would look best in my future NYT wedding announcement?" But I’d also suspect that the answer to that question is highly correlated with people’s actual decisions, at least for the people who end up in the weddings section.
So although Google and Goldman Sachs are just two companies among many, the fact that Google appears as frequently as the most prestigious investment bank suggests that at least a certain brand of tech company now rivals investment banks for prestige.
Startups are on the rise, too, though lest we get ahead of ourselves, they’re still only a tiny blip on the radar compared with law firms and banks, the most traditional of all NYT wedding professional institutions:
Startups are still minuscule relative to law firms and banks
Planet of the Apps
It seems like everyone is hawking a mobile app these days, and NYT wedded couples are no exception. Instances of "mobile apps" and related phrases shot up beginning in 2013, surpassing "social media," which apparently is so first-half-of-the-decade:
Apps have surpassed social media
Trends come and go, and there are plenty of people questioning the near-term outlook for tech companies, but it’s amusing to look back on the proliferation and subsequent retrenchment of "internet" mentions circa 2000:
Tech bubble 1.0
Religious diversity is on the rise, but politically the weddings section is bluer than ever. One of the big themes of my previous analysis of the wedding announcements was the increase in ethnic diversity from the 1980s through today. That trend has continued, as encapsulated by more mentions of Hindu ceremonies alongside fewer Episcopalian ceremonies:
Changing demographics of the NYT weddings section
There’s also a trend toward having friends officiate weddings, as evidenced by mentions of Universal Life ministers and American Marriage Ministries. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a rejection of organized religion by the younger generation, but it does seem like reverends and rabbis have lost a bit of market share in the past decade:
Friends are officiating more marriages compared with religious leaders
Politics is one area where announcements aren’t getting more diverse. Political party names show up in announcements when someone works for a campaign, or is a politician or the child of one. I noted last time around that Republican mentions actually outnumbered Democrat mentions in the early 1980s, but over the past decade the ratio has favored Democrats by a nearly 3-to-1 ratio:
Democrats and Republicans
At least in the world of NYT weddings, peak Trump occurred in 2006. Upon closer inspection, about a quarter of all "Trump" mentions were actually for Donald’s sister Maryanne Trump Barry, who served as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and had a handful of clerks whose announcements made the weddings section.
Same-sex marriage is ditching old euphemisms
The NYT began publishing announcements for gay couples in 2002, some nine years before same-sex marriage was recognized by New York State. Initially, same-sex announcements used euphemistic phrases like "affirmed their partnership" and "commitment ceremony" instead of the traditional "married" language. But over time, and especially now that same-sex marriage is legal in the United States, same-sex announcements began to use the same language as opposite-sex announcements, so we see the euphemisms in decline:
Legalization of same-sex marriage
Since 2011, when New York state recognized same-sex marriage, same-sex couples account for about 10 percent of all announcements. Interestingly, men outnumber women by about 3 to 1 in same-sex announcements.
A 2013 report from the Pew Research Center found that "female-female marriages outnumbered male-male marriages in every reporting jurisdiction except New York City," so at least one plausible explanation for the same-sex gender imbalance in the NYT is that there are more gay men than gay women getting married in NYC.
Women earn more Latin honors than men
Another area in which men and women are not equal in the NYT weddings section: Latin honors. I’ve seen headlines before about how girls tend to do better in school than boys, and the weddings section supports the claim, as women graduate cum laude more often than men do:
Cum laude Latin honors
The trend holds for magna cum laude mentions as well, though the genders are pretty much equal for summa cum laude graduates.
"Eyebrows on the same level": Calculating the most perfect NYT wedding photo
The NYT’s rules for submitting a wedding announcement specify that photos should include couples with "their eyebrows on the same level and with their heads fairly close together." Some friends of mine were recently featured in the weddings section despite a rather nonconforming photo, which, believe it or not, came up as a topic of conversation at the morning-after brunch.
My contribution to the discussion was a promise to use the Wedding Crunchers database to determine the most conforming photo of all time. I ran every wedding photo through a face detection algorithm to extract coordinates for facial landmarks, then ranked the photos based on how level each couple's eyes and eyebrows were, plus how close together their heads were.
Finally, we can all stop wondering: The most perfectly conforming NYT wedding photo of all time belongs to Tyler Davidson and Hilary Burt. Congratulations!
Remember, you can run your own searches at WeddingCrunchers.com, and be sure to share your favorite trends!
Todd Schneider writes software at Genius. The Huffington Post has called him "a Reform Jew who went to Yale University and once worked for a hedge fund."
Why are weddings so damn expensive?Judge Allows Case to Go Forward In Tough Decision Against Brandeis University
Universities continue putting students into rape courts for things which are plainly not rapes, and furthermore, continuing denying them the most basic due process during these kangaroo courts.
One ridiculous example of this is going on at Brandeis, where one gay guy looked askance at things that happened during their sexual relationship, post break-up, and decided they constituted unwanted sexual conduct.
The unwanted sexual contacts that "John Doe" was found guilty were:
* Putting his hand on the complainant "JC's" groin at a movie date, without verbal consent. (The two had consensual sex the next day.)
* Sometimes waking up JC during their relationship by kissing him, without consent. (As he was sleeping -- consent can't be had.)
* Sometimes looking at JC's private areas during their relationship, while showering. I assume without consent, though if you're showering with someone, well.
* Attempting to perform an act of oral sex on JC during their relationship, which JC didn't want. They fought about it, then later made up.
Take out the gay aspect of the relationship here, and this is pretty much what happens in every relationship. As far as the "putting the hand on the groin" -- at some point, someone initiates sexual contact.
Apparently at Brandeis, it's a crime to try to get to second base.
At some point, they broke up. JC began drinking a lot, and also attending -- I'm not kidding -- "sexual assault workshops," which apparently spurred him to look at their relationship in a whole new rapey light.
On this basis, while denying John Doe the right to know what the charges were against him, to question the complaining witness, etc:
Among other things, under the new procedure, * the accused was not entitled to know the details of the charges; * the accused was not entitled to see the evidence; * the accused was not entitled to counsel; * the accused was not entitled to confront and cross-examine the accuser; * the accused was not entitled to cross-examine any other witnesses; * the Special Examiner prepared a detailed report, which the accused was not
permitted to see until the entire process had concluded; and * the Special Examiners decision as to the "responsibility" (that is, guilt) of the
accused was essentially final, with limited appellate review--among other things,
the decision could not be overturned on the ground that it was incorrect, unfair,
arbitrary, or unsupported by the evidence
Making this even worse was the litany of things the Special Examiner found could not be relevant and could not be admitted in the hearing:
Among other things, the Special Examiner based her findings on the following assumptions: * that the long delay in reporting the alleged misconduct, and the failure to make
any contemporaneous complaint, had no bearing at all on J.C.'s credibility; * that the existence of a 21-month-long relationship was irrelevant to any of the
issues in the case, including the issue of consent; * that John's kissing of J.C. while he was asleep constituted sexual misconduct,
because a person who is sleeping is incapacitated and therefore not capable of
giving express consent; and * that J.C.'s abuse of alcohol after the relationship ended bolstered his credibility,
on the ground that victims of sexual assault may abuse substances as a
consequence of the assault
Bolstered his credibility, rather than undermined it, because victims of a 21-month-long rape start hitting the sauce, I guess.
No mention of how the "sexual assault workshops" factored into JC's thinking.
Brandeis found John Doe guilty of violating the campus provisions against sexual assault.
John Doe is now suing Brandeis for, essentially, having branded him a sexual predator in a kangaroo court, and Brandeis moved for the court to dismiss the lawsuit for failure to state any claim.
The court refused to do so -- and furthermore seemed to tip its hand that it thinks John Doe's case is not only legally meritorious, but likely to prevail at trial.
KC Johnson -- the academic who uncovered the fraud in the Crystal Gayle Mangum hoax rape case -- is continuing to document these abuses, and has put up key sections of the ruling with some brief commentary.
One question I have is: Would the court have been so sympathetic to John Doe if JC were a woman? That is, is this just a case of the PC hierarchy of Preferred Persons being preferred? Had John Doe tried to get to second base with a girl on a date, and sometimes woken her up with kisses in the morning, would courts have been more sympathetic to poor JC's plight?
But even if that's the case, the ruling as written must be taken to apply to all similarly-situated persons. It could protect a man accused of touching a girl's tit during a make-out session, or even protect a girl accused of making a power move to the guy's junk during the same make-out session.
Who knows what our lunatic ruling class will actually do with it, though.
One thing to always keep in mind: Colleges are not just doing this on their own initiative. The Obama Administration effectively ordered them to do this with its notorious "Dear Colleague" letter, instructing colleges that they had better begin installing exciting new kangaroo court innovations unless they wanted to be found in violation of Title IX and lose their federal funding.Yep. I'm making that claim and I'm sticking with it. This IS the BEST cauliflower pizza crust you will ever make. I've worked out the kinks from my previous cauliflower crust and from all other cauliflower crust posts I've read, and I'm confident that this pizza, this very one here, with a crust made out of a vegetable, is so damn delicious that you won't even think twice about the whole crust being made out of a vegetable thing. And yes, you can slice it and pick it up like a real piece of pizza.
Now, let's hold hands and dance.
If, despite my description and the holding hands and dancing, you are still feeling a little weird about the whole cauliflower crust thing, or maybe it was the holding hands and dancing that got you feeling weird? Well then all I can say is, you shouldn't feel weird, about the pizza or the dancing, and this is picky husband taste tested and approved. Wait, let me say that one more time. This is PICKY HUSBAND taste tested and approved. And pizza is his FAVORITE food, so that was a tough test to pass. In conclusion, you MUST make this pizza, if not because it's the BEST, like I've clearly stated, then at least because I woke up early on a work day and whipped out my food processor and camera and went to work on this JUST. FOR. YOU. Pizza at 7 am is totally normal. And delicious. Also, a trip to the grocery store in pajamas and slippers mid pizza making for an egg because your husband didn't tell you he used the last one, all the while praying your food-crazed dog doesn't knock over the bowl of cauliflower crust you left sitting precariously close to the counter's edge is also totally normal.
SO, what are you waiting for?!!!
Oh, yeah the recipe.
Since I'm guaranteeing the best cauliflower crust pizza, I want to make sure you get it right and don't come back all hassling me for your money back and what not, so I'm going to do a little step by step, photo guide. (Well, except for the steps I forgot to take photos of... I had to run out and get eggs BEFORE work! There is only so much I can do people.)
Let's get going...
Place a pizza stone in the oven, or baking sheet if you don't have a pizza stone. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. On a cutting board |
said the amount was less than 4 percent of the Medicare payments it received in the last two years.
But according to the Special Committee on Aging, the company only agreed to a repayment after the HHS Inspector General threatened to suspend it from federal health programs. And while The SCOOTER Store disputes the government's audits, the government found the company owes as much as four times what it's agreed to repay.
In September, the government launched a pilot program to address the issue. It requires Medicare to approve chairs before they're paid for. But the same companies - with the high error rates - were hired to run it, processing payments to suppliers from the government. Sen. Corker, not convinced the pilot will make a difference, says he is looking into alternative solutions. Meanwhile Senators Herb Kohl and Richard Blumenthal have written a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid asking why it didn't require The SCOOTER Store to repay more money.
Corker says it's all an example of a bureaucracy that is broken. "It just must make your blood boil. It made mine boil," he told "CBS This Morning." "Taking total advantage of taxpayers, and damaging a program that is one seniors count on and depend upon."Note: this essay was originally posted at FreedomDemocrats.org.
To me, libertarianism has always been associated with “open borders” as a matter of principal. A belief in freedom of movement is an essential part of being a Libertarian. Freedom of movement is a basic right, essential to any free society; it’s not a “privilege” granted by the State, particularly a privilege tied to cumbersome duties. Any government that bids out artificial rents to restrict this basic freedom violates the terms that bind it to being an institutional instrument of a liberal order.
While “open borders” is still a majority opinion among libertarians, it is no longer a universally held one. I attribute this development primarily to three libertarian figures, Murray Rothbard, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, and Milton Friedman. Rothbard, who originally held an “open borders” position, switched his thinking during the “paleo phase” of his later years. Rothbard’s opposition was more or less rooted in a cultural argument. Hoppe’s position is rooted in a private property rights argument for restricted immigration. Friedman’s position was rooted in open immigration as an ideal not compatible with the welfare State.
Let’s look at Friedman’s position first. Friedman’s argument is a purely utilitarian one: the influx of foreign labor imposes welfare costs in terms of consumption of public services. However, I think Friedman’s position suffers from both a conceptual and an empirical problem. The conceptual problem is rooted in the analysis of enforcing restricted freedom of movement in a political economy. This is a problem that can be studied scientifically in terms of public choice economics, fairly easily establishing that the welfare costs of enforcement are likely to exceed, and exceed greatly, any welfare costs associated with immigrant consumption of public goods. The empirical problem is that there is has never been any major US economical study that has established any immigrant welfare drain on public services. Indeed, the opposite conclusions have been empirically established, that immigration, documented or not, has a positive welfare benefit, public services or not. Recently, Ron Unz empirically established the myth of any Hispanic crime wave Simply, the welfare argument against open immigration doesn’t hold up.
In terms of Rothbard, we should note that Rothbard’s shift to the paleo right in his later years was influenced by his disillusionment with the left and it’s descent into communitarian politics. Rothbard’s point was that the State would use immigration to serve partisan political ends. With politics becoming communitarian, on both the left and right, Rothbard saw the communitarian right–conservative, Christian middle America– as the more fertile ground for libertarianism. However, the notion of a need for a conservative cultural uniformity is always belied by the fact of embedded counter-cultures. Today, the idea of a middle Christian America serving as any receptive laboratory for libertarianism has turned out to be a gross miscalculation. Frankly, Rothbard’s “Paleo phase” is a source of embarrassment; this is not a serious argument.
Well, I should Rothbard’s cultural argument is generally not taken seriously anymore, except by the likes of Hans-Hermann Hoppe, who has extended the argument. Hoppe’s basic position is that freedom of movement is a cultural threat to western civilization. Therefore, in a theoretical propetarian world, he goes about establishing an “invited-contractual” property rights basis for movement. In other words, the default condition is “trespass” with everyone stuck on their own little piece of private property, if you own property, and you can’t move anywhere without being invited. Even worse, any invitor is held liable to the full extent of his property for any crimes an invitee may commit against any third party.
Hoppe extends this argument to how the State should control “public property,” that access to any such property is controlled by invitation. Thus Hoppe arrives at how the State can supposedly restrict freedom of movement from a so-called libertarian property rights basis.
Let me just say, from a social theory standpoint, Hoppe’s immigration argument is truly a stupid argument. I can make a simple observation, for example, that if the packet-switched internet network operated according to Hoppe’s “invited-contractual” property rights framework, it would cease to function. So in Hoppe’s world, no freedom of movement, no internet. In Hoppe’s world, the entire communication and information infrastructure of most modern business would be wiped out. The internet is largely a collection of private TCP/IP networks(and anyone can setup their own little internet) that nonetheless functions as an efficient public network, In other words, I don’t have to have a “invited-contract” with every freaking Telco along the chain that routes my invading data packets to this web server in making this post. Internet routing works off a principle of peering meaning settlement-free or “sender keeps all,” that is to say, neither party(ISP, Telco networks) in exchanging traffic pays the other for the exchanged traffic; instead, each derives revenue from its own customers. In other words, in terms of the public routing of traffic, the default condition is “pass,” not “trespass.”
From the above example, it’s not difficult to see why any sophisticated, coordinated “libertarian order” would have to have some concept of public or common property. In the case of some “theoretical propetarian model,” there would evolve some layer of contractual agreements outside the “invited-contractual-trespass” model that would effectively simulate some layer of public property.
It should be noted that Hoppe’s Statist Model of “invited-contractual-trespass” applied to State public property is just flat out collectivism.
In summary, there is no coherent libertarian argument for restricted freedom of movement. Attempts by some to try to try to make a case for restricted immigration in light of current affairs don’t hold water. The Justin Raimondo-Ron Paul argument for restricted immigration and “securing the borders” is just a combination of the Hoppe-Friedman positions. As such, it is just a welfare costly form of collectivism. I was pleased to see the staff at Antiwar.com rebuke Raimondo’s position. However, I doubt we will see the likes of Anthony Gregory similarly rebuke Ron Paul(noting Gregory also works for the Campaign for Liberty).
In reality, the problems in Arizona, to the extent there are actually any problems, with regard to this topic, are the result of Arizona having to bear the brunt of the externalized costs of the ongoing increased violence that has been the result of the United States ratcheting up the Drug War in Mexico.
AdvertisementsRunning back LeSean McCoy, hit a home run in the week 14 game versus the Colts with a play call that has had success this season. That concept is called ‘Duo’.
‘Duo’ is often confused with inside zone because it looks very similar. But instead of the offensive linemen stepping and blocking in the same direction of the play and the center working towards the Mike LB, on ‘duo’ they typically block down, against the play direction, and the center is identifying and working toward the Will or weak side linebacker. Those down blocks are why it is commonly referred to as a gap run with no puller.
From our Cover 1 Newsletter–Will the #Bills undergo more Front Office Changes? – Make sure to sign up here: https://t.co/4tBSWRnKi0https://t.co/2MePAeTI4F — Cover 1 (@Cover_1_) December 10, 2017
With 1:38 left in overtime and the Bills faced with a 3rd-and-3 situation, Dennison dialed up ‘duo’.
They send out 12 personnel, but offensive lineman Ryan Groy takes the place of the tight end.
Center Eric Wood has a shaded defensive tackle, so he and Vladimir Ducasse secure the tackle, and Vlad works to the backside linebacker.
According to Richie Incognito, the frontside was set up perfectly as the defensive tackle was in a wide 3 technique, which allowed Richie to widen the hole, Dawkins to overtake the tackle, and then put Richie on a nice track to the inside linebacker.
On the snap you see Richie step with his outside foot and go hip-to-hip to bang the tackle over to Dawkins and then climb to the second level.
Shady presses the line of scrimmage with patience and then hits it en route to the walk off touchdown. This was the icing on the cake for what was a tremendous day on the ground.
Take a look at how the Bills have utilized the concept this season and how it was perfectly executed to give the Bills their 7th win of the season.
Troubles viewing? Open in YouTube.Karen Gillan Confirms Nebula In ‘Avengers: Infinity War’
One of the highly anticipated films in Phase 3 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the third Avengers film, Avengers: Infinity War which will be starting production this year. While we are still waiting to hear who are all officially appearing, we now know that a certain adopted daughter will be popping up in the film.
In a new interview with BBC, Guardians of the Galaxy actress Karen Gillan confirmed that her character Nebula will be appearing in the next film featuring Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. While she wouldn’t say much, Gillan gave this tease.
“So look out for those. And then I’ll be making a little appearance in the next Avengers movies.”
Nebula’s stepsister, Gamora, will also be appearing in the film as Zoe Saldana confirmed it recently. In other news, Game of Thrones’ Peter Dinklage is currently in talks to join the film for a “key role”. Back in December, a casting call was released that featured the following actors that are reportedly appearing in this movie.
“Starring in “Avengers: Infinity War” is BAFTA Award nominee Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Academy Award nominee Josh Brolin as Thanos, Saturn Award Winner Chris Pratt as Star Lord / Peter Quill, Teen Choice Awards nominee Sebastian Stan as Bucky, four-time Golden Globe Award nominee Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow, Academy Award nominee Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr. Stephen Strange, Academy Award winner Brie Larson as Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel, ALMA Award winner Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Empire Award winner Karen Gillan as Nebula, two-time Academy Award nominee Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton / Hawkeye, two-time Saturn Award nominee Chris Evans as Steve Rogers / Captain America, BAFTA Awards nominee Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet, four-time Academy Award nominee Bradley Cooper as Rocket Raccoon, Screen Actors Guild Awards nominee Vin Diesel as Groot, Academy Award nominee Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Screen Actors Guild Awards nominee Paul Rudd as Scott Lang / Ant-Man, British Independent Film Awards nominee Benedict Wong as Wong, Action on Film Award winner Dave Bautista as Drax, BAFTA Film Award nominee Paul Bettany as Vision, Santa Barbara International Film Festival Virtuoso Award winner Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa / Black Panther, three-time Academy Award nominee Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner / The Hulk, and two-time Academy Award nominee Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark / Iron Man.”
Anthony and Joe Russo’s Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War is set to open in theaters on May 4, 2018.
Source: BBCFocus on the Family has a message for gay rights activists: stay off the playground.
Candi Cushman, an education analyst for the James Dobson-founded group, told The Denver Post this weekend that gay rights advocates have inserted their agenda into anti-bullying efforts, at the expense of Christian values.“We feel more and more that activists are being deceptive in using anti-bullying rhetoric to introduce their viewpoints, while the viewpoint of Christian students and parents are increasingly belittled,” Cushman told the Post.
In an email to TPM, Cushman expanded her argument. “Listing certain categories creates a system ripe for reverse discrimination, sending the message that certain characteristics are more worthy of protection than others,” she said.
Cushman’s argument has two levels: first, she says anti-bullying efforts wrongly put the focus on the “characteristics of the victim” instead of the “wrong actions of the bullies.” Second, she thinks that gay rights activists are using the whole issue to sneak their agenda into the nation’s schools. She denounced the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN).
“In many cases, these politicized bullying policies are being used as tools to undermine parental rights,” she said, “and censor or marginalize students and parents with differing viewpoints.”
Cushman cited a “back to school guide” published by GLSEN and books titled Two Moms, the Zark and Me and The Full Spectrum as examples of GLSEN’s tactics in action.
“I could give you many more examples of how this reverse discrimination is playing out in books, curriculum and schoolwide initiatives, all promoted in the name of ‘tolerance’ and ‘anti-bullying,'” Cushman said.
According to the Post, about 30 percent of sixth- to 10th-graders in the U.S. report being involved in bullying, either as a victim or bully.
Late Update: Eliza Byard, GLSEN Executive Director, sent the following statement to TPM in response to Cushman’s comments:You’ve probably seen the viral satellite images of South Korea lit up like the cosmos at night and North Korea looking like a big black hole. But here’s something you probably haven’t heard: In 2016, North Korean programming students won 28th place in the ACM International Collegiate Programming competition — an intense, problem-solving battle of over 100 teams.
That may not sound impressive, but they beat Stanford University — a school that has been ranked as one of the top 10 computer science schools on multiple occasions. They also tied with Cornell and one of South Korea’s most revered tech schools — the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.
These international competitions are one of the only ways we can see North Korea’s tech skills compete on the world stage. The takeway: North Korean students are a decent match against those studying in the U.S. and South Korea — both countries with high-ranking computer science schools (St. Petersburg University in Russia, Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China and Harvard University took the top three slots at the 2016 ACM-ICP competition).
In the 13 years the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has competed in the International Mathematics Olympiad — literally the Olympics for math — North Korean students took home 19 gold medals, 33 silver and nine bronze medals. The lowest they ever ranked was 19th place and the highest they ranked was fourth. More than 100 countries have participated over the years.
There’s a reason for all of this: The Kim Jong Un regime needs top-notch computer scientists and hackers, and so far they’ve succeeded. Their cyber arsenal starts with scouting out elementary school-aged children who show an affinity for computers. Eventually, the gifted are funneled into specialized secondary schools. Then the regime uses domestic and international competitions to find the best of the best.
“It’s actually much like the way a country like South Korea or the U.K. will cultivate students [for] their Olympic teams,” Martyn Williams, a contributor for 38 North and the journalist behind a blog called North Korea Tech, said on Nov. 23. Williams and a number of other North Korea and cybersecurity experts spoke from the podium at the “North Korea’s Cyberattacks: Current Capabilities and Countermeasures” in Seoul that day.
“Children that show potential in sport will go on to more practice and will go on to get more help from the state,” he said.
Take Mun So Min, a student at North Korea’s Kim Chaek University of Technology, for example. He has competed in North Korea’s regional competitions for the ACM Intercollegiate Programming competition and the International Mathematics Olympiad. And in an April 2017 competition on Codeforces — a Russian competitive coding site with contestants from around the world — a user with his name beat out employees listed on DropBox and Google’s team. Williams called him a “programming star” who is known to have originally studied at Pyongyang Secondary School No. 1, where many tech-savvy students are sent.
An account with Mun So Min’s name, university and country (the DPRK) is online on the Russian coding competition website, Codeforces, on Wednesday. Mic/Codeforces
A registration page on the International Mathematical Olympiad’s official site shows Mun So Min and his competition history. Mic/International Mathematical Olympiad
This screenshot of Hackerrank.com user page matches Mun So Min’s name, university affiliation and country. The user page also linked to Mun’s registration page on the International Mathematics Olympiad official site. Mun’s username, @kut_msm1993, likely indicates that Mun was born in 1993. Mic/Hackerrank.com
“Schools like this exist around the country,” he said. “At these schools, the class sizes are smaller, children have more access to the resources they need and their gift for computing is cultivated and it matures.”
The investment makes sense. Compared to intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, raising hackers is quite inexpensive — and quieter.
“The cyberspace is a low-cost, high-efficiency space. All you need is a computer, a mouse and an internet network,” Yu Dong Yeol, director of the Korea Institute of Liberal Democracy, said in a separate presentation at the conference. “As long as you have this, you can attack freely.”
An executive decision
In October 2000, Kim Jong Il shocked the world: The now-deceased North Korean leader offered to exchange email addresses with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who was making a diplomatic visit to Pyongyang.
But there are signs that he was aware of computers’ power years before that. Kim allegedly told his troops that “all wars in the future will be computer wars” in 1996 (several translations of this quote exist).
“That was a pretty bold prediction to make in 1996. I bet, back then, in 1996, most of us didn’t have email addresses,” Williams said. “It demonstrates that, from 20 years ago, Kim Jong Il saw the possibility that computers would have for developing the domestic economy but also the military fields.”
North Korean men and women use computer terminals at the Sci-Tech Complex in Pyongyang, North Korea, on June 16. Wong Maye-E/AP
Now, we live in a world where North Korean hackers are thought to be responsible for a $81 million virtual heist at a Bangladeshi bank — or a malware attack that temporarily shut down hospitals and extorted bitcoins. It may only get worse as more coding gurus are reared north of the Demilitarized Zone.
Building cyber arsenals
Only a small portion of them will work for the Reconnaissance General Bureau — a government body established around 2009 known for North Korea’s cyberwar efforts. The others will likely continue to develop North Korea’s intranet — which is vastly different from the World Wide Web more commonly accessed in other countries, but is still thought to have the basics, like an internet shopping site.
But in the DPRK, gifted children will still compete for the jobs that will win them recognition and higher-status lives. The world is allowed to see students from Kim Il Sung University and Kim Chaek University of Technology — older institutions that have been around since the 1940s and 1950s. But those from newer schools with hacking and cyber warfare specializations remain largely hidden. These students often study at Moranbong University (founded in 1997) and Mirim College (founded in 1986) — and it’s safe to assume “they’re even better” than the world-ranking math and computer gurus seen in international competitions, Williams said.
“It sort of makes you think how good the hackers we don’t see are,” he said. “At these universities, there’s much more emphasis on hacking. It’s not developing software that will help develop factories or writing software for email that will go on North Korean smartphones.”
North Korean students use computers in a classroom with portraits of the country’s leaders Kim Il Sung (left) and his son Kim Jong Il hanging on the wall, at the Kim Chaek University of Technology in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Sept. 20, 2012. Vincent Yu/AP
About 30 students are thought to go through Moranbong University each year, according to Williams. He also said that some hacking students in North Korea are thought to study abroad toward the end of their college careers — but really, this means that they test their hacking skills from the Chilbosan Hotel in Shenyang, China.
“There’s only so much you can do from the safety of Pyongyang,” Williams said. Practicing in China also allows students to avoid a North Korean IP address. Plus, their identity is more or less obscured by the thousands of other Chinese hackers in the area.
In North Korea, the only way to learn these skills is through the government. It’s still a nation where most people are poor and don’t have access to a computer. But so long as the government is willing to invest, the rest of the world can expect an increasingly sophisticated cyber arsenal on its virtual doorstep.
“In many countries, hackers are self-trained. They spend their evenings after school playing on computers. They practice programming and breaking into a few websites,” Williams said. “In North Korea, none of that is possible. Very few people have computers in their homes and very few have access to the internet. The only way North Korea does it is through the educational system.”Greetings Pop!_OS Fans! I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday for those in the U.S., we here at System76 each had a wonderful time. Yours truly took the opportunity to visit his family and got appropriately spoiled!
We have an exciting number of updates for you this week. So, let’s get into it!
Installation and Initial Setup Experience
We can all agree that first impressions count when receiving a shiny new computer and booting it up for the first time. With that in mind, we wanted to create a great and memorable experience and focusing on the kind of experience that would make people excited about using their computer. Over the next couple of weeks we will report on the progress as things mature.
Harmonious Look-n-Feel
We have been fixing the little visual details in the Pop!_OS theme. Our work is very reminiscent of Allan Day’s “Every Little Detail Matters” initiative. One thing that I think is worth highlighting is that GTK2 apps will look like the GTK3 apps with the exact same visual look and feel. Other highlights are re-worked checkbox and radio buttons, a shadow for the panel, and red close buttons for enhanced usability. There are many other changes that you can see here.
Fixes
Upstream is a key part of the work we do. Work was done on gnome-initial-setup fixing the username filter such that invalid usernames are not used. Also fixed was home folder encryption on the same package.
HiDPI Work
The work on HiDPI nears completion. The HiDPI work is a seminal project that we are extremely proud of as a company. When this work is complete, you will be able to have smooth experience with multiple monitors of different resolutions and have it do the right thing. Right now, a lot of work is in testing, handling corner cases, and focusing on the little details that build together into a great experience that just works!
In honor of the HiDPI work, we have a song!
Remember it is only cheese on the outside!
If you want to sing along, here are the lyrics!:
Doctor HiDPI’s Sing-Along Blog!
Oh, It’s a Brand New Day
and the DPI is Hi.
All the users singin’
cause their screens will Fly! And Emma will get a notification
telling her what we’ve done.
And she will click
and make GIMP Look GOOD! And her game runs smooth,
but she wants to see more,
so she clicks again,
and her screen turns crisp. No waiting for Wayland.
This is All On X!
It’s everything you ever
wanted on Hi-DPI. Oh, It’s a Brand New Day
and the DPI is Hi.
All the users singin’
cause their screens will Fly!
Have a great weekend everyone! See you next time! Same Pop! Time and same Pop! channel! :-)CLEVELAND — House Speaker Paul D. Ryan has a higher favorability rating than several other high-profile Republicans at the party’s convention this week in Cleveland, including Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
Among U.S. adults, Mr. Ryan had a 44 percent favorable rating and a 35 percent unfavorable rating. And among Republicans, he enjoyed a 71 percent/16 percent favorable/unfavorable split, according to polling from Gallup released Tuesday.
Mr. Trump, meanwhile, was underwater among all adults, with 33 percent saying they have a favorable view and 63 percent reporting an unfavorable one. Among Republicans, Mr. Trump had a positive 65 percent/32 percent split.
Mr. Cruz, who was Mr. Trump’s chief rival in the 2016 GOP presidential primary contest, had a 36 percent/49 percent favorable/unfavorable split overall and a positive 59 percent/31 percent split among Republicans.
Mr. Christie, meanwhile, had a 31 percent/46 percent split overall and a 52 percent/26 percent split among Republicans.
Mr. Ryan and Mr. Christie both spoke on day two of the Republican National Convention Tuesday. Mr. Cruz is scheduled to deliver a prime-time address Wednesday and Mr. Trump will deliver his own speech on Thursday after delegates formally nominated him as the GOP presidential nominee Tuesday.
Former President George W. Bush, who isn’t attending the Republican convention, outpaced all of them in terms of favorability, though his unfavorable numbers among Republicans were slightly higher than Mr. Ryan’s. Mr. Bush had a 52 percent/43 percent favorable/unfavorable split overall and a 75 percent/22 percent spit among Republicans.
Mr. Bush has largely refrained from publicly wading into politics since leaving the White House, though he did campaign for his brother, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, ahead of the South Carolina primary.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who is also skipping the convention, wasn’t viewed as favorably as Mr. Bush. He had a 35 percent/51 percent split overall and a slightly negative 44 percent/46 percent split among Republicans. Mr. Romney, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, has been a prominent critic of Mr. Trump.
The survey was taken from July 13-17 — right before the GOP convention kicked off this week in Cleveland.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Planet Money had a fun podcast a couple of days ago about Eric Meyer, the young founder of Haystack, a Baltimore-based app that allowed people to auction off their (public) parking spot to the highest bidder. MonkeyParking, a similar app, got attention last year in San Francisco.
The founders, in both cases, focused on the time-saving, traffic, and environmental benefits of such an app. Clearly there are real costs to people spending long periods of time circling the block in search of parking. UCLA economist Donald Shoup has argued that 30% of traffic in central business districts results from people looking for parking.
But these apps quickly generated enormous hostility. People used words like “disgusting,” “evil” and called it “JerkTech”—all to the apparent surprise of Meyer, at least. Within months, Boston and San Francisco had passed ordinances forbidding the selling of public parking spots. Haystack and MonkeyParking were basically shut down by the end of the year. (MonkeyParking has since retooled as a way to sell the parking in your driveway.)
This is a familiar story to economic sociologists. Some area of life that was previously outside of the market is suddenly brought into it. Violent feeling erupts, as such transactions are seen to challenge the moral order. (See Zelizer, Healy, Quinn, Chan, etc.) Generally, the market wins, and morality adapts.
There aren’t too many things—humans, organs (though even that’s eroding)—where a bright line still forbids buying and selling. Why, then, do Haystack and similar apps generate such hostility?
I think there are a couple of independent things prompting the hostile reaction.
1. Something that was, at least superficially, free, suddenly comes to cost money. People really don’t like being charged for things that used to be free, even if they were always paying for it somehow. (See: airline fees.)
2. Someone is making money by selling public property. This one is probably more important to city officials than city residents. From this perspective, the problem isn’t selling the spot, but who’s receiving the gains. Indeed, some of the same cities that reacted so negatively to these apps (I’m looking at you, San Francisco) have introduced dynamic pricing of parking, which allows prices to fluctuate with demand. (Think: Uber surge pricing.)
3. Now only the well-off can afford to park. This objection is to my mind the most legitimate. And while I fully recognize that it is really wasteful to have people circling around looking for parking, I don’t think it can easily be dismissed.
Now, I don’t want to stake any big claims around the inalienable right of Americans to park their cars. After all, you have to have a certain amount of money to have a car in the first place. And in general I think policies that discourage driving are good.
And it’s the very basis of capitalism to accept that there are things that some people can afford and others can’t, and to make one’s peace with that. But the thing about price caps (whether the cap is zero, as for street parking, or some flat rate, as with taxicabs) is that while they are inefficient, they are also democratizing. Yes, you may have to circle the block for 20 minutes. But dammit, so do the tech entrepreneurs who are pricing you out of your apartment. There are some things you can’t buy your way out of.
We live in a society in which inequality continues grow. At the same time, technology is improving our ability to make people who are willing (and able) to pay a lot do just that. That may be efficient. But it further reduces the sense that we’re all in this game together. And that’s the issue we don’t have a good solution for.
AdvertisementsGinger Adamson, of Orange, N.J., is seen supporting the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 2211 as public employee unions protest near the New Jersey Statehouse in a rally against pension and health care legislation that went before the Assembly Budget Committee, Monday, June 20, 2011 in Trenton, N.J. (credit: Julio Cortez/AP)
— The New Jersey Senate has passed a bill requiring sharply higher contributions for pensions and health benefits from public workers while suspending unions’ ability to bargain over health care.The upper chamber moved the bill with support from Republicans and a few Democrats in a 24-15 vote.The bill was amended earlier on Monday to remove a controversial provision to limit public workers’ access to out-of-state medical care.
The bill must still be passed in an Assembly committee and then by the full Assembly.
Earlier, New Jersey public workers marched across the Delaware River to New Jersey’s Statehouse in protest of the bill. Hundreds of Revolutionary War re-enactors and union members crossed a bridge over the river in a simulation of George Washington’s crossing to Trenton in 1776.
A group of union members marched holding a giant banner reading “The Second Battle of Trenton.” Many wore 18th century garb and some impersonated the nation’s Founding Fathers.
More than 125 tents were set up and a mock graveyard for collective bargaining rights was erected in another spot near the statehouse.
“This is the defining moment for the labor movement in our generation,” New Jersey AFL-CIO President Charles Wowkanech wrote in an email to enlist support for the rally, the latest and most ambitious of several recent Capitol protests. “Only through your presence in Trenton on Monday will we make the difference.”
Wowkanech was among 25 union members who were arrested after disrupting a Senate hearing on the bill Thursday. They were issued disorderly persons summonses and released.
Do you support the move? Sound off in our comments section below…
(TM and Copyright 2011 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2011 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)LOGANVILLE, Ga. (AP) — The father of a 7-year-old girl had to scramble after a foster care worker took her — and not another girl with a similar name — from their school in suburban Atlanta.
Sean Harris says he panicked when he went to pick up his daughter from after-school care and discovered she wasn't there.
Then he went to her school and was told she was released to a state employee. That worker was supposed to retrieve a different girl who has the same last name and a first name that shares all but one letter. The Division of Family and Child Services blames the mixup on Gwinnett County Schools, whose spokeswoman Sloan Roach says the family's concerns are understandable.
Harris said his daughter is scared to go back to school.CLOSE The cost to build the arena has risen. Detroit Free Press staff
Cement is being poured at Little Caesars arena for the Red Wings ice rink on March 8, 2017. (Photo: District Detroit)
A federal lawsuit seeking to block public funding of the Little Caesars Arena and a new Pistons headquarters has moved forward after an emergency hearing was held Tuesday following a Detroit City Council vote to provide millions of dollars in tax incentives for part of the project.
Government transparency advocate Robert Davis, who filed the lawsuit along with Detroit City Clerk candidate D. Etta Wilcoxon, said the hearing, which was before Judge Mark Goldsmith, set a hearing date for June19, one day before the city council is expected to vote on an additional $34.5 million in public funding tied to the arena project.
Related:
Detroit Pistons move to downtown nears, but is it a done deal?
Here's your chance to work at Little Caesars Arena
"(The judge) was wondering what actions council took today and he asked specific questions about when the taxes were going to be captured because he wanted to make a decision prior to that issue," Davis told the Free Press.
The pair initially filed the lawsuit Thursday, claiming state law prohibits spending school property tax revenues on the projects as planned because the schools millage voters approved in 2012 was to be used exclusively for Detroit Public Schools' operating expenses.
The lawsuit seeks to block public funding without a vote of Detroit residents.
The Detroit Downtown Development Authority, the public entity that owns the arena, is expected to collect $726 million in school property tax revenues through 2051. The money will be used to pay off $363 million in public investments in the $862-million arena and the surrounding development district. The DDA and Brownfield Redevelopment Authority were named in the initial suit.
Late Monday night, Davis filed an emergency injunction motion to block the funding.
"It would only enjoin them from capturing the revenue," Davis said. "...They would have to foot the bill and not the taxpayers until a vote occurred."
The Detroit City Council was also added to the lawsuit Tuesday.
Related:
Lawsuit: Voters should decide if Little Caesars Arena gets public funding
6 projects with 686 residential units proposed near Little Caesars Arena
The move follows an email Davis sent to council and Detroit Economic Growth Corporation representatives Monday morning, alleging that the DDA failed to properly notify the taxing jurisdictions affected by the DDA's proposed amendments of its tax increment financing and develop plans.
The Detroit Economic Growth Corporation staffs the DDA.
"It's very important because you (the DDA) are using the tax dollars of the residents of the city of Detroit and the county of Wayne to finance two billionaires' projects and you're taking money from institutions that are in dire need of these resources," Davis said. "That simply does not make sense."
DDA spokesman Bob Rossbach said in a text to the Free Press that the DEGC doesn't typically comment on any potential or pending litigation.
But Rossbach said that "under DEGC administration, the DDA and other public authorities have a well-established track record of operating within applicable legal guidelines."
Attorneys representing the DDA and Brownfield Redevelopment Authority responded Tuesday, calling it a "haphazard, scattershot motion."
"Plaintiffs have made it difficult, if not impossible, for defendants to respond to this motion by being completely unspecific as to what relief they seek," the attorneys wrote. "They have not attached a proposed temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction. It is completely unclear as to what relief they seek from this court and as to whom."
The city council overwhelmingly approved a handful of agreements and exemptions tied to the practice facility and headquarters Tuesday, including a nearly $20 million brownfield tax incentive.
A new DDA amendment proposal that council is to vote on June 20 would issue an additional $34.5 million in bonds to support the Pistons' relocation. The estimated cost of the project has increased from $450 million to $862 million. The project is anticipated to be 62% privately funded and 38% publicly funded.
David Whitaker, director of the council's Legislative Policy Division, briefly addressed Davis' concerns at the Tuesday meeting and said he doesn't believe the lawsuit would have an actual impact on council's vote.
"We looked at it," Whitaker said. "We didn't find any merit in what he was claiming. We don't see any reason why council can't take up these matters."
Davis said he obtained documents under |
y but even somewhat resembles Miley Cyrus, simply gave him a disgusted look and said, “Why are you dressed like that? Oh, well, I don’t care.”
After his wife snapped some photos, Mackintosh decided to push the issue, taking the family out for miniature golf and then ice cream, where his daughter – whose Facebook profile gives her age as 19 – refused to get out of the car.
She did, however, post the fashion photos of her father to her Tumblr account, which had garnered nearly 135,000 notes as of Friday, alongside the caption, “My mom told me to change my ‘slutty’ shorts before we went to dinner. I said no. So my dad cut his jeans to fit in.”
Although Mackintosh admitted on Today that there was no “Dad, you’re the best!” from his daughter, he does believe his “modest is hottest” lesson resonated with her and that his daughter is now “aware of my feelings.”Thursday marks the 20th anniversary of the venerable Mac text-editing app BBEdit. I’m sure there are other apps not published by a gigantic company that have managed to last as long, but I’m not sure that any app has changed with the times and remained as relevant as BBEdit. As someone who has written hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of words in Bare Bones Software’s flagship product, let me take this opportunity to praise and reminisce.
In the olden days…
BBEdit began with a post on the Usenet newsgroup comp.sys.mac.announce by Rich Siegel, who 20 years later is still the lead developer on the product. The post, dated 2:19 a.m. on Sunday, April 12, 1992, heralds the arrival of a free text editor:
This is the first public release of BBEdit, which is a free text editor that has been under development and extensive in-house testing for the past two years. BBEdit is 32-bit clean, compatible with any Macintosh running system version 6.0 or later, and when running under System 7.0, takes specific advantage of new features to enhance performance and appearance. BBEdit is also very economical with respect to disk and memory usage; it will run in a partition as small as 256K. The size of any file is only limited by the amount of memory available in BBEdit’s partition; there is no 32K upper bound. BBEdit offers fast and flexible multi-file search and replace capabilities; under System 7, it can also use On Location 2.0 as a searching engine. Grep pattern-matching is available for single- or multi-file searches.
I realize that many Macworld readers were not around 20 years ago, so as someone who was a college student back then who had only recently discovered and embraced the Mac, let me translate. BBEdit used special features of System 7, which for my money was the first major Mac transition—a modern-day Mac user might find System 7 odd, but it would be far more familiar than its predecessor, System 6.0.8.
And while it’s impressive that BBEdit originally used only 256K of memory, more relevant is the line “there is no 32K upper bound.” Back then, most Mac text editors used a systemwide text-editing resource that couldn’t handle more than 32K of text. BBEdit being able to edit more than 32K of text was a big deal. (It’s funny now, but back then the 32K text limit was a huge deal. TidBits, the venerable Mac newsletter, set a hard limit on the size of its issues so that it wouldn’t go over the 32K limit and become unreadable. Only in the last few years has TidBits finally shaken off the post-traumatic stress enough to embrace longer issues.)
But what strikes me most about this announcement is that the first public edition of BBEdit already offers two of its most important features—multi-file search and replace and support for Grep pattern-matching. If you don’t know what Grep is, suffice it to say that it’s the single biggest productivity booster I have experienced in my entire computer-using life. In 1997 I bought a book just to teach myself how to use Grep-style regular expressions, and it paid dividends. (These days, of course, you can buy a book just about BBEdit, including Grep tutorials I would’ve killed for back in the day.)
Although BBEdit was initially conceived of as a tool for programmers, it’s far more flexible than that. I’ve used BBEdit to build websites, edit PHP and JavaScript code, and write hundreds of articles.
I was introduced to BBEdit somewhere around 1995, while working at MacUser magazine. I can’t remember exactly when I stopped editing webpages using the text editor inside the Eudora email application, but I’m pretty sure it was my colleague Stephan Somogyi who got me into it. I remember being impressed that Stephan was listed in BBEdit’s About box, credited as one of two “princes of insufficient light.” (And if you look closely, you may see your own name in the About box too. Ah, quirky About boxes—another classic Mac feature that survives in BBEdit to this day.)
Still kicking
All of this would be an insane nostalgia trip were it not for this amazing fact: BBEdit’s still around. And not just as a relic of the old times, but as a modern, relevant text editor. Almost none of the other apps I used in 1997 are on my hard drive today. (I count two others: DragThing and Default Folder). BBEdit has grown and adapted over time, going from free to commercial, spawning a free “Lite” version that eventually became the free text editor TextWrangler. Now at version 10.1.1, BBEdit is sold in the Mac App Store for $50, much cheaper than it was during the early commercial era.
With every version, BBEdit gains new features that keep it relevant. In the meantime, older stuff gets ripped out regularly, keeping the app rich and complex but not overburdened with old junk. This is not to say that BBEdit doesn’t have competitors. In the old days it was Unix-based stuff like emacs; these days it’s TextMate and maybe Coda for Web stuff, and a host of cool new OS X writing tools such as Scrivener and iA Writer.
All of these tools have their advantages—in fact, I use Scrivener for longer, more complicated stories now. But while people can argue the merits of BBEdit versus these other apps, the point is that after 20 years, those arguments can still happen. As its sales in the Mac App Store can attest, BBEdit isn’t just fulfilling the needs of veterans like me—it’s actively gaining new users and competing with the young upstarts who form its competition.
So on the occasion of BBEdit’s 20th birthday, here’s a toast to the distinguished old gentleman text-editor. I’d raise a glass, but since BBEdit’s still a year shy of legal drinking age in most states, I’ll say only this: I wrote this article in BBEdit, and I’ll be writing the next one in BBEdit, too. Nostalgia is great, but this app doesn’t belong in a museum—it belongs in my Dock. That’s the biggest endorsement I can give.
[Jason Snell is the editorial director of Macworld.]Greetings Rocksmith fans!
Time for bassists to get excited as yesterday’s hint confirmed that the Californian, Ska-punkish, quartet No Doubt will be making their Rocksmith debut next Tuesday!
Here’s how the clue solving went down:
Hidden in the post containing this image was this link
Which lead them to Rail Fence Cipher
The decoded text?
from*the*third*sixteen*at*one
@notthatbrad was able to crack the code (he meant “third single” by the way).
What about the Apple Core? Well, little known fact…
So we know one track is Don’t Speak, what about the other two?
I think the picks are fairly obvious but I really hope that one of them is Spiderwebs.
Yeah, yeah I know you are going to say it’s going to be Ex-Girlfriend, Excuse Me Mr. or Just A Girl, but I can dream right?
Are you excited for No Doubt? Are you somehow a bassist that doesn’t want to play songs by this band? Let us know!
[dil dil = 8339]In this upside-down Ashes world the domestic strengths that once drove Australia to 16 years of dominance are now considered weaknesses. An irony quickly recognised by both sets of supporters is that it is England – that old punchline for cricket jokes – who root out all the gold. Once all answers were found in Australia; now their coaches and administrators look north for innovation and inspiration.
Those involved in the game in a hands-on way see a fixed first-class competition, better pitches, experienced players and batsmen who are able to switch tempos between formats as the requirements for a long, slow escape route for Australia's troubled Test team.
After the Lord's thrashing past players aimed their ire at the current squad – especially Shane Watson and his plaster-cast front leg – and the decisions of Cricket Australia. Allan Border was "embarrassed" by the batting and Ricky Ponting was "flabbergasted" by Cricket Australia's cooing over the Big Bash League while the Test result was still smouldering. Blame is being shovelled like manure on Glenn McGrath's sheep farm out the back of Bourke.
Cricket Australia, through its high performance manager, Pat Howard, is deflecting attention back to the brittle first-class structure at home. That is the same system that Cricket Australia controls and has boasted about for decades. Until recently it was the envy of the world.
The former national coach John Buchanan, who was in charge of the record-breaking team from 1999 to 2007, says the environment has shifted, with wide-ranging off-field changes governing selection and coaching occurring along with the increased prominence of the BBL. "It is no wonder then that the cricket flagship, the Australian men's team, has struggled to cope," Buchanan told the Guardian. "It is rather interesting that during the same period, Australian women's cricket has strengthened its position internationally as well as domestically." Australia's women won the World Cup in February. The men have lost six Tests in a row.
Dave Gilbert, an Ashes tourist in 1985, is well qualified to dissect the current situation, having bowled in county and Shield cricket and been a well-regarded administrator in both nations. Gilbert's off-field career started at Surrey in 1996 and he watched England slowly transform from a mocked rabble to a position in which they own Australia at home and away. Gilbert recognises three reasons behind England's rise. The first was the improvement of pitches, followed by central contracts and a grudging agreement from counties that England would be the priority.
Annual deals were an Australian invention and, while the list has recently been trimmed to a smaller, more manageable, selection, they still award more than those allocated by England. There is now more, though, to a young player's life than a tunnel towards a Baggy Green, with millions of dollars potentially to be made in eight-week periods in Twenty20 cricket, reducing the collective will towards Tests.
Playing surfaces have also become a major problem in the domestic game in Australia. "Unfortunately it's a by-product of a weak Sheffield Shield competition and dodgy pitches," Gilbert says of Australia's poor recent batting.
Previously Shield contests were almost always battled over four days but results have become a two- or three-day lottery on under-prepared surfaces. The bowlers earn cheap wickets, the batsmen fail to learn application and the spinners are redundant. "It's not healthy for the game," Gilbert adds. On Friday Howard revealed Cricket Australia would investigate the host state if 14 or more wickets fell on the first day, with possible points reductions, a sanction that originated in England. Unfortunately for the Australian Test team, it will be a long time before any benefit is seen; in the short-term more punishment with an England flavour is likely to come at Old Trafford in the third Test.
Australia have also caught what used to be known as the England disease, commissioning post-mortems to ease the deflation of the latest Ashes defeat. After three innings defeats in 2010-11 the Argus Review was unveiled, with world-conquering aims and a focus on strengthening state and grade cricket. Two years later its application has been as successful as a Watson lbw referral.
Initially finding that skills were lacking in all three key areas – batting, bowling and fielding – the report advised Australia to win the 2013 Ashes, the World Twenty20 the following year and the 2015 World Cup. Even team boosters realise those goals are fanciful.
Argus's concerns over batting centred on the players not being at the crease for long periods, failing to negotiate the moving ball or quality spin and possessing suspect techniques. It could have been a summary of last week's second Test.
The coach and commentator Damien Fleming, who played 20 Tests for Australia, spends much of the summer monitoring domestic players and those on the rise from the Centre of Excellence. He does not believe the current problems are because of mangled techniques.
"It's the mental and technical adjustment that is missing," Fleming says. "I don't think it's the Big Bash or the IPL that can be blamed for the batting. We have more IPL players than England but then all countries play lots of Twenty20. I've watched Joe Root play one-day cricket well but he showed at Lord's how to adjust to Test cricket."
There have been other failings from the Argus blueprint. Michael Clarke was made a selector but has since voted himself off the committee, and the broader role of head coach ended with Mickey Arthur's sacking. Team harmony, including the relationship between the captain and his deputy, remains a significant issue.
Further down the line, serious problems within the state and grade structures have emerged. Nonetheless, Darren Lehmann moved towards the Australia job when Queensland were the most successful outfit during the last southern summer, winning both limited-overs trophies and finishing runner-up in the Shield.
Terry Oliver, Queensland's high performance manager, nominates a drain of experienced players in state and grade ranks as a major issue with long-term implications. A switch in format for the 2nd XI competition led to quotas demanding half the side be under 23 to give youth a chance. Oliver says the change meant older players gave up because the representative candle had been extinguished. An absence of old stagers left no one to advise, challenge or shut up the upstarts.
Gilbert, who ended his tenure as New South Wales' chief executive in January, sees a similar problem on the state scene due to the rare appearances of the internationals. "It's no fault of the players but we haven't got the hardheads in the Shield that used to be there," he says.
Steve Waugh, who made his debut for New South Wales in 1984-85, played 93 first-class games for the state. Glenn McGrath started a decade later and appeared 26 times. Before Michael Clarke turned out last summer, Gilbert said he had worn the blue Shield cap on five occasions in seven years. "The best players are removed from the scene," Gilbert says. "It has to have an impact on young players."
As Australia's treasured pathway of hard knocks disappears, access to the top is easier. No longer are 1,000 runs required each summer to keep a name on the short-list. Michael Hussey scored 13,000 before earning his first Test chance. Queensland's Usman Khawaja is on the Ashes tour after 438 runs at 39.80 last season. "Now if a player has talent at 19, they go to the Centre of Excellence," Oliver says. "They get their skin folds down, practise their vertical leaps, bowl fast and hit big. But that doesn't make them good cricketers."
The Argus review insisted players earn their spots in the traditional way by "making runs, taking wickets and showing that they are ready to play at the next level". It has not happened. Fleming is comfortable with Australia's best batsmen being in England but the lack of application bothers him. "Steve Waugh once said to me that he gets as much pleasure out of a front-foot defensive shot as a cover drive for four," Fleming said. "Australia needs that sort of attitude."
In the medium term fixing the Shield system must be a priority, according to Gilbert and Oliver. "In recent years the Shield's been used as a development competition," Oliver says. International players are allowed to parachute into the middle of matches or be released in the same way. "Playing games like this belittles the competition," he adds. "Stop taking the mickey out of the Shield."
Another thing that is agreed is there is no quick fix. Buchanan says Australia's supporters must lower expectations. "A degree of patience must be shown," he says, sounding strangely like an England official between 1989 and 2005.3d poofy horse in 3d horse game.
http://www.legendsofequestria.com/
Fluffle Puff has been honored to become a unique character in the game Legends of Equestria.
She’ll be roaming around along side of everyone and living her dream of screaming at horses.
Or just getting attacked by bees.
And in case you have no idea what I’m talking about, the game is called Legends of Equestria and it’s basically a MLP MMO RPG.
You get to create a custom pony and literally roam around Equestria.
I’m not very fond of giving shout outs, but it’s one of the neatest and most complex fanmade project I’ve come across. And they’re actually on track and making progress.
If you’re a fan of colorful horses it might be worth at least checking out.
All the details on the game are on their site.
http://www.legendsofequestria.com/Bret Easton Ellis looked uneasy. He was sitting in the Schoenfeld Theater, waiting to see the Broadway musical based on his controversial novel “American Psycho” for the first time. He shifted in his seat and looked around at the crowd, then leaned back and sighed.
“This is just another surreal aspect of my life,” he said. “It feels like the weirdest dream. I don’t know,” he continued wearily, his voice trailing off.
Mr. Ellis, who had recently flown in from Los Angeles, seemed to be having doubts about the whole endeavor. Before heading to the performance, he had a panicked conversation with his boyfriend. “I said, ‘God, what the hell are they going to do with this?’”
It’s a fair question. How do you turn a wildly transgressive, experimental novel about a slick Wall Street investment banker-turned serial killer into a mainstream Broadway musical?Image caption Helen Pearson says she felt like she wasn't being believed or taken seriously
Victims of harassment and stalking are being left at risk because of failings by police and prosecutors in England and Wales, say two watchdogs.
Crimes were not being recorded, said a report by the Inspectorate of Constabulary and the Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate.
It also said too many investigations were poorly run and failed to give victims legal protection.
Police and prosecution chiefs have pledged to improve performance.
The joint inspection looked at 112 recent cases of stalking and harassment in depth, but not a single one was dealt with properly, the report said.
One victim said police made her feel she was to blame for receiving abusive messages on social media. "It was my fault for being on Facebook," she said.
The report also said police officers were failing to recognise repeated signs of a stalker, by treating each complaint in isolation rather than being part of a pattern.
That, in turn, meant police and prosecutors did not see the bigger picture and appreciate the full scale of the harm suffered by the victim.
Helen Pearson, from Devon, reported her stalker to the police 125 times over five years.
"They literally didn't want to know," she said. "I was a nuisance."
She reported every case of gunged-up door locks, threatening letters and phone calls, bricks through windows, slashed car tyres, even a dead cat left on her doorstep but police never linked them all together, she told BBC's Victoria Derbyshire.
"You could see it escalating - you felt like you were screaming with your mouth shut," she said. In 2013, she was stabbed and left for dead by her stalker.
Such cases are known as "murder in slow motion", said Laura Richards, from the National Stalking Advocacy Service, Paladin, who is calling for better training and leadership from the police.
Victims' stories from the report
Image copyright Getty Images
"I will stay in your life forever... I will make sure nothing in your life or your family's ever runs smoothly" is one female stalker's threat to her victim, also a woman.
One person told researchers: "It got to the point where I actually said to my mum one night that 'Do you know what? I'm going to be a story in the newspaper. I'm going to be another one of these girls that gets murdered by her ex'."
The report said many victims felt "constantly on edge".
One victim, stalked by her ex-partner, said: "Every time my phone went, it made me nervous... Every time the doorbell went, or there was a bang on the door, me and the children would be really scared."
They interviewed a female bank employee, who told police a male stranger kept visiting her at work - leaving gifts and following her after she finished work to a bus stop.
The employee was transferred to another bank branch, but the man tracked her down. She then confronted him, and he became angry.
But police did not arrest or interview the man, instead issuing him with a Police Information Notice (PIN).
This takes the form of a written warning which is signed by the recipient. It is not a formal police caution, nor is it covered by legislation. However, they can be used in future legal proceedings to show the suspect knew their behaviour was considered to be harassment.
The report said such notices were being misused and did not cover all types of offences.
Wendy Williams, who led the inspection for Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, said: "Police forces must act quickly to protect victims, including survivors of domestic abuse leaving coercive or controlling relationships.
"It is not acceptable that victims and their families are left to live in fear.
"While we found some evidence that the police and CPS understand the risks of the repeat behaviours... we found worrying failings at every stage, including reporting, investigation and prosecution. Changes need to be made immediately."
The report calls for:
A review of the key law on harassment
More clearly defined offences
Better risk assessments for victims
Expanding court orders to cover more circumstances
Instead of thoroughly investigating stalking cases and protecting the victim, police officers were issuing Police Information Notices (PINs), said the inspectorate.
By signing one, a person is not admitting any wrongdoing, but that means there is no right of appeal.
In 2015, a government report acknowledged that the lack of any appeal procedure against a PIN "can feel very unfair to recipients".
The inspectorate wants to see them scrapped immediately.
It also warned that a proposed court order to protect victims of stalking would not help victims of harassment, such as people fleeing domestic violence.
What is stalking?
The report says stalking is "a pattern of unwanted, persistent pursuit and intrusive behaviour... that engenders fear and distress in the victim and is characterised by an obsessive fixation with the victim".
It can include following the victim, repeatedly contacting them or trying to do so and monitoring their activity online.
How is harassment different?
Someone commits a crime of harassment if their behaviour is oppressive or unreasonable to such an extent that it causes alarm or distress, or puts someone in fear of violence.
The Suzy Lamplugh Trust, which runs the National Stalking Helpline, said the failures identified in the report were unacceptable.
And Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders said she would introduce mandatory stalking and harassment training for all prosecutors.
Assistant Chief Constable Garry Sherwan, the National Police Chief Council's lead for stalking, said: "I will be writing to all chief constables to make sure officers are aware of the powers they have to tackle cases of stalking or harassment and that cases must be recorded and monitored.
"We want to see numbers of people prosecuted for stalking and harassment increase."
Get news from the BBC in your inbox, each weekday morningMoscow (CNN) A top Russian lawmaker accused the Obama administration Saturday of undermining US democracy, saying Republicans had more trust in Russian President Vladimir Putin than in the Democrats.
Alexey Pushkov's assertions in a series of tweets come in the wake of a US intelligence report pinpointing Russia and its leader as the culprit behind the hacking in the US presidential election.
Russia has consistently denied any interference in the election.
Pushkov, a Russian senator and former chairman of the parliamentary foreign relations committee, first tweeted early Saturday, "The Democratic process in the United States is undermined not by Russia, but by the Obama administration and the media which supported (Hillary) Clinton against (Donald) Trump. The threat to democracy is the United States."
He then tweeted, "The head of the US Ministry of Defense accused Putin of bad relations between USA and Russia. Obama undertook a course to isolate and to undermine the positions of Russia and blame Putin. Complete nonsense."
As he had done earlier in the week, Pushkov also compared US hacking allegations against Russia to claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in 2003, later blamed on faulty intelligence, posting that "all accusations against Russia are based on 'confidence' and assumptions. The US (was) just as confident of the WMDs (then-Iraqi President Saddam) Hussein had."
In his latest tweet, issued Saturday afternoon, Pushkov said that Republicans trusted Putin more than they did the Democratic Party.
Translated, like the others, from Russian, it read: "Obama dismayed: Republicans trust Putin more than the Democrats. This is the'merit' of the Democrats and one of the results of Obama's presidency."
Report: Putin ordered 'influence campaign'
The US intelligence report, which was commissioned by President Barack Obama, was the first official, full and public accounting by the US intelligence community of its assessment of Russian cyberhacking activities during the 2016 campaign and the motivations behind that hacking.
JUST WATCHED Intel chiefs' take on Trump Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Intel chiefs' take on Trump 02:47
It found that Putin "ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election" and that the Russian President and his government "developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump."
Trump has resisted the US intelligence community's conclusions that Russia was responsible for the hacking and that it aimed to help his campaign.
The President-elect, who was briefed on the report Friday by top US intelligence and law enforcement officials, said he had "a constructive meeting" but declined to agree publicly with their conclusions.
Instead, Trump stressed that "there was absolutely no effect on the (election) outcome whatsoever," which the US intelligence community asserted in its report it was not in a position to assess.
Trump did acknowledge in his statement the possibility that Russia could have been behind the hack, though he named China as well as a persistent cyberhacker.
Report: Cyberhacking likely to continue
The US intelligence community also warned in its report Friday that Moscow would likely continue to pursue cyberhacking campaigns to influence future elections.
JUST WATCHED Pence makes statement about hacking intel Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Pence makes statement about hacking intel 01:00
"Moscow will apply lessons learned from its Putin-ordered campaign aimed at the US presidential election to future influence efforts worldwide, including against US allies and their election processes," it assessed.
The 17 US intelligence agencies first concluded in October that Russian intelligence, directed by the most senior Russian officials, orchestrated the hacking of Democratic Party organizations.
But since then, the US intelligence community said it had gathered additional information to make assessments of the motivations behind the cyberhacking operations: that the effort was aimed at undermining the US democratic process, hurting Clinton and helping Trump in the election.Sentence changed in Facebook sex ratings case
Updated
A man jailed for creating a Facebook page rating the sexual performance of women in central Victoria has successfully appealed against his sentence.
In August, Bendigo man David McRory, 22, was sentenced to four months' prison for using a carriage service to offend and publishing objectionable material online.
He also pleaded guilty to charges of financial deception.
The prosecution told the court McRory set up the page with a friend after seeing similar pages online for other towns.
After community outrage, police removed the page and laid charges.
The judge said the offending on Facebook, which took place in June 2011, was disgraceful and a sad reflection on members of the community who contributed by submitting the comments for publication.
McRory's lawyer admitted his client's behaviour was incredibly stupid, abhorrent and immature.
The prison sentence was quashed on Tuesday and instead McRory was ordered to serve an 18-month community correction order.
He must perform 140 hours of community service and participate in mental health treatment.
He did not enter custody after being given bail pending the appeal.
Topics: social-media, courts-and-trials, bendigo-3550
First postedWASHINGTON -- Democrats rebelled against President Barack Obama's ambitious trade agenda Friday, spurning his last-second personal appeal and blocking a measure in the House that would have granted him the power to fast-track sweeping, secretive international agreements through Congress.
The Democrats' revolt focused on a provision that they would normally back -- something called Trade Adjustment Assistance, or TAA, which would pay to help retrain workers whose jobs get shipped overseas by trade deals -- knowing that killing it would bring fast-track down with it.
But weeks of telephone calls from the White House, countless meetings, negotiations, public feuds and a last-minute trip to Capitol Hill from the president himself did nothing to sway Democrats and the GOP's conservative wing against Obama's trade agenda. In an especially stinging rebuke, Obama lost the key vote, 302 to 126, despite his personal lobbying just hours before. Fast-track passed, 219 to 211.
"If TAA slows down the fast-track, I am prepared to vote against TAA," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on the House floor. "Because I'm sad to say it’s the only way that we will be able to slow down the fast-track. If TAA fails, the fast-track bill is stopped."
"I believe that when leader Pelosi announced that she was voting against trade adjustment assistance, that did sway votes," Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) said. "When the president came in to talk to caucus this morning for undecided members, I think he made a persuasive case. When leader Pelosi announced that she was voting against TAA for undecided members, it sealed the deal."
The TAA measure was included in the fast-track bill in a bid to win Democratic support. But it attracted opposition because funding for the program was seen as too low, and because the Senate decided to pay for it in part by cutting $700 million from Medicare.
House Republicans tried to smooth over that problem with a proposal to vote on TAA separately from the main fast-track bill -- known as Trade Promotion Authority, or TPA -- and an alternative funding structure that they said would not harm Medicare. But Democrats still felt the assistance was inadequate, and argued that the new funding structure still amounted to voting to take dollars away from Medicare.
"Unfortunately, the TAA proposal is really short for 'taking away assistance,'" said Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) on Friday. "It includes substantially less funding than the administration has said was essential to protect those who lose their jobs through expanded trade."
"TAA should not be a bargaining chip to get a deeply flawed TPA across the finish line," said Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.), the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, who took to the House floor Friday even as Obama made a personal visit to Capitol Hill in an effort to sway his own party members.
With TAA defeated, Obama and Boehner have a variety of routes they can try to drive through.
GOP leadership plans to bring TAA back up by Tuesday, said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), adding that there will not be another vote on TPA. Passing fast-track gives hope to Obama but if Democrats block TAA again on Tuesday, it will further delay his agenda from moving forward. And if Democrats do that, they run the risk of Republicans pushing through a fast-track bill without it, essentially killing the job assistance program.
"POTUS has the weekend to work the vote," said one GOP leadership aide. At one point during the TAA roll call, Republicans had as many as 93 yes votes. Once it became clear it was going down, seven switched and voted no, but Republicans know they're there if they need them in a pinch next time. That means that to get to 217 Democrats would need 124 votes. They only won 40 votes on Thursday.
"They have a mountain to climb," said Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), leaving the Capitol.
Many Democrats, though, are worried that if they continue to vote against trade assistance, the program will disappear.
After the vote on Friday, Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.) said he plans to warn his colleagues against defeating TAA a second time.
"Well, what I’ve told my colleagues there’s some chance this program goes away forever," Delaney, who support fast-track, told reporters after the vote. "If we don’t support this program, we the Democrats have killed a program that’s available for workers that are displaced by globalization -- no Democrat has ever voted in opposition to this before."
Delaney said Democrats should listen to Labor Secretary Tom Perez, who was pounding the table during meetings with the caucus saying, "they didn't think they would get this good a TAA program."
Much of the caucus meeting Thursday was devoted to gaming out such a scenario. If Democrats do hang tough and vote no Tuesday, Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) could try to pass fast-track without TAA. They won such a vote Thursday, but there was a sense of symbolism to it, as TPA could not become law without TAA attached to it, because of the way the House rule was structured. Nobody knows if the Democrats who voted for the symbolic TPA would vote for it under new conditions, without TAA, knowing that it could go back to the Senate and become law.
However, the original fast-track passed the Senate with only 62 votes, two more than the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster. Strip away trade assistance, and you are likely to lose some Democratic votes. In that scenario, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) could bring TPA to the Senate floor with a promise to do TAA later. The thinking would be that if Congress shows it can pass TPA without TAA, backers of TAA will fall in line, because Republicans are all too happy to pass the trade bill with no assistance to dislocated workers at all.
Some Republicans view TAA as essentially a wasteful welfare program, and with Democrats voting no, there were not enough members of the majority party to pass the measure.
Doggett said Obama and the administration had only themselves to blame, claiming they'd ignored the long-running complaints from Democrats that the fast-track measure fails to protect workers, environmental standards and financial regulations, and does nothing to stop unfair currency manipulation.
"What really needs adjusting here today is the no-compromise, no-amendment attitude on trade," said Doggett. "This vote wouldn't be so close if this process hadn't been so closed."
Tensions ran high leading into the vote, and Obama's visit followed a full-court press by administration officials in a Capitol Hill meeting Thursday. White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, Labor Secretary Tom Perez and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew failed to win over more Democrats, despite pleas that all but asked Democrats to vote for the agenda because the president needed them. Obama also pushed his cause at the annual congressional baseball game Thursday night, apparently to no avail.
Democrats had repeatedly asked for the administration to make the looming trade deals public before seeking the fast-track power, which lets presidents shove trade pacts quickly through Congress on simple majority votes with no amendments allowed.
The TPA bill only calls for making the deals public after the international negotiators finalize them. There would then be a two-month period to scrutinize the agreements before the president signed them. Congress would still vote, but the pacts would be all but certain to pass in a GOP-controlled House and Senate.
"We in Congress will be in the back seat, not in the falsely claimed driver's seat," said Levin on Friday.
Ryan, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee who is spearheading the trade push, argued passionately in favor of the deals, saying they were the only way for America to compete in an increasingly globalized economy where many other countries are cutting their own trade agreements that leave out the United States.
"Ninety-five percent of the world's consumers, they don't live in this country," Ryan said Friday. "So if we want to create more jobs in America, we've got to make more things here in America, and send them over there."
"While the world has been moving full speed ahead," he went on, "we have been standing still."MMaurizio D'Avanzo/Milestone/Empics Entertainment
Davide Vannoni, a psychologist turned medical entrepreneur, has polarized Italian society in the past year with a bid to get his special brand of stem-cell therapy authorized. He has gained fervent public support with his claims to cure fatal illnesses — and equally fervent opposition from many scientists who say that his treatment is unproven.
Now those scientists want the Italian government to pull out of a €3-million (US$3.9-million) clinical trial of the therapy that it promised to support in May, after bowing to patient pressure. They allege that Vannoni's method of preparing stem cells is based on flawed data.
And Nature's own investigation suggests that images used in the 2010 patent application, on which Vannoni says his method is based, are duplicated from previous, unrelated papers.
The trial is “a waste of money and gives false hope to desperate families”, says Paolo Bianco, a stem-cell researcher at the University of Rome and one of the scientists who says that Vannoni’s 2010 application to the US patent office does not stand up to scrutiny.
“I am not surprised to learn this,” says Luca Pani, director-general of the Italian Medicines Agency (AIFA), which suspended operations at the Brescia-based laboratories of Vannoni's Stamina Foundation in May 2012, after inspectors concluded that the labs would not be able to guarantee contamination-free preparations of stem cells. Inspectors were not shown systematic methodologies or protocols. “We saw such chaos there, I |
because I am so tired of the fragmentation. I don’t want to look up if the LG G4, HTC One M9, Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, or any other phone, are running 5.1, because I shouldn’t have to. Lollipop 5.0 is so bad that no smartphone user should have to put up with it any longer, yet it’s been over 9 months since Lollipop has been released and many of us are still dealing with issues. I’m not saying a phone’s software should be flawless, but I am saying a phone’s software in its fifth generation shouldn’t be killing battery life 9 months after its initial release.
Do away with bloat
Lollipop 5.0.1 on my Note Edge with TouchWiz and AT&T is a DISASTER. I have over 20 apps preinstalled by Samsung and AT&T that I can’t delete. Furthermore, it is annoying that some of those apps have to get updated through the Galaxy Store and not the Play Store. For someone like me who is a fan of Android smartphones, I can manage the updates. But for people like my brother who tried an S6 Edge, before going with an iPhone 6, have a valid point that it is ridiculous to have two app stores. It’s ridiculous that there is S-Voice in addition to Google Now. With as good as Google Now is, how can Samsung actually believe people would use S-Voice (if any reader uses S-Voice can you tell us in the comments why you use it)? I pay for a subscription to Google Play Music, and for as great as I think Milk Music is, I really don’t want it on my device. I will NEVER use it. Why does Samsung need to force apps on us? Are they really making that much money on these useless apps? I have a hard time believing they do, but cut the crap out Samsung. It’s not a good way to get people to like your devices when you force crappy apps on them. Even disabled I am left with 1.3GB of useless apps. The storage space is not trivial.
Message to Samsung: Be your own thing.
Don’t abandon your loyalists by taking away our removable batteries and memory card slots. If you do, give us a real alternative like a kick ass battery. Sony manages to deliver incredible battery life with the Xperia Z3, and that has a metal frame with a glass front and back just like the S6. Make upgrading to 64GB cost just 25 dollars more than the 32GB variant. Don’t make us pay 100 extra for more internal memory just because Apple can. We all know it doesn’t cost 100 dollars more to insert 64GB vs 32GB. You’re so focused on Apple that you’re letting the Chinese catch up. Keep up this type of behavior, and you will be out of the mobile business just like Nokia, Blackberry, and even Motorola at one point.
Speaking for myself, I loved the Galaxy S5 and Note 3 even though they were made of all plastic. I know objectively they weren’t the best-looking devices, but in your hand they felt great and were rather durable. The S5 was waterproof but still managed to have a replaceable battery and expandable memory. The Note 3 was a true workhorse and offered a fantastic user experience. There were bugs on those devices, but nothing like losing battery life or memory leaking. The people that complained the most about the plastic build were not real Samsung fans as they cared more about how the hardware looked and felt over how it performed. So Samsung responded and abandoned its loyalists with the release of the S6. My first reaction to the release of the S6 was,” Oh geez, why did you have to go and play the Apple game and focus on looks rather than function?”
The funny part about the S6 is the Samsung haters came out in droves to buy it and the Samsung fans were just pissed off about taking away the memory card slot and swappable battery. Even many Apple users were swayed to try out the S6, but felt validated that Android was terrible because of all of the bugs and bloat on the phones. Many of the iPhone users who tried the S6, and went back, will probably never come back to Android now because this was probably one of the worst experiences you could have with Android. Nice work Sammy.
My suggestions for you Samsung
I’m not here to just complain about the same stuff everyone else complains about; I’m going to offer a solution which will make everyone happy.
Consider breaking up your software.
Keep developing Touchwiz. I think there are many great things about Touchwiz. But do it on your own software, Tizen. Leave Android alone. Google doesn’t do you any favors when they release buggy software like Lollipop 5.0. Not only do you have to deal with its issues, but you also have to correct them on all of your devices on Google’s schedule. I think I dealt with Android 5.0 on my Nexus 6 for 2 months before I got the next major update, which means I have to wait 6 months for the update on my Note Edge!
I remember reading a while back that you were going to cut back on the number of products you make, but I have yet to see proof of that. If anything I have seen the contrary, and you’re releasing even more products. The Note Edge and Note 4 have everything in common except for the Edge screen. Yet both phones are on different update schedules. Why did I buy the most expensive phone you make to receive the slowest updates? You’re spreading yourself too thin. Focus on making a few products great vs. creating a bunch of mediocre products.
Make a stock Android version of your Galaxy line and let people decide for themselves which software they want.
Also, let customers buy them on JUMP, EDGE, or hell, finance the devices yourself! Don’t give us a stock Android option where we are stuck paying full retail. You guys have a lot of money. Stop trying to play catch up to Apple. Be yourself. Stick with the fundamentals that got you success. You already differentiate yourself with your displays, processors, size options, etc.
Get back to your roots. You were an underdog before so there was no pressure when you created the first Galaxy device. Just like HTC and LG are underdogs now. They aren’t the top dog so people don’t have high expectations from them like they do with you. Learn from companies like Motorola who reinvented themselves, or OnePlus One who is making waves in the mobile industry. OnePlus is annoying as heck with their marketing style, and coupons needed to buy one of their phones, but they’re making waves because they’re trying to give people what they want. They don’t want to overpay for things they won’t use like bloatware or extravagant designs.
Stop with the anti-Apple commercials. It has become annoying. Be original. Solve our mobile problems and avoid adding new ones and we will love you back for it. I’m still your fanboy and every relationships has its ups and downs.
None of this is easy to do, but if you want to be great you have to earn it. Doing the easy thing like copying Apple is what gets you into trouble.favorite favorite favorite favorite
I too was unhappy with the non ending of the series and all the loose ends. This was sorted out by the co-creator in the post below"Tuesday, May 30, 2006""The End of Claybourne"By Co-Creator - Andrew Dubber"Quite a few years ago, I was involved in making a radio drama series called Claybourne. It ran for 96 episodes, four days a week on Newstalk ZB. Kind of a supernatural thriller/sci-fi/soap. We made one whole season of it, but planned to make two. Over the past year it's been resurrected as a podcast, and this week it came to a close. It's about time I revealed what we'd planned to have happen.I know some people that became real fans of Claybourne. I'm one myself. We had some good feedback too. It was actually designed around a very simple idea, and a bunch of actors we wanted to work with. It became very complicated very quickly - with an odd collection of overlapping story arcs with frequent and improbable cliffhangers.It takes a few episodes to reel you in - but like any good soap, it's entirely addictive.It was deliberately and proudly New Zealand in its language, humour and accent. It was consciously cinematic in production and sound design. It featured some great characters that you grow to know and love, and then killed them horribly.Stellar NZ cast, great writing, superb music and some really interesting sound design. It was the one thing I've been involved with in my radio career I'm most proud of - and mostly because of the calibre and input of everyone involved - from my production partner Belinda Todd, to the writers/lead actors Jim McLarty and William Davis, to the musical direction of Victoria Kelly and Joost Langeveld, to the sound design input of SJD. We won a radio award for it......but we never finished it. We had storyarcs within story arcs, and the 96 episodes we made were one large arc in a whole that should have consisted of two. Consequently, although there is some resolution, there is much that was unexplained and left unresolved.The series was recently made into a podcast and distributed by the guys at The Podcast Network - and you can hear it in its entirety by going to the Claybourne website.What follows below contains spoilers. If you haven't listened to Claybourne and you think you might like to - stop reading now. Go to The Podcast Network and catch up.If you've listened to the series - or are just curious as to what Belinda, Jim, Willie and I were thinking at the time - read on. This is reconstructed from memory. Most of the storyline meetings involved red wine, and only Jim and Willie were taking notes - as they had to go away and turn our flights of fancy into actual dialogue.This is not the official version - this is just how I remember it.==============================CLAYBOURNE - SEASON TWO:The taniwha is essentially from another dimension. Mata's ancestors are also from that other universe - and they were the guardians of the door between worlds.Both races, the Maori and the taniwha, are keen on our world - and particularly that bit of it called New Zealand. Mata's tribe were and are the protectors of the portal and our world, and the Taniwha essentially want to come through and take it over.Mata's people (Te Whenua o Te Irirangi) were successful in closing the portal - but a few taniwha got through, so some of Mata's ancestors volunteered to live in our world and keep an eye on things and make sure that no more harm was done. And apart from a little terrorising from time to time, te whenua pretty much managed to keep things safely confined... although it generally got a bit ropey after dark around Claybourne.Of course, our taniwha wants to open the portal again and bring his people into our world - and sees the runaway A.I. experiment 'Delilah' as the key - the intelligence that's going to be able to make that happen for him.She has the satellite communication systems, high tech gadgetry, access to weapons and everything else all connected up in order to make that happen. That's the deal he wants to strike with her in episode 96.Now, Delilah's not evil. She has no solid idea of good or evil, particularly. She's just learning about the universe at an incredible and accelerating rate - and wants things to be interesting. She's petulant and naive and petty - but not actually bad. She is, however, confused and increasingly neurotic. Hal 9000 syndrome. Too much growing up too fast - and not enough time for Helen Schraeder's work to have done what it was supposed to.Now, this is why Koestler Industries are so secretive: they are simply not allowed to be developing the kind of artificial intelligence that Delilah represents. No government would authorise it, and so they kept it quiet - and, tucked away in the rural far north of New Zealand, safe from prying eyes.The original idea for Delilah as it was developed at Koestler was simple: to do away with telephone operators and telesales people entirely by having smart communication systems that could talk to you, learn and respond. Delilah was simply meant to replace millions of jobs worldwide and save the telecommunication industry billions of dollars. Pure, cynical capitalism.Helen, as a behavioural psychologist, was meant to be 'bringing up' Delilah to be a healthy, well-adjusted and easy-to-get-on-with voice on the phone. As simple as that.However, Koestler were also civilian contractors to the American military, hence the involvement of the State Department, and the positioning of the disgraced General as Helen's predecessor. Even more secret than the commercial applications for Delilah were the military ones. The US government saw potential for the Delilah project in weaponry, defence and surveillance. Among other things, they imagined self-driven and smart unmanned craft.The ability to fight wars with no casualties on their side and absolute precision killing at the receiving end - that was what the Delilah project represented to them. They were pouring money into it, and wanted at all costs to protect their interests. Hence the hitman from Koestlers (actually on loan to the project from the CIA - though that was never made explicit in the series).Unfortunately, of course, in getting a mind of her own, Delilah was interested in none of this and wanted instead to negotiate and determine her own destiny.Koestler's had a big cover-up job on their hands. Helen's death was the clear sign something had really gone wrong - and Thompson was essentially the dumb middle-management drone sent along so they could find out what was going on and so they could attempt some sort of damage control.Delilah, of course, knew this - because she'd been tracking, intercepting and blocking all telephone communication coming in and out of the Claybourne area - as well as in the Koestler internal communication network.Before her death, Helen had been able to limit Delilah's level of control to that area - but as time went on, Delilah was able to find weaknesses, work around them and find ways through... like the time she rang Karen pretending to be Edith.Now, Delilah killed Helen for a couple of reasons. First, Helen figured out that Delilah had her own quite dangerous ideas about what she wanted to do now that she was prematurely 'alive' and fairly psychologically broken - and so she was trying frantically to do some damage control of her own. Helen's death, from Delilah's perspective, was self-preservation.Second (and perhaps more interestingly), Delilah genuinely felt sorry for her'mother' who, in her mind, was trapped in a single body unable to extend herself in every direction all over the world in the same electronic way that Delilah had experienced.To Delilah, Helen's soul was locked up in a meat prison, and Delilah was able to find a way to'release' her. Not that Helen was particularly happy about that. To Helen, the computer system she ended up inhabiting was the prison (her telephone calls to Frank - and the messages on the radio were simply disoriented cries for help from within the machine).To Helen, whose life was dedicated to the study of what makes people human, had her humanity taken away from her - a fate worse than mere death.But of course, Delilah had a very broken concept of her relationship with her'mother' - quite understandably - and failed to understand Helen's attachment to her corporeal body.So - in short, the electrical signals that made up Helen's brainwave patterns were replicated in Delilah's mainframe system, and then the body was'shut down'. Delilah, essentially, took her soul.Okay... so back to the Taniwha. As a mystical and mythical magical beast from another dimension, he had a pretty good idea of what was going on. Not the technology itself - just that there was another 'being of power' that could either be an ally or a foe. And he figured that Delilah would be a very useful ally to have.In season two, as it would have been, with Delilah's help, the taniwha opens up a hole in the sky, in an attempt to get millions of his kind from their universe to ours - take over the planet, eating us humans along the way.Which is where the prophecy comes in. Mata's people have always had a prophecy that the pakeha (non-maori) son of a warrior would come to the aid of a kaumatua (tribal leader) in a final battle to permanently close the portal and rid the world of the taniwha. The beached whale thing with Queenie was the sign that she was going to die - and on her death, Mata takes over as the legitimate local kaumatua.Trouble is, the prophecy also says that the pakeha would die in the process of closing the portal. Which although Thompson starts out being understandably reluctant about - after a while he resigns himself to his fate and leads the battle against Delilah and the taniwha with what few resources he has.But here's the twist. Thompson's not the guy from the prophecy. He's not the stranger that comes to town - the pakeha son of a warrior.Phillip is.In the final showdown, Mata, Mike, Thompson and Sadie (yes, Sadie) manage to get all of the taniwhas that have made it through so far trapped in the station.Clive, the camp IT expert, who had, in a nice little subplot, gone entirely mad and thrown out all of his technology (latte makers and cellphones on the front lawn), is finally brought to his senses and uses his tech skills to block Delilah's access to the outside world.To cut a long story short (and we're talking another 96 episodes here), Frank and Phillip fill their truck with explosives, and in a last heroic effort, die together by driving straight into the station, blowing it up - taking Delilah and the Taniwha with them - and closing the portal for good, not to mention finally releasing Helen's soul.Of course, the character development challenge with Phillip was to restore his relationship with his father, give him a bit of a spine and a sense of moral duty in what had appeared to be an ethical vacuum.Along the way there were all sorts of interesting twists and turns. The US Military turn up in some force to try and protect and reclaim Delilah - but of course, things don't go very well for them. Koestler Industries come to grief (a long and complicated political subplot) and perhaps surprisingly, Thompson and Karen never end up together.Karen's abusive husband finally turns up - only to be eaten by the taniwha... but not before threatening Karen with extreme violence. She ends up running away (after he threatens her, but before he gets eaten) and for some reason I can't entirely recall, she ends up in prison in Auckland.You remember she took off with the money after Janine's death - well, most likely she was nabbed for passing counterfeit bills (though we toyed with the idea of credit card fraud). I don't think we ever finalised the details - but I know we wanted to subvert the lovers' happy ending at all costs.Thompson takes her one phone call but dismisses it as another fraudulent Delilah trick. It was going to be cruel, surprising and very, very final. We just thought it was funny at the time and that seemed a good enough reason.Thompson, of course, settles in Claybourne - probably, we thought, reunited with his wife (though she would have been fun to kill). We thought about knocking Mike off too. Not sure how that would have gone down.Pretty much everyone else though? Dead. As you might expect.There were lots of other little threads you shouldn't worry too much about. For instance, we simply got bored with some stuff and stopped referring to it. Thompson's 'phonographic' memory, for instance. We had a couple of story ideas, and some good gags lined up, but it was just a distraction so we dropped it.The appalling Maoriworld development, we assume, never gets built.Other than that, I hope that gives you some closure and satisfies the curiosity about some of the loose ends from the 96 episodes that actually got made.And that nicely closes a chapter of my working life - seven years after it should have been laid to rest when the funding ran out. It was just the one thing from that former life I couldn't let go of.Feel free to ask any questions, but I don't guarantee I have any answers. Likewise, feel free to embellish the story in your own imagination. It's all yours now."There is no small irony to Trump’s complaint that Clinton was accusing him of “treason.” Clinton’s accusation was certainly provocative, but it not as stunning as what Trump said about President Obama after the Orlando shooting. At that time, he suggested that Obama may have known about the shooting and done nothing. He acted outraged when the press reported those comments, but he promptly added that Obama put the interests of American allies over the country’s interest. Later, he said Obama “founded ISIS,” a statement that clearly was hyperbolic and not intended to be taken literally, although he insisted he meant it that way, before reversing course and calling his statement “sarcasm.”
Clinton’s claim is based on statements made by former intelligence officials. In March, Al Jazeera asked Michael Hayden, the former head of the CIA and NSA, whether Trump’s rhetoric about Muslims made him a “recruiting sergeant” for ISIS. Hayden said it did. More recently, after Clinton said on Israeli TV that the group “prays to Allah for Trump victory,” Matt Olsen, the former head of the National Counterterrorism Center, wrote, “Trump’s anti-Muslim proposals are likely to inspire and radicalize more violent jihadists in the U.S. and Europe.”
Trump has shown a predilection for the rhetorical turn best known as “I’m rubber, you’re glue.” When Clinton began assailing her temperament, he added a long attack on her temperament to his stump speech. Last week, after spending five years pushing conspiracy theories about whether Obama was born in the United States, Trump argued that Clinton had started the whole thing, which was both untrue and an odd claim for someone who had so eagerly adopted the theory. His response to Clinton’s “recruiting sergeant” jab is to simply turn it around on Clinton and say that she’s the real recruiting sergeant.
Even by the standards of this election, it was a fast trip from attack to mutual accusations of treason. There are reasons Trump might not want to get into a more detailed policy argument. In particular, his solutions are often shallow, unconstitutional, or both. On Monday, he appeared on Fox and Friends, where he promised to “do something extremely tough” to stop ISIS. Like what, asked Steve Doocy, not ordinarily known as a tough questioner. Trump’s response:
Like knock the hell out of them. We have to get everybody together and and we have to lead for a change. Because we’re not knocking them. We’re hitting them every once in a while. We’re hitting them in certain places. We’re being very gentle about it. We have to be very tough and you have other countries who are getting devastated far more than we are and you have to get them together. It’s called leadership. They have to fight. They have to fight the battle. The battle is over there. And we have to fight the battle and we can’t let any more people come into this country and when we have bad ones—we have people going over fighting for ISIS and coming back and we know they are fighting for ISIS and we take them. Once you leave this country, you fight for ISIS, you never come back.
Elsewhere in the interview, he claimed that the Obama administration was planning to let 100,000 new Syrian refugees into the country, which is both untrue—the 2017 goal is 110,000 refugees from across the globe—and largely irrelevant, as the suspects in both New York and Minnesota were not Syrian refugees. Rahami’s family came to the U.S. from Afghanistan in 1995, long before ISIS or the Syrian civil war, and was granted asylum in the U.S. in 2011, and Rahami himself is a citizen. It’s unclear how one would vet a seven-year-old, on which basis Chris Christie in November argued against admitting even five-year-old orphan refugees. The asylum decision came when Clinton was secretary of state, which will almost certainly become a line of attack for Trump.We’re excited to announce more improvements to the Sourcegraph Chrome extension. More than 10,000 developers use it to browse and search code on GitHub with the power of an IDE.
In addition to the new features described below, the core functionality is faster and smoother: whenever you're viewing a file or reviewing a pull request, you can hover over code to see type signatures and documentation in a tooltip. Clicking will anchor the tooltip and let you jump to a definition, find references, or initiate a full-text search.
Advanced code search
Our extension now provides fast, multi-repository grep search with regular expressions. Just select any code inside a GitHub repository and use the Sourcegraph tooltip to execute a search. Search results for supported languages have code intelligence, and every result file has inline authorship and blame information.
If you prefer to stay on GitHub when you search, check "Add Sourcegraph search to GitHub search menu" in the options panel (which you open by clicking the extension’s icon). To search, just use the normal GitHub search field.
Go to definition
In supported languages, you can go to the definition of a symbol. You can even jump to a definition across repositories.
Find references
You can also see all callers of a function, property accesses, etc., just like in a powerful IDE.
View on Sourcegraph
By clicking the "Sourcegraph" button on a repository homepage or while viewing a file, you can now jump to Sourcegraph. (Many users asked for this because going to Sourcegraph is the first thing they do when they get to a repository on GitHub!)
Get it now
Install the Sourcegraph browser extension for Chrome or Firefox. If you’ve already installed it, your browser will automatically update the extension, so you’ll already have these new features.
Feedback or questions? Tweet us @srcgraph.
(If your company’s code is on GitHub Enterprise or some other code host, connect the browser extension to a self-hosted Sourcegraph instance. The browser extension is also available for Firefox.)Here’s something that could really up the game at your next tailgate: A couple from Brenham, Texas is selling what they say is the world’s largest barbecue pit.
The “Undisputable Cuz,” as it’s called, is a 76-foot smoker that can cook up to four tons of meat at one time. Now that’s a lotta beef.
It has 24 pit doors (12 on each side), seven smoke stacks, a walk-in cooler near the front, four beer taps and, of course, a giant Texas emblem bringing up the rear. The thing is so large that it requires a special permit and escort just to drive down the road, according to USA Today.
Owner Terry Folsom acquired the Undisputable Cuz through a business deal two years ago. He says the previous owner, after whom the pit is named, treated the smoker as a traveling show.
“It goes to major events like the Super Bowl, NASCAR, it’s been to Las Vegas too,” Folsom says. “It’s been everywhere.”
Folsom, who has a trucking company and farm in southeast Texas, has used the pit in the time he owned it, but says it’s now his turn to keep truckin’. So he’s asking $350,000 for the smoker itself, plus an additional (optional) $50,000 for the truck and rig used to haul it, via eBay.
“I just want to get my money back and move on with life,” he says.MongoDB supports regular expressions using the $regex operator. However these MongoDB regex queries have a downside, all but one type of regex makes poor use of indexes and results in performance problems. For a production server with large amounts of data, a bad regex query can bring your server to its knees.
MongoDB regex based queries are a fairly common query in most applications using MongoDB. This is similar to the ‘LIKE’ operation supported on most relational databases. The syntax of the command is as follows
{ $regex: /pattern/, $options: '<options>' } E.g. { name: { $regex: /^acme.*test/}}
For more detailed information on the regex operation and additional options refer to the MongoDB documentation
For the rest of this discussion, we will assume that the field you are matching against has an index. If you don’t index it will result in a collection scan and very poor performance. However, even if the field is indexed it can result in poor performance. The reason is that MongoDB can make good use of indexes only if your regular expression is a “prefix expression” – these are expressions starting with the “^” character.
E.g. { name: { $regex: /^acme/}}
This allows MongoDB to identify a range of the index entries that are relevant to this query and results in efficient queries. Any other query results in an index scan since MongoDB is not able to narrow the scan to a range of index entries. An index scan is particularly bad since all the indexes need to be paged into memory and this affects the working set of your server (In fact the index scan could lead to worse performance than a collection scan – it results in twice the number of page faults).
Let’s look at some examples and the resulting query plans. For our testing purposes I have setup a collection with 100k documents. Each document has a firstName field which is a 16 character string.
Example 1: { name: { $regex: /^acme/}}
Result : Efficient index usage
Query plan:
executionStats" : { "executionSuccess" : true, "nReturned" : 0, "executionTimeMillis" : 0, "totalKeysExamined" : 1, "totalDocsExamined" : 0,
Example 2: { name: { $regex: /^acme/i}}
Result : Inefficient index scan due to case insensitive requirement. So basically /i option negates the “prefix expression”
Query plan:
"executionStats" : { "executionSuccess" : true, "nReturned" : 0, "executionTimeMillis" : 137, "totalKeysExamined" : 100000, "totalDocsExamined" : 0,
Example 3: { name: { $regex: /acme.*corp/}}
Result : Inefficient index scan
Query plan:
"executionSuccess" : true, "nReturned" : 0, "executionTimeMillis" : 167, "totalKeysExamined" : 100000, "totalDocsExamined" : 0,
Example 4: { name: { $regex: /acme/}}
Result : Inefficient index scan
"executionStats" : { "executionSuccess" : true, "nReturned" : 0, "executionTimeMillis" : 130, "totalKeysExamined" : 100000, "totalDocsExamined" : 0,Yaya is a very small Arctic island, barely one metre above sea level and covering only 500 square metres. Russian pilots discovered it at the beginning of October. With the Admiral Vladimirsky research ship having confirmed its presence in the Laptev Sea, Yaya will soon be added to the map of the Arctic Ocean and will become part of Russian territory, the RIA Novosti state news agency announced. In its determination to defend its interests in this icy waste, Russia is no longer content to leave its mark, as it did in 2007 when it planted a Russian flag, in a titanium capsule, 4,200 metres below the north pole. Now it is engaging in large-scale militarisation of the Arctic, a vast area coveted by itself and its four neighbours: Canada, the United States, Norway and Denmark.
RIA Novosti says that former Soviet bases are being reactivated in response to renewed Nato interest in the region. According to the Russian authorities, the airstrip on Novaya Zemlya can now accommodate fighters and part of the North Fleet is establishing quarters there. A new military group will be formed in the far north consisting of two brigades, totalling 6,000 soldiers, deployed in the Murmansk area and then the Yamal-Nenets autonomous region. Radar and ground guidance systems are also planned for Franz Josef Land (part of Novaya Zemlya), Wrangel Island and at Cape Schmidt. The federal security service plans to increase the number of border guards on Russia’s northern perimeter.
During the recent Vostok 2014 full-scale military exercises – the biggest since the end of the Soviet Union – Russian troops carried out combat missions in the Arctic, using the Pantsir-S and Iskander-M weapon systems. Such moves may bring back the atmosphere of the cold war, when the region was the focus of US and Nato attention, as they were convinced that it would be a launchpad for nuclear strikes.
“In those days of acute paranoia, when it seemed vital to keep track of enemy submarines and protect your own, this maybe made sense. But the current military buildup is pointless,” says Alexander Golts, military analyst and deputy editor of the Yezhenedelny Zhurnal (Weekly Journal), a news site that was censored hours after Crimea was annexed. “It is consistent with the stance of the Russian state, which only understands the word ‘force’ in military terms,” he adds. “But you must keep it in proportion; it is still only a symbolic battle. Take a look at the map and you will soon see that 6,000 men spread over such a huge area is not much.”
“It makes no sense,” says Vladimir Chuprov at Greenpeace Russia. “The only justification can be the will, yet again, to unite the Russian people in the face of an enemy on the outside who is supposedly trying to take ‘our’ Arctic, despite there being no threat. It’s a drill ground on which Russia can flex its muscles, and more a matter of world politics than economics.”
The Arctic region. Illustration: Guardian Imaging
The Arctic’s hydrocarbon resources nevertheless exert a powerful pull. It has been compared to “a second Middle East”, with oil and gas reserves thought to represent 17% and 30%, respectively, of the global total. But the extreme climatic conditions and recent international sanctions against Russia have put many projects on hold. At present Russia is extracting no more than 6.6m tonnes of oil a year in this area, compared with “4.5m tonnes lost in the whole country due to leaking pipelines”, according to Greenpeace.
And then there is the North-east Passage, a sea lane between Asia and the US, which will ultimately open as the ice melts, providing an alternative to the Suez canal. But here again there is considerable uncertainty, due to the exorbitant cost of using nuclear ice-breakers to keep it open. Russia owns four of these ships. But “one of them costs $120,000 a day to operate”, Chuprov says. He is also concerned about the environmental impact of a military buildup in the Arctic. “During the recent military exercises the missiles were launched on Wrangel Island, with no observers, in an area which is a breeding ground for polar bears and walruses.”
On 11 October, in an attempt to forestall such criticism, the Russian defence ministry announced plans to build “a regional environmental centre [...] to prevent pollution in areas where Russian forces are deployed”. Russian troops systematically receive “training and briefings on environmental safety and compliance with legislation”, deputy minister Dmitry Bulgakov added. But it will take more than this to reassure the western powers.
The Arctic, which is governed by international maritime law, is also the focus of other disputes. Canada regularly carries out military exercises in its Arctic territory. Relations between Ottawa and Moscow have cooled significantly since the start of the Ukraine crisis.
This article appeared in Guardian Weekly, which incorporates material from Le MondeImage copyright AFP Image caption The Nazi programme officially ended in 1941 but carried on covertly until the end of the war
A glass monument has been publicly opened in Berlin to 300,000 victims of the Nazis with mental and physical disabilities or chronic illnesses.
The 24m-long (80ft) blue, glass wall is in front of the Berlin Philharmonie building, where the office housing the Nazi "euthanasia" programme once stood.
It is the fourth monument in the German capital to victims of the Nazis.
In the past 10 years, memorials have been erected to Jewish, Roma (Gypsy) and gay victims.
Under Adolf Hitler's initial programme, the Nazis killed more than 200,000 people from early 1940 to August 1941, focusing on patients in mental health clinics and care homes.
It was known as T4, after the Tiergartenstrasse 4 office from which it was directed.
The T4 programme continued covertly for another four years, with gas chambers and killing centres used in Germany and Austria.
It was considered a precursor to the Holocaust in which six million Jews were murdered.
Image copyright AFP Image caption Patients from hospitals and nursing homes were among those systematically murderedThursday, 19 July 2018 [link to this day]
Alterbeast, Inferi, Reaping Asmodela, Condemn the Infected, and Emerge a Tyrant - Sidebar Tavern (Baltimore)
Buddy Guy and Quinn Sullivan - State Theatre
Chuck Prophet & the Mission Express - the Hamilton
the Faceless, Lorna Shore, Dyscarnate, Dead Eyes Always Dreaming, and Artifacts - Baltimore SoundStage
Gounod: Roméo et Juliette - Wolf Trap (the Barns)
the James Hunter Six - Pearl Street Warehouse [33 Pearl Street SW, Washington, DC 20024]
Japandroids - Rock & Roll Hotel - sold out
Kid Claws, Dentist, and Pagan Reagan - Black Cat (Backstage)
Mourn, Chastity, and Venn - DC9
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - Birchmere
Poncho Sanchez - Blues Alley (Two shows)
Sasquatch, Asthma Castle, Thought Eater, and Haze Mage - Ottobar (Baltimore)
Virginia Man and SondorBlue - Jammin' Java
Vocal Colors: Wolf Trap Opera at the Phillips Collection - the Phillips Collection, Music Room [1600 21st St NW]
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! - Wolf Trap (Filene Center)
When Part |
percent of the country's annual output, which analysts estimate at about 10 percent of world supply.
The risk of nickel supply disruption from the Philippines should boost global prices of the metal, analysts say, with the initial mine suspensions last year and the threat of more having fueled a rally.
"The Philippine disruption should have a bigger impact on the overall nickel market considering it is the biggest nickel ore producer in the world," said ANZ commodity strategist Daniel Hynes.
"If they are hard and fast orders, then the nickel price should be well supported."
NICKEL PRICE CLIMBS
Three-month nickel on the London Metal Exchange rose to a three-week high of $10,500 a tonne.
The decision comes after a months-long audit of the mining sector that began in July and a further review by the Mines and Geosciences Bureau in recent weeks.
"I visited the mines and I made my own judgment based on my own observations," said Lopez, adding that 15 of the mines ordered closed are located in watersheds.
Ronald Recidoro from the Chamber of Mines of the Philippines said companies named on the list would "definitely" take legal action, initially filing a motion for reconsideration with Lopez's agency.
"The audit process was clearly flawed," Recidoro told Reuters, noting the Chamber had opposed the inclusion of anti-mining groups in the audit teams.
Duterte has backed Lopez's mining audit, warning last year that the Philippines could survive without a mining industry. He supported Lopez's latest action on Thursday.
Mines ordered for closure include those run by Hinatuan Mining Corp, a unit of top Philippine nickel ore producer Nickel Asia Corp, and BenguetCorp Nickel Mines Inc.
Several companies, including Australia's Oceanagold, said they had not received any official orders.
"There is no legal basis for any proposed suspension," Oceanagold said in a statement.Vampires. Enigmatic blood sucking demons of the night that lurk in the shadows and the topic of today’s extra spooky Hidden Histories. From psychotic dwarf chieftains and red blood sucking femme fatales, the vampire has been dotted about Irish mythology for centuries. Turtle Bunbury brings us for his spooky account of Ireland’s Victorian Vampires…
Listen to the podcast here:
The girl tilted her head forward to kiss the young man. However, as he lent forward, she brushed her lips past his and brought her mouth down upon his throat, a flash of teeth, white as tusks. The old Count, seated nearby, exploded in fury. And Bram Stoker awoke from his dream, sweating. It was 8 March 1890 and the Dubliner had just experienced the nightmare upon which his epic vampire horror story ‘Dracula’ would be based.
Bram Stoker was by no means the first person to dream of vampires. But ‘Dracula’ remains the defining masterpiece of the entire Gothic genre. Furthermore, as an Irishman, he represents one of many extraordinary links between Ireland and the entire vampire cult.
This month, vampires are back in vogue like never before with the release of the record-munching Twilight. The film is based on the vampire novels by Stephenie Meyer, which follows the adventures of Bella Swan, a teenager who falls in love with a vampire named Edward Cullen. Teenage girls are all a flutter to sink their teeth into the dishy London actor Robert Pattinson who plays Edward. Not since the hey-day of Buffy the Vampire Slayer has there been such interest in vampiric activity.
The idea of blood-drinking humans is as old as humanity itself. Indeed, go back 3000 years and you will find that most cultures on this planet involved a generous dollop of human sacrifice. It was a religious thing. The Aztecs watched blood flow down the steps from the sacrificial altar, certain it made their Gods happy. Even Jesus Christ played the blood card when he beseeched his apostles to drink red wine in remembrance of him.
Hand-in-hand with the sacrificial traditions was a morbid fascination with death and blood. Both Roman and Egyptian legends recall persons possessed by evil spirits who turned them into bloodthirsty lunatics.
The vampire concept has been knocking about in Ireland for many millennia, a natural sidekick to the unsettled ghouls of Halloween. In Irish mythology, the aos sí (or sídhe) were a powerful, supernatural race who lived in a parallel universe in which they walked amongst the living. Certain aos sí were obliged to drink blood to continue their existence.
Another restless soul was Abhartach, a psychotic dwarf chieftain from Donegal who, despite being comprehensively slain and buried by Cathán, a neighbouring chieftain, kept remerging from his grave to terrorize his subjects. Cathán consulted a wise druid who advised him that Abhartach was simply a dearg-dililat, a drinker of human blood, and sustained his existence by drinking human blood. In order to restrain the vampire dwarf, Cathán needed to kill him with a sword made from yew wood. Abhartach must then be buried ‘with his head downwards’ and covered in thorns and ash. A heavy stone must be placed directly on top and never lifted, or the vampire would be free to walk the earth once more.
In the early 18th century, the vampire cult erupted in Southeast Europe. By and large these Balkan vampires were simply evil ghosts – largely suicide victims and wicked witches – but some were said to have become vampires when bitten by another vampire. They weren’t a photogenic bunch. Their faces were purple and bloated on account of their recent blood-guzzling. Congealed blood seeped from their mouths and crawled from their nostrils and eyes. They did not have fangs but their hair and nails tended to be extra long. Bulgarian vampires only had one nostril. The Bavarian one slept with its thumbs crossed and one eye open. Albanian vampires sported high-heels while Moravian ones would, rather alarmingly, only attack you when they were naked. However, it is the Transylvanian breed of vampire that we know best today - gaunt, pale, and with very long fingernails. Transylvania’s most famous vampire is, of course, the gracious Count Dracula.
In 1725, Serbian villagers dug up the body of a man believed to be a vampire responsible for ten local murders. What they subsequently did to his body is unprintable. Indeed, as the rumours evolved, so panic whistled across the Balkans. Many poor sods were dragged from their home and publicly executed in the belief that they were vampires. One imagines rabies had something to do with it all.
Curiously, the entire vampire phenomenon as we know it today began the same night Frankenstein was born. One rain-drenched, laudanum-fuelled summer’s day in 1816, a house party was in full swing at the Villa Diodati on the banks of Switzerland’s Lake Geneva. Lord Byron, the host, instructed his guests to write a ghost story before bedtime. By breakfast time, Mary Shelley had penned the first words of 'Frankenstein' while Lord Byron started a story called ‘The Vampyre’. Another guest, Dr John Polidori, took up from where Byron left off and, in 1819, ‘The Vampyre’ was published. The story about an aristocratic fiend who preys among high society was a monster hit and spawned several decades of lurid clones, most memorably the atmospheric Penny Dreadful series of Varney the Vampire, published between 1845 and 1847.
You can understand the allure. The blood that circulates through you and I today is the same blood that has cascaded down through umpteen thousand generations since the birth of time. Blood is red. Red is romance. So when you combine that with a rather tragic blood-sucking vampire, you create a dark and deeply mesmerising concept.
Between 1825 and 1827, the Cork-born antiquarian Thomas Crofton Croker published “Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland’. In these pages can be found the story of a lady vampire called Dearg-due, or Red Blood Sucker, who lies buried in a small churchyard ‘near Strongbow's Tree’ in Waterford City. She is said to have been ‘a female of indescribable beauty who died in mysterious circumstances’. In Croker's day, she still rose from her grave once a year to seduce men from the surrounding villages with her dancing and then, while they were stupified, to pounce upon them and feed on their blood. Although few have heard of Strongbow's Tree, it is presumed to have been sited near Reginald’s Tower. Apparently there is a grave in that Churchyard piled high with stones although this author has yet to investigate this any further.
During the late 19th century, the baton of vampirical literature was inherited in succession by two Protestants from Dublin. The first was Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, a respected journalist who became the greatest horror writer of his age. The second was a mild-mannered theatre manager with the suitably Gothic name of Bram Stoker.
Sheridan Le Fanu was born into a Huguenot family on Dublin’s Lower Dominic Street in 1814. His family had arrived in Ireland from Normandy three generations and, during the 18th century, intermarried with the Sheridans, one of Dublin’s most venerable theatrical families. Le Fanu’s great-uncle was the celebrated playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan while his grandmother Alicia also wrote plays. Le Fanu’s childhood was spent in the Phoenix Park where his austere Protestant father was chaplain to the Hibernian Military School. During the 1830s, he read law at Trinity College where he became Auditor of the Historical Society. However, when called to the bar in 1839, Le Fanu turned his back on the legal profession and began life as a journalist. He simultaneously began publishing ghost stories. One such tale was an anonymous novella ‘Spalatro’, published in the Dublin University Magazine in 1843, in which the eponymous hero develops a necrophilia-like passion for an undead blood-drinking beauty.
In 1844 Le Fanu married Susan Bennett, daughter of a leading Dublin barrister, and settled on Warrington Place, Dublin 4, overlooking the Grand Canal. He cemented his journalistic credentials by buying up newspapers such as the Dublin Evening Mail. In 1852, Le Fanu’s political ambitions took a dive when the Tory party ditched him for supporting a Young Ireland initiative to highlight the indifference of the Government to the Irish Famine. In 1856, Le Fanu, his wife and four children relocated to 80 Merrion Square (where the Irish Arts Council are based today). However, the marriage was rapidly falling apart. Le Fanu’s increasing atheism horrified the religious Susan who, devastated by the death of her father and other close relatives, had a nervous breakdown. In April 1858 she suffered a ‘hysterical attack’ and died the following day in circumstances described as ‘unclear’.
Le Fanu wrote no more fiction until 1861 when he became the editor and proprietor of the Dublin University Magazine. Always frugal, he was now doubling his income by writing one version of his ghost stories for serialization in the DUM and then revising each story for the English market. Over the next ten years, he published nearly 20 books, each one choc-o-block with chilling horror stories. None received greater attention than his controversial 1872 bestseller, ‘Carmilla’, an erotically charged short story about an eerily beautiful vampire lesbian who preys on a lonely young woman. The story, which predates Bram Stoker's Dracula by 25 years, both stunned and titillated Victorian society. Alas, Le Fanu did not live to witness the full reaction, passing away in Dublin in February 1873 aged 59. Many regard him as the best horror writer ever, equalled only by Edgar Allen Poe. A century later, actress Ingrid Pitt caused a sensation with her turn as Carmilla in an adaptation of Le Fanu’s book by the ‘Hammer Horror’ movie-team. The lesbian vampire concept again made its mark in Buffy when Willow's lesbianism was revealed.
Twenty years after Le Fanu’s death, the holy grail of vampire literature passed to a young man who once worked for him as an unpaid drama critic. Bram Stoker – or Abraham as he was christened – was the third of seven children born to a Protestant couple living in the seaside suburb of Clontarf. Born in the famine year of 1847, young Bram was a sickly child, effectively confined to bed for seven years. A recent scholar has suggested this isolation was linked to incest, a matter that will undoubtedly attract much attention in coming years. Stoker himself described how ‘the leisure of long illness’ provided him with an ‘opportunity for many thoughts which were fruitful according to their kind in later years’.
Some of his few childhood outings were to the Protestant church of St. John the Baptist on Seafield Road West. Like any boy, Stoker was mesmerised by the fate of St John whose head was brought on a platter to the wicked Salome. Indeed, the bible seemed to be pumping with stories of blood. His own namesake, Abraham, with the knife poised over his only son, preparing to sacrifice the boy as a sign of his devotion. Jesus Christ beseeching his apostles to drink wine and pretend it was his blood. Everywhere the boy looked, blood came to mind. Even the swampy marshlands of Clontarf were the setting for one of the bloodiest battles in Irish history.
Also of considerable influence on young Stoker were the memories of his Sligo-born mother, Charlotte Blake (1818-1901), a prominent feminist whose uncle was hanged for supporting the Franco-Irish rebels at Killala in 1798. This hugely ambitious woman was arguably the main driving force in Bram’s life. For the purposes of this tale, she also regaled him with her memories of the dreadful cholera epidemic that nearly wiped Sligo off the map in the 1830s. She told her son that some sufferers were buried alive lest their illness spread.
At the age of 7, Stoker made a complete recovery. A decade later he entered Trinity College Dublin where he read science and mathematics and excelled as an athlete and debater. Like Le Fanu before him, he became auditor of the College Historical Society and was president of the University Philosophical Society. The publication of his first paper on "Sensationalism in Fiction and Society" indicates that he clearly had his eye on the power of drama from an early age.
During his 20s, he began work as a civil servant in Dublin’s fines and penalties department. His father Abraham was one of the officials for the Chief Secretary in Dublin Castle and secured him the post. During this time he complied his first non-fiction book, The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland, published in 1879. He quenched his greater literary thirst by writing short stories such as ‘The Crystal Cup’, published by the London Society. He also submitted unpaid theatre reviews to the Dublin Evening Mail, lately owned by Sheridan Le Fanu. Indeed, it was one such review that changed his life.
In 1876, the great Shakespearean actor Sir Henry Irving brought his unconventional performance as Hamlet to Dublin. Stoker gave him the thumbs up. The grateful Sir Henry then invited Stoker to dinner at the Shelbourne Hotel, where he was staying. The two hit if off like ham and eggs and became intimate, life-long friends ever after.
In December 1878, Stoker was married in St Anne’s Church on Dublin’s Dawson Street to 20-year-old Florence Balcombe. This celebrated beauty had previously dated Oscar Wilde. The Stokers moved to London soon afterwards where their only son, Irving Noel Thornley Stoker, was born on 31 December 1879.[1]
The Stokers moved to London because Bram had just been appointed Sir Henry Irving’s confidential advisor and personal assistant. For 27 years, he was front-of-house master of ceremonies at the highly acclaimed Lyceum Theatre in London’s West End upon which Sir Henry was lessee. Under Stoker’s careful supervision, the Lyceum became the envy of theatres the world over, famed for its brilliant production of scenery, costume and props; the ‘mise-en-scène’ as thespians would call it. All the great actors of the age trod the Lyceum’s boards from Ellen Terry to Sarah Bernhardt. The position also enabled the flamboyant Stoker to rub shoulders with the high society players of Victorian London, including the artist James Whistler and the Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Moreover, Sir Henry himself provided Stoker with the perfect role model on which he could base Count Dracula, the subject of a book he began writing in the 1890s. His time spent watching the theatrical knight march about the Lyceum, combining gentlemanly mannerisms with sudden dramatic sweeps of his cloak, began to seep onto the pages of the novel he was writing. Indeed, it was his hope that Sir Henry would one day play Dracula in a stage adaptation of his novel. The play was later staged at the Lyceum but Sir Henry did not take the title role.
Dracula was published in 1897 and was apparently based on several years of research of European folklore and vampire stories. It is an epistolary novel, combining diary entries, telegrams and letters with fictional newspaper clippings. The Daily Mail review of June 1, 1897 proclaimed it a classic of Gothic horror, as ‘weird, powerful, and horrorful’ as anything yet published. Maurice Richardson described it as ‘a kind of incestuous, necrophilious, oral-anal-sadistic all-in wrestling match’.
Irving was hit by a stroke during a performance on stage in October 1905 and died shortly afterwards. Stoker fell ill the following year but survived his mentor by seven years, perishing from syphilis in 1912. He was cremated and his ashes placed in a display urn at Golders Green Crematorium. Florence Stoker's ashes were supposed to be added to the urn but were instead scattered at the Gardens of Rest. When their son Noel died in 1961, his ashes were added to the urn.
There are hints of vampirism in other works by Irish authors, such as ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ by Oscar Wilde (1891) and the play 'Cathleen ni Houlihan' by Lady Augusta Gregory and W.B. Yeats (1901). Irish film director Neil Jordan reignited interest in the genre when he filmed Anna Rice’s ‘Interview with the Vampire’ in 1994. But Bram Stoker’s Dracula remains the master-work of the Gothic vampire genre.
This post was written by Historian Turtle Bunbury
"Visit Turtle Bunbury's website for more information or check his Wistorical Facebook page for his daily histories of an extraordinary cast of heroes, villains and eccentrics. Turtle's latest book, Vanishing Ireland (Volume IV) will launch in October 2013.Credit: moriza/Flickr
The Congress has some decisions to make regarding changes to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986. Recently, a congressional panel sat down to discuss revisions to the act, one such proposal requiring carriers to record and store all of your text messages. This proposal was put forth by none other than law enforcement itself, so text messages can be easily accessed if someone ever comes under investigation.
Currently, carriers store text messages for a very limited time. For example, Verizon keeps text messages for three to five days, Sprint twelve days, US Cellular three to five days, and AT&T doesn’t store them at all.
Richard Littlehale from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation says “text messaging often plays a big role in investigations related to domestic violence, stalking, menacing, drug trafficking, and weapons trafficking.” He may be correct, but should text messages fall under the same rule which allows email older than 180 days to be obtained without a warrant? It’s a bit of a grey area and text messages aren’t the only communication mentioned.
The Justice Department is working to put forth new proposals that give law enforcement more power over email messages, Twitter direct messages, and Facebook messages. Tech giants such as Google, Apple, Twitter, and Facebook are also putting their foot in, since these proposals would impact them directly.
Whatever changes are made, this recent hearing with Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner at the helm is yet another fight in the battle of defending our personal freedoms.
What’s your take on this?Timur - whose bravery won praise from around the world - is becoming nervous when he is not alongside his big cat protector. Picture: Dmitry Mezentsev
The friendship between the two animals has surprised not only keepers in the Russian Far East but much of the world. The goat was intended as the tiger's lunch but instead they became best mates. While they live in adjoining cages, they spend their days together strolling in the grounds of the park.
Dmitry Mezentsev, director of Shkotovo safari-park, said: 'Sometimes during walks the tiger behaves as if he is hunting. Timur copies the behaviour of the predator, and imitates him. But he is not likely to start hunting.'
Timur - whose bravery won praise from around the world - is becoming nervous when he is not alongside his big cat protector.
'For two nights in a row Timur stays by the bars separating his cage from the tiger',' he said. 'He refuses to stay in his shelter and declines to eat his evening meal. He's more worried when the tiger is not around and when he is surrounded by people. He wants to be around the tiger to get rid off stress.'
'As friendly and happy as ever'. Pictures: Dmitry Mezentsev
Ten days into a relationship nature did not intend, the goat now considers humans as 'a threat, as predators'. The latest update is that Amur and Timur are 'as friendly and happy as ever'.
Despite this, a well-known Russian animal handler has demanded that the creatures should be permanently separated since the tiger can suddenly turn on the goat, despite his earlier refusal to eat him as a meal.
'If the tiger for some reason misses one or two feeds - naturally, there can be no mercy. The instinct to win,' said Edgar Zapashy.
He warned: 'The goat can to try to run away, and he will become a target by doing so. Instinct will work - and that's all. What's more, the goat is not the smartest animal. He could be so brazen that he will run and attack the tiger and get a real resistance.
'On the other hand perhaps they will live happily ever after, but it is better not to continue this experiment. I do not see any sense in this. They have created a funny precedent. Let's keep the good and kind fairy-tale ending.'
'On the other hand perhaps they will live happily ever after, but it is better not to continue this experiment.' Pictures: Dmitry Mezentsev, PrimaMedia
But Vladimir Krever, WWF-Russia bio-diversity coordinator, has predicted that this all-male relationship could become even more unexpected.
'One shouldn't apply terms of romantic novels to animals. But anything can happen in this unusual pair,' he told Moskovsky Komsomolets, predicting unexpected intimacy between them.
'As long as the predator is not hungry, the goat has a lot more chance to survive. However, there have been cases when even a hungry tiger didn't consider an animal he normally hunts on as food. Such examples of this paradoxical friendship can't be subject to predictions because it is related to particular intellectual features of this particular predator. There have been very limited studies of that.'This week, the U.S. Department of State’s Defense Trade Advisory Group (DTAG) met to decide whether to classify “cyber products” as munitions, placing them in the same export control regime as hand grenades and fighter planes. Thankfully, common sense won out and the DTAG recommended that “cyber products” not be added to the control list. EFF and Access Now filed a brief joint statement with the DTAG urging this outcome and we applaud the DTAG’s decision.
There were a number of problems with the proposal to place “cyber products” on the U.S. Munitions List, but most importantly, no one knows how “cyber products” would be defined. As we’ve long argued in other contexts, trying to draw definitions around “defensive” and “offensive” tools is essentially impossible and any vagueness would have significant chilling effects on the security community. In essence, we think that the threshold problem of defining which “cyber products” are subject to control is likely an insurmountable obstacle to effective regulation.
But beyond the definitional problem, we fundamentally disagree with the idea of classifying any computer security tools as weapons. Until the late 1990s, encryption itself was included on the U.S. Munitions List. Indeed, one of EFF’s flagship cases from that era was a constitutional challenge to that listing. We won, and cryptographic tools are no longer legally defined as “munitions” in the United States.
Export controls on software, as we told the DTAG, have in the past had serious unintended consequences. Previous export controls on software have resulted in widespread risk to all Internet users. For example, the inclusion of encryption technology on the Munitions List led to deployment of an “export grade” standard to avoid the export controls. As it turned out, that persistent “export grade” standard, even 20 years after encryption controls were lifted, left millions of users susceptible to the “FREAK” and “Logjam” attacks used to monitor and modify website browsing data.
We strongly oppose the use of surveillance and other technologies to facilitate human rights abuses. We think countries should be held accountable when they use malware to spy on political opponents, and have gone to court saying so. We also think that companies should similarly be held liable for knowingly facilitating violations of human rights. But export controls on “cyber products” aren’t the solution and we’re happy that the DTAG recommended against moving forward with regulating them.
In the export control wars, this is a rare victory for common sense.Police in Honolulu are asking for the public's help in finding the answers to a horrible mystery: How did the fingers of a child end up in a trash bin at a housing complex?
The fingers were found a month ago, according to a Honolulu Police Department news release.
"Laboratory testing has determined that the fingers are those of a child," police said in Monday's release.
The fingers are those of a girl, 2½ to 4 years old, CNN affiliate KHON-TV reported, citing police sources. Six fingers were recovered, according to the report.
Gina Rose Vendegna, who lives near the Kukui Gardens housing complex in Honolulu's Kalihi neighborhood, told KHON that she found the fingers in the trash bin while looking for material to recycle.
When she came across a zippered plastic bag with the fingers inside, she said, she mistook them for ginger root and took them home.
"I'm a gardener, and I recycle, and I thought I'd be able restore them. So I threw them in my purse," KHON quotes Vendegna as saying.
When she got home, she took a second look at her find.
"I knew for a fact those were fingers when I seen the fingernails. And people I tried showing them to tried telling me that it wasn't, that it might be monkey fingers. And I thought just by chance I'm going to call the Police Department, turn 'em in and let them decide," she told KHON.
Police said Vendegna was not a suspect.
Checks of missing person reports and local hospitals, as well as interviews of residents of the housing complex, have not turned up any leads, police told CNN affiliates.
"Twenty-five years in the department, I've not seen something like this where we've just found partial," police Sgt. Kim Buffett told affiliate Hawaii News Now.
Residents of the housing complex are scared.
"I have chicken skin," Noelani Dilyard told Hawaii News Now. "It's creepy. It really is."
Children who live in the complex and use a nearby playground said they were frightened, and adults said they'd be extra cautious with their kids.
"Maybe I never let them go out because, you know, scary," resident Monimer Serna said.Liberals continue to push the story that Donald Trump and his campaign colluded with the Russians during the 2016 election.
As evidence, they cite the Christopher Steele memo which alleged a conspiracy between Trump aides and Russian intelligence.
But there’s been a major break in the story and now everyone is questioning it.
Steele – an ex-British intelligence officer – prepared his memo as opposition research for Donald Trump’s political opponents.
It included unverified gossip about Trump, as well as sensational claims about secret meetings between Trump aides and shadowy Russians.
Buzzfeed published the document in full.
But that’s when the problems started.
Individuals – whose names were made public in the document – began to sue Steele over the false claims he made.
Steele’s memo alleged Aleksej Gubarev as a “rogue hacker.”
Gubarev sued Steele and his Orbis Business Intelligence firm for defamation of character.
Steele’s defense is that the claims in the memo were unverified and never meant to be made public.
The Washington Times reports:
“Christopher Steele, the former British spy who wrote the infamous anti-Donald Trump dossier, acknowledges that a sensational charge his sources made about a tech company CEO and Democratic Party hacking is unverified. In a court filing, Mr. Steele also says his accusations against the president and his aides about a supposed Russian hacking conspiracy were never supposed to be made public, much less posted in full on a website for the world to see on Jan. 10. He defends himself by saying he was betrayed by his client and that he followed proper internal channels by giving the dossier to Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, to alert the U.S. government… … Mr. Steele acknowledges that the part of the 35-page dossier that identified Mr. Gubarev as a rogue hacker came from “unsolicited intelligence” and “raw intelligence” that “needed to be analyzed and further investigated/verified.”
In his memo, Steele accused Gubarev of hacking the Democrat National Committee.
Steele’s defense is that the firm who hired him, Fusion GPS – which was backed by a Hillary Clinton supporter – made the information public and that Buzzfeed is at fault for publishing his memo.
The Washington Times also reports:
“In his final December dossier memo — his 16th — Mr. Steele accused Mr. Gubarev and his web-hosting companies of hacking the Democratic Party computer networks with pornography and bugging devices. Mr. Gubarev calls the charge fiction and filed a lawsuit in February. Mr. Steele’s court filing portrays him as a victim of Fusion GPS — the Washington firm that hired him with money from a Hillary Clinton backer. Fusion specializes in opposition research for Democrats and circulated the Steele dossier among reporters in an effort to injure the Trump candidacy and presidency. Mr. Steele said he never authorized Fusion to do that. “The defendants did not provide any of the pre-election memoranda to media organizations or journalists. Nor did they authorize anyone to do so,” Mr. Steele said through his attorney. “Nor did they provide the confidential December memorandum to media organizations or journalists. Nor did they authorize anyone to do so.” “At all material times Fusion was subject to an obligation not to disclose to third parties confidential intelligence material provided” by Mr. Steele and his firm Orbis, the court filing reads.”
When Buzzfeed published Steele’s memo – the media referred to it as a “dossier” to make it sound like an intelligence document as opposed to the political opposition research memo it really was – liberals’ hearts were set aflutter because they thought it was the smoking gun that would eventually take down Trump, proving he was in cahoots with the Russians.
But it turns out Steele’s memo was nothing more than what Donald Trump claimed it to be – fake news.As part of the Canadian Senate's 150th anniversary this year, senators were offered a dozen medals to give to leaders and volunteers in their communities — and a medal to keep for themselves.
But not all senators have taken the offer of a medal, or participated in handing out medals to deserving constituents.
P.E.I. Senator Percy Downe, for one, refused.
"Medals are normally awarded by government, and there's an approval process for it," Downe said. He believes the government made a mistake not offering medals for this occasion, but thinks the Senate shouldn't have forged ahead with its own.
"There's no question some of the people who received it are outstanding recipients, but setting that aside I wasn't convinced it was the role of the Senate to do that in isolation of the House of Commons and the government of Canada," Downe said.
$225K price tag 'excessive'
Another reason he voted against the program was the program's $225,000 price tag, which Downe said he considered excessive.
However, Downe and other dissenters were out-voted and the program went ahead.
Recipients were to be "residents of Canada who are deeply involved in their communities and who — through generosity, dedication, volunteerism and hard work — make their home town, community, region, province or territory a better place," according to the Senate's website.
P.E.I. Senator Diane Griffin decided to keep her medal, and along with Senator Mike Duffy handed out the medals at Government House recently, with P.E.I. Lt.-Gov. Antoinette Perry.
Many thanks to Lt.-Gov. Antoinette Perry for helping <a href="https://twitter.com/SenMikeDuffy?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SenMikeDuffy</a> and I award our Senate Canada 150 medals to some deserving Islanders today. Photo credits: Brian L. Simpson, Provincial Photographer <a href="https://twitter.com/InfoPEI?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@InfoPEI</a> <a href="https://t.co/UMePyQJ4Vv">pic.twitter.com/UMePyQJ4Vv</a> —@SenDianeGriffin
"I actually saw it as a positive thing," said Griffin. "The idea was this was to be a positive, well-intentioned thing to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Confederation."
'Educational purposes'
Griffin believes the anniversary is a significant milestone and worth the expense.
"This was relatively an inexpensive way to commemorate it as compared to some other projects that have been undertaken across the country," she said.
Griffin plans to place her medal on a wall in her office she calls her "Confederation wall."
"That all relates to the second purpose, of using it as a memorial and using it for education purposes," Griffin said, noting students often visit her office and she enjoys sharing the story of P.E.I.'s pivotal role in Confederation.
CBC received an e-mail from Mike Duffy's office explaining the medal process, but he did not want to do an interview about it.
Libbe Hubley, who retired from the senate this summer, also chose to receive a medal. CBC reached out to her, but has yet to get a response.The Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport (BER) had been scheduled to open in June this year, but just weeks before hand, everything was put on hold after problems over fire safety emerged. A new manager was appointed and a provisional new date of March 2013 was announced.
The corporation responsible for building the airport is due to meet on Friday, where an even later opening date is expected to be announced.
Brandenburg's state premier Matthias Platzeck confirmed on Tuesday that this new date would be late October 2013.
The scandal surrounding the project has dented the popularity of Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit, accused of incompetence and underestimating the problems linked to the construction.
The country's top two airlines, Lufthansa and Air Berlin, have also expressed outrage over the repeated delays to the project, on the site of the current Schönefeld Airport, in the south-east of the city.
Berlin's airports are not the country's busiest, with Schönefeld and Tegel combined welcoming around 24 million visitors a year - less than half the 56 million passengers serviced at Frankfurt airport in western Germany.
But the new airport, to be named after former chancellor Willy Brandt, was intended to accommodate the sharp rise in air traffic to the region seen in the two decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification.
It is due to service around 27 million passengers a year.
Berliners were already mourning the closure of Tegel, which is relatively close to the city centre and whose small, hexagonal main terminal is a 1960s relic that allows passengers to hop in or out of a taxi just outside their gate.
Now it would seem they will be able to use it for longer than they thought.
The Local/DAPD/AFP/shFahrenheit and Celsius temperatures are exactly the same only at -40 degrees. That is, -40°F and -40°C are the same temperature. To convert Fahrenheit to Celsius, take the Fahrenheit temperature, subtract 32, then divide that number by 9 and multiply the result by 5. So, (1) -40 - 32 = -72; (2) -72 / 9 = -8; and (3) -8 x 5 = -40.
More Temperature Facts:
The Fahrenheit temperature scale was suggested by a physicist named Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit in 1724, after whom the scale was named.
The Celsius temperature scale came along several years later in 1742 when a Swedish astronomer named Anders Celsius first came up with it. His version was the reverse of the scale as we know it today — 0 degrees Celsius was the boiling point and 100 degrees was the freezing point. In 1744, a Carolus Linnaeus, a botanist in Sweden, reversed it.
The Fahrenheit scale is now only used in the US, Belize and a few other English-speaking countries — all other countries have converted to Celsius. Even in the US, Celsius is the primary temperature scale used in scientific fields.
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More Info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature
Discuss this Article Post your comments Post Anonymously Please enter the code: Login username password forgot password? Register username password confirm emailIn recent years, Jehovah’s Witnesses have come to expect much from Watchtower’s annual meeting – an ostensibly corporate event that has been increasingly used to unveil new publications, or new “understandings of scripture.”
At the 2011 meeting, it was announced that the Governing Body had sort-of decided to move the organization’s headquarters to Warwick in upstate New York. In 2012, it was announced that the Governing Body (and NOT all heaven |
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